Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” was first published as a short story in Esquire magazine in 1986; it would later become a chapter in his book of the same title. Although fictional, in the story O’Brien draws on his experience serving in the Vietnam War to tell the story of First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his men.
In an essay published in 1990 called “How to Tell a True war Story,” Tim O’Brien wrote, “A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things they have always done. If a war story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude [moral virtue; righteousness] has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.”
O’Brien also says this about war in his book called The Things They Carried: “War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.” These insights from the story’s author will frame our discussion questions this week.
What Biblical symbolism can you find in this story? What do these symbols help you to understand more clearly about the story?
In what ways does Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried” tell a “true” war story according to its author, a Vietnam veteran who has experienced actual war? To answer this question, please be sure to read the two quotes reproduced above, where O’Brien articulates some necessary features or characteristics of a “true” war story.
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