The Things They Carried - Book Report/Review Example

The narrative recounts most events and emotions with a plain tone and with no adornments or glorification of war. He describes the soldiers as automatons who no longer have volitions and will. They simply march along, carrying all the weight on their shoulders. Such a description vividly depicts how war dehumanizes those who are involved. Thus, O'Brien chooses to juxtapose the horror of war with the human side of the soldiers, such as the playful bickering among them, and their emotional attachment to certain objects.

This reminds the reader that soldiers are not made to be killing machines; in fact, they become killing machines because their human nature is destroyed by the violence and horror in which they actively participate. Another interesting aspect of "The Things They Carried" is the presence of femininity. Since the Vietnam War is fought only by male soldiers on both sides, there is a lack of female characters. In the title story, Martha is the only woman and she appears only in Cross's fantasy and imagination.

In addition, she is highly sexualized as Cross is almost obsessed with the question of whether she is a virgin or not. When he licks the pebble, the description of his movement is highly sensual, making the absent Martha literally a sexual object. Cross is constantly doubting about Martha's affection towards him and wonders whether Martha will be a loyal lover to him. Sometimes, it appears that Cross is unconfident in the nature of women in general. In this male-dominated story, the female character is not even given a voice.

The silenced female can only appear as a sexual object in the mind of a troubled soldier with no agency of her own. "The Things They Carried," unlike most war literature in the same genre, does not exaggerate the violence or courage of the soldiers. On the contrary, the emotional force of the story lies in the weaknesses and fear in the platoon. The juxtaposition of the personal and the political brings the historic event onto an individual level so that the soldiers exist not only as numbers in documents and records, but as actual human beings who have had very unique lives with various desires, fears, and qualities.