field trip summary the things they carried

The Things They Carried

By tim o'brien.

• The Things They Carried Summary

The Things They Carried is a collection of twenty-two stories, or chapters. All focus on the Alpha Company and the fate of its soldiers after they return home to America. A character named Tim O’Brien (same name as the author) narrates most of the stories.

In “The Things They Carried,” the Alpha Company is mobilized to fight in the Vietnam War. The soldiers carry goods necessary to their survival as well personal items. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries letters and photos from a female friend named Martha , and spends most of his time mooning over her. The first casualty for the company is Ted Lavender , shot dead while relieving himself. Cross blames himself for the death because he thinks he was too busy thinking about Martha to properly take care of his troops. He burns her letters and photographs and decides to be a better leader.

In “Love,” Jimmy goes to visit the narrator, Tim O’Brien, in his home in Massachusetts after the war. Cross relates that he bumped into Martha after she got home, and that he still loves her although she doesn’t love him back. He has never forgiven himself for Lavender’s death, but pleads with O’Brien to portray him as a great leader if the writer ever writes about their experiences.

“Spin” is made up of a collection of recollections of the ordinary things soldiers do when they are at war, such as playing chess games. O’Brien compares the war to a Ping-Pong ball, saying that one can spin it in many different directions. He is now a 43-year-old writer who only writes war stories. His daughter thinks he should find a happier topic, but O’Brien keeps replaying the gruesome war scenes over and over in his mind.

In “On The Rainy River,” O’Brien describes the decision of whether or not to go to war after receiving his draft card. He had just graduated college and planned to go to Harvard for graduate school. He was split between the instinct to run, and the instinct to do what everyone expected: go to war. He took the car up to the Canadian border, and a friendly hotel owner rowed him along a river right up to Canada. In the end he couldn’t bring himself to jump out of the boat. He cried in the boat, paid Elroy for the room, and drove home. It is a hard story for O’Brien to tell, he writes, because it shows that he was a coward and that he made the wrong choice.

In “Enemies,” two members of the company, Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen , get into a fistfight over a missing penknife. Jensen wins the fight and breaks Strunk’s nose. Jensen borrows a pistol and uses it to break his own nose. Then he asks Strunk if they are “square.” Strunk says yes and laughs at his new friend -- because he was the one who had stolen Jensen’s knife in the first place. In “Friends,” Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk make a pact that if either were seriously injured or crippled, the other would find a way to kill him. In October Lee Strunk steps on a mortar and loses his leg as a result of the accident. He is terrified, because he thinks Jensen will kill him. Later the men find out that Strunk has died, which seems to relieve Jensen of a big burden.

In “How to Tell a True War Story,” Curt Lemon steps on a mortar and is killed. O’Brien has to go up into a tree to pick out his remains, and one of the other men makes a bad pun on “lemon tree,” similar to many other morbid jokes the soldiers make throughout the book After Lemon's death, Rat Kiley writes his sister a long letter to which she never responds. Rat dismisses her as a “dumb cooze.” O’Brien says this is a true story because such stories are unsentimental, seem too crazy to believe, or else never end. Another “true” story O’Brien tells is about a water buffalo the company tortured after Lemon died. It seems incomprehensible, so it must be true, he writes.

After Curt Lemon was killed, and O’Brien describes having a hard time mourning him in “The Dentist.” Lemon was a macho guy, but one day a dentist came in on a helicopter to check up on the men’s teeth. Lemon was so afraid that when it was his turn he passed out in the dentist’s chair. Then he was so ashamed that he woke up the dentist in the middle of the night, insisted that he had a toothache, and made the dentist remove a perfectly good tooth.

O’Brien retells a story that he first heard from Rat Kiley in “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong.” Before joining up with Alpha, Kiley was stationed at a medical detachment near the village of Tra Bong along with a special force called the Green Berets. A young man named Mark Fossie imported in his American girlfriend. Fossie got upset when she didn't return to their quarters one night. It turns out she wasn’t cheating on him, but was on ambush duty with the Green Berets. Later, Fossie finds her in the Green Beret encampment wearing a necklace made of human tongues. In the end, she becomes a killer and disappears into the mountains by herself.

Henry Dobbins keeps his girlfriends’ stockings wrapped around his neck for good luck, and credits them with the fact that he never gets shot. Then, in “Stockings,” his girlfriend says she wants to break up. He continues to wear the stockings around his neck all the same. In “Church,” the company sets up camp at a pagoda where a few monks still remain. The monks especially like Henry Dobbins, who talks about possibly joining the order and gives the monks some chocolate and peaches as a parting gift.

In “The Man I Killed,” Tim O’Brien surveys the man he killed, repeating the same details over and over: He has thin, arched eyebrows, like a woman; he is thin, with a concave chest, like a scholar. O’Brien imagines that the man was always afraid to go to war, was possibly in love, was possibly a scholar. Kiowa tries to get O’Brien to stop staring at the corpse, with no success.

In “Ambush” O’Brien’s nine-year-old daughter, Kathleen , asks her father if he has ever killed anyone. Of course not, O’Brien tells her; he thinks when she is a grown-up she will understand better. In “Style,” his company enters a burnt-down compound full of dead bodies, and the only living person they find is a young girl, dancing. Azar thinks she is performing some strange rite. Dobbins thinks she is dancing because she likes to dance.

In “Speaking of Courage,” Norman Bowker returns to his hometown after the war is over. His best friend is dead and his ex-girlfriend has married someone else, so he has no one to talk to about why he failed to get a Silver Star medal for courage. He imagines a conversation with his father about the subject; the reason he didn’t get the medal was that he let his comrade Kiowa die in a shit field after Kiowa was shot. Bowker stops for a burger, drives around his hometown lake, and stops to admire the sunset. In 1975, writes O’Brien in “Notes,” he received a letter from Bowker telling the story that he retells in “Speaking of Courage.” O’Brien wants to emphasize that he made up the part about Bowker failing to save Kiowa and worrying about why he didn’t get the Silver Star. The letter shook O’Brien, who had congratulated himself on adjusting so well, transitioning straight from Vietnam to Harvard. In 1978, Bowker hanged himself.

All 18 soldiers in the company search for Kiowa’s body in the shit field in “In the Field.” Bowker eventually locates Kiowa’s body. Cross mentally rehearses different letters he might write to Kiowa’s father; perhaps he will take responsibility for the death, perhaps not. Instead of writing the letter to Kiowa’s father, he decides, he’ll play golf. In “Good Form,” O’Brien, the 43-year-old writer/narrator, says that “story truth”, i.e. what happens in the story, is more important than “happening truth,” i.e. what happened in reality. A few months after writing “In the Field,” O’Brien returns to Vietnam with his daughter, Kathleen, who is ten. In “Field Trip,” she doesn’t understand what the war was about, nor why her father insists on traveling to a funny-smelling place (the shit field). O’Brien buries a pair of Kiowa’s moccasins where his friend died, and tries to say goodbye.

O’Brien blames Bobby Jorgenson , a young medic who replaced Rat Kiley with the company, for almost letting him die of shock after getting shot. In “The Ghost Soldiers,” O’Brien enlists Azar’s help to get revenge on Jorgenson. They make noises outside Jorgenson’s encampment to make him think he is being attacked. Jorgenson is terrified, but then he figures out it's just O’Brien, and the two say they are “even.” “Night Life” is the account, culled secondhand from another soldier, of how Rat Kiley went beserk and had to leave the company. The strain of the war was too much for him and he shot himself in the foot to be discharged from the army.

In “The Lives of the Dead” O’Brien writes that the purpose of stories is to save lives. He had been in love with a nine-year-old, Linda , when he was also nine. They went on a date, and then she died of a brain tumor. Afterwards, he made dates with her in his dreams, and they went ice-skating together. The purpose of stories, writes O’Brien, is to make people like Linda or the soldiers killed in Vietnam live again.

The Things They Carried Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Things They Carried is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

is this a war story, per se? if so who is the main character, and why?

This particular story is more about sexual longing than war. Mark Fossie seems to be the main character who wants to import his girlfriend.

What is it that Jimmy cross carries with him? What do they represent?

Jimmy always carries letters from Martha. His identity and hopes for the future are part of those letters.

How does Tim kill his first enemy

I think with a grenade.

Study Guide for The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried study guide contains a biography of Tim O'Brien, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Things They Carried
• Character List

Essays for The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

• Rationalizing the Fear Within
• Physical and Psychological Burdens
• Role of Kathleen and Linda in The Things They Carried
• Let’s Communicate: It’s Not About War
• Turning Over a New Leaf: Facing the Pressures of Society

Lesson Plan for The Things They Carried

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Things They Carried
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Things They Carried Bibliography

• The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien

• Literature Notes
• Book Summary
• About The Things They Carried
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• On the Rainy River
• Enemies and Friends
• How to Tell a True War Story
• The Dentist
• Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong
• The Man I Killed and Ambush
• Speaking of Courage
• In the Field
• The Ghost Soldiers
• The Lives of the Dead
• Character Analysis
• Tim O'Brien
• Lt. Jimmy Cross
• Norman Bowker
• Mary Anne Bell
• Henry Dobbins
• Tim O'Brien Biography
• Critical Essays
• The Things They Carried in a Historical Context
• Narrative Structure in The Things They Carried
• Style and Storytelling in The Things They Carried
• The Things They Carried and Loss of Innocence
• The Things They Carried and Questions of Genre
• Full Glossary for The Things They Carried
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Summary and Analysis The Things They Carried

An unnamed narrator describes in third person the thoughts and actions of Jimmy Cross, the lieutenant of an Army unit on active combat duty in the Vietnam War. Lt. Cross is preoccupied by thoughts of Martha, a young woman he dated before he joined the Army. He thinks about letters she wrote him; he thinks about whether or not she is a virgin; he thinks about how much he loves her and wants her to love him. Her letters do not indicate that she feels the same way.

The narrator lists things that the soldiers carry with them, both tangible and intangible, such as Lt. Cross's picture of and feelings for Martha. Other members of the unit are introduced through descriptions of the things they carry, such as Henry Dobbins who carries extra food, Ted Lavender who carries tranquilizer pills, and Kiowa who carries a hunting hatchet. O'Brien introduces readers to the novel's primary characters by describing the articles that the soldiers carry. The level of detail O'Brien offers about the characters is expanded upon and illuminated in the chapters that follow, though O'Brien distills the essence of each characters' personality through the symbolic items each carries. Henry Dobbins carries a machine gun and his girlfriend's pantyhose. Dave Jensen carries soap, dental floss, foot powder, and vitamins. Mitchell Sanders carries condoms, brass knuckles, and the unit's radio. Norman Bowker carries a diary. Kiowa carries a volume of the New Testament and moccasins. Rat Kiley carries his medical kit, brandy, comic books, and M&M's candy. The narrator offers additional detail about selected items; for example, the poncho Ted Lavender carries will later be used by his fellow soldiers to carry his dead body.

This device is an example of the author and narrator embedding small details in the text that will be further explained later in the book. It is important to note, too, how the details are selective; they are recalled by a character, the unnamed narrator of the chapter. The details of what each man carries are funneled through the memory of this narrator.

O'Brien details at great length what all the men carry: standard gear, weapons, tear gas, explosives, ammunitions, entrenching tools, starlight scopes, grenades, flak jackets, boots, rations, and the Army newsletter. They also carry their grief, terror, love, and longing, with poise and dignity. O'Brien's extended catalog of items creates a picture in the reader's mind that grows incrementally. O'Brien's technique also allows each character to be introduced with a history and a unique place within the group of men.

Lt. Cross is singled out from the group, and O'Brien offers the most detail about his interior feelings and thoughts. Many of these soldiers "hump," or carry, photographs, and Lieutenant Cross has an action shot of Martha playing volleyball. He also carries memories of their date and regrets that he did not try to satisfy his desire to become intimate with her by tying her up and touching her knee. O'Brien stresses that Lt. Cross carries all these things, but in addition carries the lives of his men.

Even as O'Brien opens The Things They Carried, he sets forth the novel's primary themes of memory and imagination and the opportunity for mental escape that these powers offer. For example, as Lt. Cross moves through the rigorous daily motions of combat duty, his mind dwells on Martha. Importantly, as he thinks about Martha, he does not merely recall memories of her; instead he imagines what might be, such as "romantic camping trips" into the White Mountains in New Hampshire. O'Brien describes these longings of Lt. Cross as "pretending." Pretending is a form of storytelling, that is, telling stories to oneself. O'Brien underscores the importance of Lt. Cross's actions by emphasizing the artifacts — Martha's letters and photograph — and characterizes Lt. Cross as the carrier of these possessions as well as of his love for Martha.

O'Brien moves from employing the literary technique of describing the soldiers' physical artifacts to introducing the novel's primary characters. The minute details he provides about objects that individuals carry is telling, and particular attention should be paid to these details because they foreshadow the core narratives that comprise the novel. This technique of cataloging the things the soldiers carry also functions to create fuller composites of the characters, and by extension make the characters seem more real to readers.

This aesthetic of helping readers connect with his characters is O'Brien's primary objective in the novel, to make readers feel the story he presents as much as is physically and emotionally possible, as if it were real. Though the minutiae that O'Brien includes — for example the weight of a weapon, the weight of a radio, the weight of a grenade in ounces — seems superfluous, it is supposed to be accretive in his readers' imaginations so that they can begin to feel the physical weight of the burdens of war, as well as, eventually, the psychological and emotional burdens (so much as it is possible for a non-witness to war to perceive). O'Brien's attention to sensory detail also supports this primary objective of evoking a real response in the reader.

With Lavender's death, O'Brien creates a tension between the "actuality" of Lt. Cross's participation in battle and his interior, imagined fantasies that give him refuge. In burning Martha's letters and accepting blame for Lavender's death, Cross's conflicting trains of thought signal the reader to be cautious when deciding what is truth or fantasy and when assigning meaning to these stories. While he destroyed the physical accoutrements, the mementos of Martha, Lt. Cross continues to carry the memory of her with him. To that memory is also added the burden of grief and guilt. Despite this emotional burden, O'Brien, as he continues in the following chapter, begins to highlight the central question of the novel: Why people carry the things they do?

rucksack A kind of knapsack strapped over the shoulders.

foxhole A hole dug in the ground as a temporary protection for one or two soldiers against enemy gunfire or tanks.

perimeter A boundary strip where defenses are set up.

heat tabs Fuel pellets used for heating C rations.

C rations A canned ration used in the field in World War II.

R & R Rest and recuperation, leave.

Than Khe (also Khe Sahn) A major battle in the Tet Offensive, the siege lasted well over a month in the beginning of 1968. Khe Sahn was thought of as an important strategic location for both the Americans and the North Vietnamese. American forces were forced to withdraw from Khe Sahn.

SOP Abbreviation for standard operating procedure.

RTO Radio telephone operator who carried a lightweight infantry field radio.

grunt A U.S. infantryman.

hump To travel on foot, especially when carrying and transporting necessary supplies for field combat.

platoon A military unit composed of two or more squads or sections, normally under the command of a lieutenant: it is a subdivision of a company, troop, and so on.

medic A medical noncommissioned officer who gives first aid in combat; aidman; corpsman.

M-60 American-made machine gun.

PFC Abbreviation for Private First Class.

Spec 4 Specialist Rank, having no command function; soldier who carries out orders.

M-16 The standard American rifle used in Vietnam after 1966.

flak jacket A vestlike, bulletproof jacket worn by soldiers.

KIA Abbreviation for killed in action, to be killed in the line of duty.

chopper A helicopter.

dustoff Medical evacuation by helicopter.

Claymore antipersonnel mine An antipersonnel mine that scatters shrapnel in a particular, often fan-shaped, area when it explodes.

Starlight scope A night-vision telescope that enables a user to see in the dark.

tunnel complexes The use of tunnels by the Viet Cong as hiding places, caches for food and weapons, headquarter complexes and protection against air strikes and artillery fire was a characteristic of the Vietnam war.

The Stars and Stripes A newsletter-style publication produced for servicemen by the U.S. Army.

Bronze Star A U.S. military decoration awarded for heroic or meritorious achievement or service in combat not involving aerial flight.

Purple Heart A U.S. military decoration awarded to members of the armed forces wounded or killed in action by or against an enemy: established in 1782 and re-established in 1932.

entrenching tool A shovel-like tool, among its other uses, used to dig temporary fortifications such as foxholes.

zapped Killed.

freedom bird Any aircraft which returned servicemen to the U.S.

sin loi From Vietnamese, literally meaning excuse me, though servicemen came to understand the term as meaning too bad or tough luck.

Previous Character List

The Things They Carried Notes Summary

• Norman Bowker asks O'Brien to write "Speaking of Courage," and then hangs himself three years later.
• In 1975, Bowker writes O'Brien a seventeen-page letter where he explains how he can't seem to adjust back to life in America after the war.
• He tells O'Brien that he still feels like he's back in the field with Kiowa. He suggests that O'Brien should write a story about the field, and a guy who feels like he's still stuck there, even when he's driving around his hometown.
• When O'Brien gets the letter, he feels guilty about his own easy transition from war to peace. While he doesn't think of his storytelling as therapy, it has actually been a way of navigating his memories in a healthy way.
• O'Brien tries to write the story as part of his novel Going After Cacciato . He introduces the lake, changes the scenery, changes Bowker's name (as he'd requested). He has to take out the sewage field and Kiowa's death to fit in with the rest of the novel.
• Eventually, he publishes it as a separate short story, and sends it to Norman Bowker. Norman Bowker says it's fine, but he left out Vietnam, Kiowa, and the sewage in the field.
• He hangs himself eight months later.
• Ten years later, O'Brien rewrites the story. He puts Bowker back in it, and the night in the sewage field, and the death of Kiowa. But he wants to make it very clear that in real life, it wasn't Bowker who let Kiowa go. It was O'Brien.

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The Things They Carried

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