
In the articles “War and Routine Violence in “The Things they Carried”, author Teresa Milbrot focus on two key themes throughout her work.  The First element how soldiers deal with death and second main point is how Tim O’Brien makes the reader numb to the thought of death through his writing ability. 

An analysis of how the characters in “The Things They Carried” deal with death and how they overcome death. Teresa explains how Tim O’Brien perfectly portrays the violence of the Vietnam War and how it affects the soldiers who are affected by death and destruction everyday. Tim O’Brien talks in very short sentences, which portrays how the soldiers talk to each other most like to keep within their thoughts. This is just an example of the attention to detail Tim O’Brien uses throughout his story. Teresa talks about how no person should go through the horrors that the soldiers of Vietnam went through. These soldiers that Tim O’Brien chooses to follow don’t try and linger on the thoughts of death and suffering. They try to keep the spirits light and joke around with their fellow comrades. Another brilliant writing tactic Tim O’Brien uses is he foreshadows Ted Lavenders death seven times before he is even killed to make the reader numb to the fact that he dies. This makes the reader realize how the soldiers think about death. Tim O’Brien was genius in doing this, it really made the reader sit back and think about what the soldiers were thinking and how desensitized they all were just like the reader. Once Ted Lavender dies Tim O’Brien really wants the reader to pay attention to how the soldiers act during this time. They all start smoking his dope in the hopes of calming their nerves. They also unknowingly start joking lightly with one another, Teresa believes this is because they just want to move on and not linger on the fact of Ted Lavenders death. Tim O’Brien’s narrator in “The Things They Carried” is very unsentimental towards the position the soldiers are in. He keeps the reader from over analyzing each different character during this tragedy so the narrator has prepared the readers for their lack of sentiment towards Ted Lavenders death. The narrator is very unnerving to the readers because it almost seems as if he has been through the death of a close friend. While he doesn’t give sympathy to the soldiers its seems as if he still knows what they’re going through according to Teresa Milbrot. The soldiers are in the majority of how they deal with the death of a friend and fellow comrade. Many of the soldiers coming out of the Vietnam War told their stories of death and how it affected them. Many soldiers had mental illnesses after the war due to all the carnage and violence they experienced during the Vietnam War. Many experienced posttraumatic stress disorder, better known as PTSD. The Vietnam War was so violent and full of death that it destroyed soldier’s lives even after the war. Some people could just not handle what they saw. Tim O’Brien explains that some men just couldn’t go through what the war required them to go through. Even though some soldiers could not handle death, Tim O’Brien writes that these soldiers kept on marching through and knew that they had to finish their job. This surprises the reader because the readers natural instinct is to mourn over the death of Ted but the soldiers know that the mission is more important and mourning does nothing in Vietnam. So the soldiers continue to march on.

Teresa Milbrots analysis of “The Things They Carried” is describing what Tim O’Brien was trying to get the reader to realize. Tim O’Brien was trying to make the reader numb to death just like the soldiers in the Vietnam War. He wanted the reader to look back and realize that they themselves are doing the same thing the soldiers are doing. The reader becomes desensitized through Tim O’Brien setting up the foreshadowing of Ted Lavenders death.  Teresa says that Tim mentions it seven times before it actually happens. The reader unknowingly is slowly getting used to the fact that Ted Lavender will die. When he actually does die the reader is surprised that his death finally happened but has no feeling of loss due to the fact that the reader already knew it would happen. Once the reader starts to realize the reactions of the soldiers are the same as their own reaction they begin to see how death is handled within the soldiers. Each one deals with it in their own way but none of them want to think about it for any longer than they have to. Like the narrator says, the soldiers joke about it without realizing it because their minds do not want to think about it. The reader begins to realize what Tim O’Brien did. He put the reader as close to the thought of death to the soldiers as possible. The analysis of “The Things They Carried” that Teresa Milbrot provides is a great example of how death and destruction is looked at in the Vietnam War. Each person deals with it differently but none of them want to think about it for long.
