Depictions of the Vietnam War in the Book Things they Carried

In order to convey ideas or meanings to readers throughout their pieces of work, authors use different literary techniques. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien employs a multitude of different devices to immerse the reader in his experiences during the Vietnam War. To depict the brutality and barbarity of war, O’Brien evokes images and discloses themes not only through metaphors, repetition, and irony, but also through the use of juxtaposition. By comparing seemingly contradictory and opposite ideas or images, he is able to further communicate his main ideas to the reader.

Throughout the novel, O’Brien continuously contrasts the good with the bad, the beautiful with the ugly, and happiness with devastation to provide the reader with a comprehension of his underlying realities centered around the Vietnam War.

O’Brien seeks to convey to the reader the events and emotions that he and the other soldiers underwent during the war. One method he employs is told in the story titled “The Man I Killed”. O’Brien describes his first instance of killing a Vietnamese soldier. In his account, he intertwines the beauty and grace of nature with the gore and cruelty of killing. O’Brien writes, “…his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was a butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny…” (O’Brien 118), alternating references between beauty and gore. He also writes, “Along the trail, there were small blue flowers shaped like bells. The young man’s head was wrenched sideways, not quite facing the flowers. The left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips…” (O’Brien 123), recounting the unnaturalness of the man’s death amid the pristine nature. O’Brien’s use of juxtaposition within this retelling of the man’s death creates a contrast of images that provides insight into the tragedy of war deaths, expressing the difficulty soldiers experience when attempting to vocalize the traumatic nature of these experiences and war in general. Furthermore, the presence of the butterfly and the blue flowers near the deceased soldier indicates that life persists despite such tragedy, suggesting a second layer of juxtaposition in which the frailty of life is contrasted with the resilience of nature.

In “The Man I Killed,” O’Brien introduces another idea through juxtaposition. After killing the man, O’Brien just sits there staring at him while the other soldiers try talking to him. Azar, a fellow soldier, makes a joke about the dead soldier and compares him to cereal while congratulating O’Brien on his killing, saying phrases like, “Oh man, you fuckin’ trashed the fucker,” “You laid him out like Shredded Wheat,” and “On the dead test, this particular individual gets A-plus” (O’Brien 119-120). Kiowa, another fellow soldier, takes another approach, stating phrases such as, “What could you do?”, “Maybe you better lie down a minute,” and “You feel terrible, I know that” (O’Brien 120-121) to console O’Brien. In this setting, two differing points of view between soldiers are compared, symbolizing two completely opposite internal defense mechanisms. While Azar tries to distance himself from the situation, Kiowa tries to rationalize the situation.

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