The Commencement for the Things They Carried

Clint Kadera

Mrs. Hurlburt

Junior Honors

November 1, 2010

The Commencement of The Things They Carried

Throughout Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” the author employs syntax on almost every page.  Few-word sentences are incredibly blunt and make a direct point, like page twenty-one’s “they made themselves laugh,” “they endured,” and page twenty-four’s “He loved her but he hated her,” each summarizing a dramatic time in the men’s lives.  However, with the longer sentences as seen constantly through chapter “Love,” not only is O’Brien able to keep each word’s importance, but also projects a certain story teller vibe, almost like a grandfather is reciting experiences to a grandchild first hand.  With such drawn out sentences, a person can’t pause while reading, like a period would do.  The word flow presents a continuous dialog. 

On page twenty-two, O’Brien uses a metaphor and imagery to portray the jumbo jets that carry injured away from Vietnam as being “a real bird, a big sleek silver bird with feathers and talons and high screeching.”  Flight is also a symbol for escape.  In most soldiers’ eyes, the only way to end the Vietnam War for themselves is to get shot, cut, or killed, with all three options leading to a flight on a plane.  Thoughts aren’t based on arriving back home but just escaping the war, no matter where their next destination leads.  The piece is an analogy of how far too many humans in typical life try to not have problems (war), instead of trying to reach happiness (home) itself directly; they play not to lose, instead of to win.

Later, on page twenty-three, symbolism is used once again through the weather.  There is a steady rain falling representing a cleansing and rebirth of Jimmy Cross as he burned Martha’s letters and photographs at the bottom of his foxhole,  O’Brien goes on to write that “[Jimmy Cross] hated her.  Love, too, but it was a hard, hating kind of love.”  Instead of taking joy in what he loved, the affection for Martha now appears to be a devilish sin for Cross.  Nevertheless, is it still love or just infatuation if one feels hateful about a previous passion?

On page twenty, through diction, author Tim O’Brien explains of a white elephant that the typical soldier must accustom himself to: using “…hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness” of death.  In a scripted play-like manor, men used words “offed, lit up, zapped while zipping” when speaking of dying “…to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself.” Soldiers also kicked corpses, cut off thumbs, and talked grunt lingo.  Not only in this passage does O’Brien enlighten the reader on the army’s habits, but he makes an analogy to life as well.  Many humans within regular life utilize slang words (and actions) in order to hide their fears and doubts.  A one-talent athlete speaks of a career ending injury as a bitch.  An un-excelling math student refers to a problem as being gay.  A dwindling-life drug user states a tremendously deadly substance as ecstasy.  Worries, given that everyone is a victim to them, are perhaps the main contributor to new or new meaning words; Creativity and simplicity are far-away followers.