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Heaviness
In “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’Brien weaves together a wrenching story about the
Vietnam War and the toll taken on the lives of the American soldiers who had to fight it. The
shocking picture that emerges is teeming with throughlines of wartime monotony, trauma, and
death. O’Brien effectively communicates these themes by relying not only on the content of his
prose but also on its complementary style and arrangement. In this way, his writing impacts the
reader beyond simple comprehension by creating something that is personally felt and
experienced. Generous use of repetitive words, phrases, and sentences create an atmosphere
that is tedious, and the weight of the words, sentences, and paragraphs mimics the emotional
weight of death that permeates the story. More specifically, O’Brien uses repetition in his prose
to emulate the monotony and lasting trauma of war as well as a heaviness of structure and
description in order to emphasize the burden of the physical and emotional things the men
carry and the overwhelming weight of death that surrounds them.
Throughout the story, key words and phrases are repeated to infuse the writing with the
same monotony experienced by First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his men. Paragraphs abound
with references to the same people, places, and things in an incessant state of reiteration that
almost becomes ritualistic. This is a clear nod to the kind of routine Jimmy Cross finds himself
and his troops having to participate in to survive and make it through the day. It also juxtaposes
the romanticized concept of war, that is one of constant action and excitement, with the
mundane reality of navigating each day adhering to a strict schedule, all the while surrounded
by the real possibility of death. This is perhaps the most unnerving aspect of the theme’s
