Guilty of Death

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien tells a story about war, to be more specific it tells his experience in the Vietnam war, where he had to go by force and was met with the trauma and guilt that death brings. The group of soldiers O’Brien was in all had to face their own guilt in different, but similar, situations. They had to face it when one of their own died, when they killed someone, and the aftermath of the war. The penitence of the war soldiers will always stay with them, will always haunt them. They could not escape their past actions and some didn’t know how to deal with their feelings after the war. They couldn’t reintegrate society because now they’ve seen other parts of it, they’ve seen the massacre that humans are capable of. This, and more, is why guilt after death is a major theme in the novel; readers get to see what comes with this sentiment and how soldiers deal with it. 

The way O’Brien dealt with his guilt and trauma was by writing stories; he often talks about this in the book and how much of these stories aren’t real. But he also mentions how story-truth sometimes is more important than happening-truth, because it gives more sensibility to the story, because through his stories he could bring back his dead friends for a few minutes: “That’s what a story does. The bodies are animated. You make the dead talk. They sometimes say things like, ‘Roger that.’ Or they say, ‘Timmy, stop crying,’ which is what Linda said to me after she was dead” (O’Brien 219). The author tells his stories through metafiction. He talks about what it’s like to write stories and why they’re important. He talks about bringing the dead back to life through his stories, how he can picture all of his friends talking to him and living their lives. It’s the way he chose to use to be able to survive, writing is O’Brien’s coping mechanism and he also talks about how much it has helped him, how without his stories he would probably be dead, too. Because writing is a way for O’Brien to express himself, to alleviate all of his trauma and pain. It helps the brain process events, decreases depressive and anxiety symptoms, and perceives stress; all of these are ways that writing, probably, help O’Brien to survive.

Death has a big impact on the human brain and morale, it affects humans deeply and the soldiers in the novel are a great example of this. Whether they killed someone or witnessed a death, the soldiers would forever feel guilt. Loss and grief are feelings that come after witnessing a death, and it affects the brain in many ways; it causes changes: in memory, sleep, behavior, body function, and more. This shows in the characters of The Things They Carried. One of the times could be when Curt Lemon died and Rat Kiley was left alone with the guilt of playing with smoke grenades with his friend, “Rat took a careful aim and shot off an ear. He shot it in the hindquarters and in the flanks. It wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt… Curt Lemon was dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world” (O’Brien 75). The first response Rat had to the death of his best friend was to inflict his pain into something else, this being the baby buffalo he shot multiple times; he didn’t know what else to do, how else to react. The rest of the platoon just stands and watches him while he does this. After some time passes, Kiley ends up shooting himself in the foot because of his fear, he was scared of himself, he feared what he would do if he lost it. That’s how he dealt with the presence of death around him. Death brought guilt, fear and paranoia to this character. Kiley feels guilty and has a mental breakdown because of it. He was playing the game with Curt Lemon, he was, in his perspective, guilty of playing around on the battle field. His actions toward the baby buffalo express this along his pain. 

Another character that suffered because of the death of a loved one is Norman Bowker. After the war and Kiowa’s death he couldn’t readapt to society, he couldn’t shake the guilt of not saving his friend, he believes it was his fault even if there was nothing he could’ve done. He decides to put an end to his life and his pain, his last words readers get from him (chronologically) is the letter he sent O’Brien, in which he writes: “‘The things is’ he wrote, ‘there’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy town. In general. My life, I mean. It’s almost like I got killed over in Nam… Hard to describe. That night when Kiowa got wasted, I sort of sank down into the sewage with him’” (O’Brien, 150). The character of Norman Bowker often tried to hide his guilt and grief through not winning the medal for uncommon valor. It’s a way for him to lock up his actual feelings towards the war. What he tells himself is that he is ashamed of himself for not receiving the medal. The truth is he feels guilty for not saving his friend. Bowker connects it saying that he didn’t win the medal because he didn’t save Kiowa. In the end, nothing he did could save him of his guilt, of his own feelings toward his life and how things had turned out; so Norman Bowker hanged himself in the YMCA locker of his hometown. 

These three examples of guilt around death shows how each person has their own reaction to guilt and their own way to deal with it. This is why guilt is a major theme in the novel, it’s why it has a big impact on the characters and changes their lives. Nothing can go back to what it was once you see someone die, because you’re not the same, your brain’s not the same, it’s a process of change and grief that some can’t survive.