Literary Analysis of the Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

The Things They Carried explores the experiences and emotional rollercoaster faced by war soldiers, during the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien explores these emotional experiences from his perspective, but he also gives an insight into his fellow soldiers’ thoughts during warfare. Tim O’Brien is primarily faced with the death of his close friends and fellow soldiers, during warfare. Death is final and inescapable and it is also sudden and leaves those who remain incapable of moving on. Tim O’Brien utilizes vulgar imagery and impactful figurative language, to demonstrate this.

Death is often shown through vulgar and painful imagery. In the following quote, O’Brien describes the appearance of his close friend that had been killed, “Kiowa came sliding up to the surface…A piece of his shoulder was missing; the arms and chest and face were cut up…”.

O’Brien utilizes imagery by thoroughly describing Kiowa’s missing limbs and wounds, to visualize how unsettling the death of Kiowa was during the Vietnam War. In this following quote, O’ Brien meticulously observes the appearance of a man killed during the war, “His neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny”. O’Brien utilized imagery in this quote, by going in-depth and describing the wounded body and the many injuries faced by a man he had shot.

O’Brien carefully displayed this effective imagery to alert the readers that war comes with many risks, that may result in life-threatening and deadly outcomes. Death can be conveyed through impactful figurative language. In this following quote, Tim O’Brien visits a field he was in during the war, “This little field I though, had swallowed so much…My best friend…My pride”. The perspective of the field swallowing the pride of O’Brien and his best friend uses a form of personification, to acknowledge the impact this field had on O’Brien’s life in warfare.

The impact of this field can be concluded as being severe and life-changing from this quote because O’Brien’s best friend Kiowa had been killed as a result of being trapped inside the field for multiple days. The little field in Vietnam that is being described by O’Brien can also be viewed as being demoralizing, after it caused Tim O’Brien to lose his confidence and dignity, during the Vietnam War. O’Brien also observes the feeling of death through Linda’s perspective with the quote, “I’m not dead… But when I am it is like… being inside a book… an old one… upon a library shelf”.

The comparison made by Linda of death feels like an old book on a library shelf uses a simile, to show the effect death may have on a person’s morale. Death may be viewed as being melancholy and full of sadness, as a result of Linda comparing it to an old and outdated book, with no use other than sitting on a shelf. Overall this simile used by Linda comparing death to an old book sitting on a shelf contributes to the statement, death can be shown through effective forms of figurative language.

Death is a common and established theme in Tim O’ Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried. The in-depth description of Kiowa’s body and the man that O’Brien killed, uses vulgar imagery to convey the many life-threatening and deadly outcomes of the war. O’Brien’s significant use of figurative language contributes to the conclusion: death is melancholy, demoralizing and filled with sadness. Overall O’Brien’s significant use of figurative language and in-depth description of the death of two individuals leads back to the message, death is final and inescapable and leaves those who remain incapable of moving on.