Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a collection of vignettes that evoke graphic images and describe multiple soldiers’ experience of the Vietnam War. It is known for its metafictive play on the blurred boundary between fact and fiction.
Characters / Physical things they carry (not NECESSITY) / Metaphorical things they carry / WHY?Dave Jensen - raul
Ted Lavender – rox - julio / Tranquilizers, dope / Fear of death,
Lee Strunk - mica
Rat Kiley - medic / Medical supplies, m&ms, comic books
Kiowa – Native American - juan / Illustrated new testament, hatchet / Grandmothers distrust of whiteman
Jimmy Cross / Letter, photos, and pebble from Martha / Guilt about Ted´s death, responsibility for his platoon´s life, fear of misleading his team, nostagia for martha and home / Love, wanting to return home, wanting to go home safe and live
Dobbins / M-60, ammunition, / Love for Martha / Love, wanting to return home, wanting to go home safe and live
Mitchell Sanders / condom
Norman Bowker / diary
Discussion Guide “The Things They Carried”
1. What is the meaning of the title of this FIRST story in the collection?
2. What is the first item listed as a carried thing? Why?
3. What kind of person is Martha? How does Jimmy imagine her? Note the brief allusions to other literature in the description of Martha (she’s an English major)— what’s the significance of these?
4. Think about metaphors of weight. What brings “lightness” to the soldiers? Why? Do emotions have weight? How so?
5. List at least 5 main characters. Include the literal and figurative things they carry and WHY they carry these things.
6. Explain the passage about death (19).
7. What are the energies in the tunnel episode passage? Try to trace and name all the feelings (11-13).
8. Why does Jimmy Cross burn Martha’s letters and photos? How does he change after he burns them? Is the change good?
9. What would you say the mood of this story is (try to pick a word or a few words) and why? DO NOT use words like “depressing” or “sad”—try to tie the emotional feeling to something more ingrained in the story’s action. Reread the beginning and the end of the story for some ideas.
Discussion Guide “Love”
1. What kind of person is Jimmy Cross? What kind of person is Martha?
2. What do you make of the Bonnie and Clyde allusion here? (It’s the movie they
saw on their date—if you don’t know the story, look it up)
3. What do you make of Jimmy Cross’s relationship with Martha? What does he
mean when he says, “It doesn’t matter…I love her” (p. 28)
4. What does the ending mean? (there are more than one right answer)
Discussion Guide “Spin”
1. What are some of the multiple meanings of the word “spin” as O’Brien uses it
and in other contexts?
2. Note the first-person aside by O’Brien on p. 31 (“I’m forty-three…”). What is
the significance of this paragraph? Note that this sentence or variations of it
appear later in the story (and throughout the book).
3. This story is really a series of fragments. Note things you don’t completely
understand. You may understand them after reading the rest of the book.
“Escape” and “On the Rainy River”
4. Compare the two stories, one fiction and one non-fiction, and make a list of
differences and similarities. Why might he have changed some things?
5. Define the struggle inside Tim O’Brien in “Rainy River.” What are some of the
emotions he feels. Use specific quotations.
6. What does he mean when he says, “It was a moral split” (42)? An older edition
of this story had this sentence as “It was a type of schizophrenia, a moral split.”
7. Interpret the last line of “Rainy River”: “I was a coward. I went to the war.”
How does the meaning of “coward” change here?
Discussion Guide “How to Tell a True War Story”
1. Write down elements of what O’Brien considers a “true” war story.
2. Curt Lemon’s death is described multiple times in this story. Note the
differences among the descriptions of his death in each instance.
3. What does O’Brien mean by “true”? What is the difference between literal
truth (what actually happened) and what he considers “truth”?
4. What do you make of the last section where O’Brien wants to call the old
woman a “cooze”?
5. Do you feel cheated at the end of this story when he implies that it’s all fiction?
Discussion Guide “The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong”
1. Make two lists: (1) stereotypical characteristics of a traditional man; (2)
stereotypical characteristics of a traditional woman.
2. How does Mary Anne slowly evolve from the beginning of the story to the end?
Pick three passages where you notice a distinct change in character.
3. How does Mark Fossie slowly evolve? Again, pick three passages.
4. Who are the Greenies? What do they represent?
5. How would you describe how Mary Anne turns out in the end of the story?
6. Why doesn’t Mitchell Sanders like the way this story is told? What is ironic
about his criticisms given Tim O’Brien’s methods of telling a story?
7. How is “Sweetheart” a “true war story” according to O’Brien?
“The Man I Killed” and “Ambush” and Hardy poem “The Man He Killed”
1. What is the ultimate sentiment of Hardy’s poem? Relate to the O’Brien stories.
2. In “The Man I Killed,” how does the narrator empathize with the dead VC
soldier? What kind of man does the narrator imagine the dead man was? Be
specific. Who does the dead man remind you of?
3. How is the story different in “Ambush”? Why do you think O’Brien retells the
story differently?
4. What is the significance of the last line of “Ambush”? What happens here?
“Speaking of Courage,” “Notes,” and “In the Field”
Look closely at the last section of “Notes” (153–54). What interpretations do
you make of the last sentences? How do your interpretations play out in “In the
Field”? Or, to approach the same question from another angle, why does Tim
O’Brien retell the story the way he does in “In the Field”?
“Style,” “Church,” “Field Trip” and “The Things They Didn’t Know”
(from Going After Cacciato)
1. The three stories show how the soldiers related to the Vietnamese people. What
do we see through the soldiers’ eyes? What do we not see? Are you left with
questions? What are they?
2. In “Field Trip,” how does Tim describe the field where Kiowa died on his
return to Vietnam? How does he come to peace with it?
3. After you finish “Field Trip” and answer question 2, take a step back from the
story and read the ending again. Why might the Vietnamese man be mad (as
Kathleen notices)? What is the field in actuality? If the man is actually mad,
how does this change the meaning of the story?
4. In the excerpt from Going After Cacciato, why do think there are so many
questions asked?
“The Lives of the Dead”
1. In the first few lines of the story and throughout the story, what phrases repeat
from earlier in the book?
2. What does O’Brien note about the nature of stories in the section on pp. 218-
219?
3. Why does he keep retelling the story of Linda to himself?
4. Why does Rat Kiley keep retelling the story of Curt Lemon on Halloween?
5. What does Linda say about herself not being dead? What does she compare
herself to?
6. Why does ice-skating work as an image in this story? Look closely and relate it
to other images in this book. What new meaning is given to this image?
SEE “READING CHECK” ACTIVITES - in the unit
Discussion Guide “Good Form”
1. List three possible meanings of or associations you have with the word “form.”
· ______
· ______
· ______
2. With this in mind, what might the chapter title, “Good Form” suggest?
______
Listen to the following chapter. Pay attention to his metafictive commentary regarding the nature of “story-truth” vs. “happening truth.”
“But listen. Even that story is made up. I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth” O’Brien
3. / “HAPPENING-TRUTH” / “STORY-TRUTH”Quotes from
“Good Form” / Here is the happening-truth. I was once a soldier. There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces, but I was young then and afraid to look. And now, twenty years later, I’m left with faceless responsibility and faceless grief. (O’Brien 180). / Here is the story-truth. He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay in the center of a red clay trail near the village of My Khe. His jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut, the other eye was a star-shaped hole. I killed him. (O’Brien 180).
Definitions
and
Synonyms / 3. / 4.
What stories can do, I guess, is make things present.
I can look at things I never looked at. I can attach faces to grief and love and pity and God. I can be brave. I can make myself feel again…
“‘Daddy, tell the truth,’ Kathleen can say, ‘did you ever kill anybody?’ And I can say, honestly, ‘Of course not.’ Or I can say, honestly, ‘Yes.’”
(O’Brien 180).
5. Is there a paradox inherent in the text? If so, what is the paradox? If not, why?
6. According to O’Brien, what is the purpose of storytelling?
7. What can you infer about “Good Form?”
(see TTTC unit)