The Things They Carried

"The Things They Carried"

Pages 67- 136

Tim O'Brien writes about these stories that happened while he was in Vietnam, he must have been writing these stories down for years then one day put them all together and related the characters and linked the stories and made a book out of it. There is no real direction in this story, it's not like they are a platoon going to a certain mission and these are some funny stories that happened along the way. This book is about many different stories that happened over a long period of time in a platoon that was just on patrol for the most par.

O'Brien communicates how he was feeling during the way by the way that he tells these stories. I think now O'Brien sees his friend Kiowa as more of a leader than he did back then. Kiowa is a guy that is there for everybody, he is a Christian Indian, fighting in a war that he has no business in either. After the chapter "The Man I Killed" Tim O'Brien is sitting there staring at the body of the man he just killed. He keeps describing what it looks like so vividly and he is drowning out everything else that is going on. Kiowa come up to him a number of times and tries to sympathize with his feelings and he tries to help him get through killing a man but he just ignores him. When O'Brien keeps repeating what the dead man looks like I think it is good use of repetition to make a experience stick out to a reader. This is something major that happened in his life and it obviously made a impact on the way he is. He doesn't even want to tell his granddaughter about the man that he killed. She asks about it one time and he feels really bad but doesn't tell her.