Cultural Analysis of The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
             As a soldier, the equipment you carry into any conflict has two purposes. One purpose is to kill the enemy, the other purpose is to save your life. Any extra items, such as personal items or memories, are taken along or left behind to save your sanity.
             I have no doubt that was the focal point of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. The story switches back and forth between the descriptions of the physical and mental equipment that the average American foot soldier carried into battle. The list becomes longer and in the end incorporates the hopes, dreams, and fears that each soldier carried. All these items are necessities to the soldiers; items that they can not live without. Like the cumbersome equipment the soldiers carried into battle, their hopes, dreams, and fears were just as heavy and weighed them down just as their equipment did.
             In The Things They Carried, Mr. O'Brien describes the lethal necessities that soldiers carry into battle, such as; M-16 assault rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, flack jackets, ammunition, and steel helmets. Letters, comic books, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, hotel size bars of soap, packets of Kool-Aid, and tranquilizers were also other everyday necessities brought along by the soldiers. "... they carried whatever presented itself, or whatever seemed appropriate as a means of staying alive." (Charters and Charters 521)
             The story is really about the other things the soldiers carried; "grief, terror, love, longing . . . shameful memories" and, ''the common secret of cowardice.'' (528) These young men, Mr. O'Brien tells us, ''carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.'' (529)
             The idea of weight plays an enormous role in this narrative. By continuously listing all the equipment by their size and weight, I ...