“The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, strives to offer insight into the standard life of a Vietnam foot soldier, through its emphasis on both the physical burdens that each soldier ‘carried’ as well as the emotional ones. The concept of each solider carrying heavy literal loads is one that is expected; however, the way in which O’Brien also highlights each soldier’s substantial figurative load befits to be the most notable. Each solider is fighting their own individual battles throughout the short story, and in many cases their behaviors and tendencies appear to stem from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. In recent years, the foundation of the awareness of PTSD has grown tremendously as questions continue to arise regarding the emotional effects of overly traumatic events. Because each of the soldiers in “The Things They Carried” routinely endured through traumatic events, understanding the reality of PTSD is outwardly critical to gaining a complete and comprehensive interpretation of the short story.  

In understanding PTSD in relation to “The Things They Carried,” the reader must first understand the story’s layout and acknowledge its themes. Thus in explanation, the story continuously reverts back to the central character, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, of whom struggles with his obsession with Martha, a lover of his from the past. This infatuation with Martha remains throughout the narrative and ultimately becomes a central piece to the foundation of one of the story’s main themes—PTSD. In continuation, the unnamed narrator introduces other members of Lieutenant Cross’ unit through descriptions of the distinct things that they each carried. Aside from the palpable objects that are universal to majority of the soldiers, each additional mentioned item provides insight to each of the character’s personalities. Furthermore, following the narrator’s remembrances of a seemingly endless list of physical objects, an emphasis is later placed on the immaterial burdens that the soldiers are also forced to carry. Every solider has their own story and thus, their own loads. Therefore, O’Brien is meticulous in including details regarding specific burdens of the soldiers such as grief, terror, and longing; all of which individually may be minimal in ‘weight’ but devastating collectively. This notion is thus outlined in O’Brien’s quote, “…the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories… and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down (O’Brien 338).” PTSD stems from concepts such as these, as the continued occurrence of various traumatic events of smaller degrees can accumulate and in turn generate a more substantial and impacting issue. The intangible burdens were seen as more substantial merely because they could not easily be put down. Consequently, when analyzing “The Things They Carried,” it could be noted that, in a similar fashion, the narrator continues to build on the list of each of the soldier’s burdens. This concept reflects the manner in which PTSD is known to be fashioned and therefore, provides reasoning as to why the continual listing of each of the soldier’s burdens is significant.

A firm grasp on the background of PTSD and its influences in the “The Things They Carried” is also essential to gaining a comprehensive interpretation of the story. Therefore, in the year 1980, the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was coined and acknowledged as a mental illness triggered by “…exposure to a traumatic event [in which] causes feelings of extreme fear, horror, or helplessness (Ozer & Weiss 169).” As the concept of ‘trauma’ is essential to understanding the basis of PTSD, a diagnosis of the disorder involves effects that of which are “cognitive, emotional, physiological, and behavioral (Ozer & Weiss 169),” in nature.

Furthermore, as “traumatic events are defined as experiences that involve death, serious injury, or threat of death (Ozer & Weiss 169),” it should be noted that all of the foot soldiers mentioned throughout the story recurrently suffered through disturbing occurrences such as these. This ideal is significant as it contributes to the foundational evidence that many of the story’s central characters suffered from PTSD. Generally, PTSD produces symptoms summarized to be, “…intrusive re-experiences of the trauma, autonomic hyperarousal, and emotional numbing (Kaiman 34).” 

Thus in relating this knowledge to “The Things That They Carried,” there are numerous instances that suggest the aforementioned indicators of PTSD within the characters. First off, when thinking about the death of Ted Lavender, O’Brien “…wished he could find some great sadness, or even anger, but the emotion wasn’t there and he couldn’t make it happen (O’Brien 337).” So overcome with terror and grief, they characters seemed to destroy the reality of death itself perhaps as a coping mechanism. The story also recurrently describes the men carrying out several ruthless acts such as kicking corpses and cutting off thumbs. The nonchalant and unsympathetic manner in which these pitiless actions are described provides additional evidence regarding the desensitization plaguing the soldiers. Norman Bowker, a solider that was generally seen as “very gentle person (O’Brien 334),” carried around the thumb of a teenage boy for good luck. In this insistence, even the characters that hold a certain softness about themselves also carry an eerie characteristic. Secondly, indicators of PTSD also include “being overwhelmed emotionally (Ozer & Weiss 169)…” And in later effects, PTSD is additionally identified to “...produce profound and enduring alterations in behavior, interpersonal relationships (Friedman & Xenakis 8)…” Both details in which point back to Lieutenant Cross’ obsession with Martha as he “…had difficulty keeping his attention on the war (O’Brien 332).” His overwhelming infatuation with Martha proved to be toxic as it eventually led to the death of one of his fellow comrades; and even after this instance he continued on with his preoccupations. Thirdly, the effects on the behavior of the soldiers are outlined as O’Brien states, “Now and then, however, there were times of panic, when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn’t, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads… and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop (O’Brien 337)…” Here, the soldiers are exhibiting moments of weakness and vulnerability as their burdens perhaps are becoming too much to bear. The perception of the soldiers “… [carrying] whatever seemed appropriate as a means of staying alive (O’Brien 331),” proves to be ironic as the burdens that they each carried in due course led to their collapse. The things that they carried merely provided them with an illusion of safety, masking the inevitable repercussions of their continued exposure to traumatizing events. 

Throughout the story, the central focus revolves around both the physical and intangible burdens that each solider carries; both of which contributed to the development of PTSD within the soldiers. As the severity of PTSD varies from person to person and throughout the story, O’Brien sensibly created a distinction between what each individual soldier carried and, in some cases, how they carried it. The physical weights of each tangible item were included and because of this the reader was enabled to gain a definitive insight regarding how heavy each soldier’s burden was from the exterior. Though, for the intangible burdens of each soldier, the reader was left to devise a measure of their own regarding how substantial each burden was in reality. As the soldiers did their best to, “…[carry] all they could bear, and then some (O’Brien 331),” it all ultimately seemed to lead to the development of PTSD in their feeble and vulnerable minds.
