The Things They Carried

Published in 1990, The Things They Carried is a collection of interrelated short stories about the Vietnam War written by American author Tim O’Brien. The historical fiction collection is considered essential literature about the Vietnam War and is often used to teach fiction writing techniques. An authorial persona, Tim O’Brien, narrates the stories in the first-person about his experiences during the war. The collection explores themes of Survivor’s Guilt, Talking as a Way of Processing Trauma, and Factual and Emotional Truth.

The collection was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a New York Times Book of the Century. It was later featured in a PBS series about the Vietnam War narrated by Ken Burns. O’Brien won the National Book Award in 1979 for his novel Going After Cacciato.

Content Warning: This guide contains discussions of war, graphic violence, death by suicide, cruelty to animals, drug use, and racism, which appear in the source text.

Plot Summary

The Things They Carried comprises 22 short stories that range in length from just a few paragraphs to fully fleshed-out narratives of 20 pages or more. These stories blend fiction and semi-autobiographical narrative as they highlight the experiences of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. The stories are largely written in first-person point of view of a single narrator, Tim O’Brien. While there are 22 separate stories, the book centers on a few central dramatic events that are repeatedly featured. Throughout the collection, O’Brien portrays the psychological effects of war through vivid storytelling and introspective reflections.

In “The Things They Carried,” a soldier named Ted Lavender takes a shot to the head while First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross daydreams about his love Martha. This story sets the tone for the collection by detailing the personal items each soldier carries—both tangible and intangible—which symbolize their memories, fears, and hopes. “Love” explores the relationship between Jimmy and Martha in more detail and shows Cross’s struggle to navigate his duties and personal desires.

In “How to Tell a True War Story,” Curt Lemon dies from a grenade explosion, and his friend Rat Kiley takes his rage out on a baby water buffalo, which he tortures by shooting it in various parts of its body until it is barely alive. In “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” a soldier’s young girlfriend flies from Cleveland to Vietnam and becomes deeply involved in the action. In “The Man I Killed,” the protagonist struggles with his guilt after killing a young Vietnamese soldier. Like many others, the story reflects the dehumanizing effects of war and the psychological damage soldiers endure.

In “Ambush,” the narrator describes the time that he killed a man. In “Speaking of Courage,” Norman Bowker reflects on his experiences in Vietnam and his struggles to reintegrate into civilian life. Stories 15 and 17 describe the death of a soldier named Kiowa, who drowned in a mud field during an attack. In “The Ghost Soldiers,” the narrator seeks revenge on a field medic for his mistreatment of a wound the narrator suffers during battle. In the final story, “The Lives of the Dead,” the narrator remembers a childhood friend of his who passed away at the age of nine and reflects on the nature of memory, death, and storytelling.

Throughout all these stories, the narrator frequently reflects on both the craft of writing and the nature of truth. These reflections become intertwined with the stories in complicated ways that fragment the reader’s sense of what is “true” and what is merely fiction.