The Things They Carried

O'Brien says 'I was a coward. I went to the war.' What does he mean? How does he redefine courage and cowardice, and do you find his redefinition convincing?

What is the difference between 'story-truth' and 'happening-truth'? Find a moment in the book where O'Brien demonstrates story-truth being truer than happening-truth.

The title story catalogues everything Alpha Company carries — in ounces and pounds. Why is the physical weight listed so precisely? What does measurement do to an elegy?

O'Brien explicitly tells us the character 'Tim O'Brien' in the book is not him. Then he behaves as if they're the same person. Is this dishonest — or is it the most honest thing in the book?

'How to Tell a True War Story' says true war stories have no moral. Does 'The Things They Carried' itself have a moral? If so, has O'Brien broken his own rule?

Why does Norman Bowker drive in circles for the entire story? What is the relationship between his circular driving and his inability to tell his story?

O'Brien invented a biography for the young Vietnamese soldier he killed. Is this act of imagination an act of respect, an act of guilt, or something else?

Mary Anne Bell arrives in a pink sweater and ends up wearing a necklace of human tongues. What does her transformation say about Vietnam, about women in war stories, or about the nature of the war itself?

The book is dedicated 'To the men of Alpha Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa' — who are fictional characters. What does this dedication do?

How does the physical catalogue of what soldiers carry in the first story compare to what you carry in your daily life? What does the weight of the objects you carry say about who you are?

O'Brien shoots a Vietnamese soldier and then spends the rest of the story staring at the body and inventing a life for him. Azar says things to make O'Brien laugh. Who is responding to the death more honestly?

Kiowa is the book's moral center — its gentlest, most decent figure — and he dies in a sewage field. What is O'Brien saying about the relationship between goodness and survival in war?

Henry Dobbins's pantyhose keep working as a talisman even after his girlfriend breaks up with him. What theory of meaning does this imply — about objects, about love, about stories?

Norman Bowker hanged himself three years after O'Brien wrote a story for him. O'Brien says the story wasn't good enough — he hadn't yet found the right form for Bowker's grief. Can literature fail someone? Did it fail Bowker?

O'Brien tells his daughter the book is 'just a story' about guys who went to war. Then he says: the bad stuff he can't tell her. Then he says: even that is made up. What is he actually doing in that exchange?

The book begins with a catalogue of weights. It ends with O'Brien dreaming the dead alive through storytelling. Is that a journey from the physical to the spiritual — or is it a circle back to the same question?

Rat Kiley shoots himself in the foot to escape the war. Is this cowardice? Apply O'Brien's redefined definition of cowardice to Rat's choice.

The Vietnamese girl who dances in her ruined village is never explained. Why does O'Brien include a story with no interpretation, no resolution, no moral?

'The Things They Carried' is about the Vietnam War. Is it also about every war? What would have to change in the book if it were set in Iraq in 2005 or Afghanistan in 2010?

The book's most famous line is arguably 'In a true war story, nothing is ever absolutely true.' What would journalism — which requires factual accuracy — make of this claim? Is O'Brien's philosophy dangerous?

Compare 'The Things They Carried' to Hemingway's 'A Farewell to Arms.' Both are about men at war with women they love back home. How do the two books define what war does to love differently?

O'Brien says he 'made up' the story of Linda to save himself — that the nine-year-old Tim needs the forty-three-year-old Tim to keep telling stories. What does this say about the relationship between childhood and adult grief?

The soldiers make jokes about corpses — including joking with the dead Vietnamese man at the cookout. Is this disrespectful, or is it how people survive unbearable things?

The book was published in 1990, fifteen years after the fall of Saigon. How does the gap between event and publication shape what kind of truth the book can tell?

Mitchell Sanders says 'Sooner or later the bad stuff gets you.' How does the book demonstrate this across multiple characters? Who does it get, how, and when?

The book is dedicated to fictional characters. It blurs autobiography and invention. Tim O'Brien the author has said some of its events are made up. Does knowing this change how you read it? Should it?

Linda dies of a brain tumor at nine. Kiowa dies in a sewage field at twenty-two. Ted Lavender is shot in the head before the mission even starts. What pattern do these deaths share — and what does O'Brien think stories can do about them?

O'Brien went to Vietnam because he was 'embarrassed not to.' Is that a uniquely American failure of courage, or is it universal? Can you think of a modern equivalent?

Read the opening inventory aloud, from 'The things they carried were largely determined by necessity' to the first mention of Ted Lavender's death. How does the rhythm of the list work emotionally? What happens when the list is interrupted?

At the end of the book, O'Brien writes that by telling Linda's story, he has kept her alive: 'She was not dead. She was alive.' Is this a comforting idea or a terrifying one?