Tim O'Brien Themes

In the stories of The Things They Carried, O'Brien repeatedly visits some key themes. One of the most prevalent themes is the mental and physical duress that soldiers went through in Vietnam. In the short story "The Things They Carried" O'Brien starts by describing the physical burdens of gear and manual labor that the soldiers had to deal with on a daily basis, but he interjects stories which represent the emotional burdens the soldiers had to carry as well. One of these stories is when Lieutenant Cross is talks about how he feels responsible for Ted Lavender's death.

"He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this is something he would have to carry like a stone for the rest of the war." (The Things They Carried)

Cross would be lucky to only carry that emotional emotional weight for the duration of the war. O'Brien paints a clear, and quite depressing picture of how difficult it can be for soldiers to deal with what they've faced, not just during the war, but for the rest of their lives.

Another recurring theme is that war blurs the lines of morality. In several stories, soldiers that are painted in a positive light do monstrous things. For example, in Spin, Azar blew up Ted Lavender's puppy with a mine, to which he said

""What's everybody so upset about?" "I mean, Christ, I'm just a boy."" (Spin)

And in a way he's right to be acting confused. He's not even a man yet and he's been shipped across the globe to fight a war that is questionable to say the least. Morality doesn't seem to have much to do with the Vietnam war. Another example is when Sanders keeps the thumb of a dead Vietnamese teen as a keepsake. He even jokes with Dobbins about what the "Moral" of the kid dying is. O'Brien does a good job of showing how morality becomes much less black and white when you're fighting a war.