Week 5, The Things They Carried

The final chapter, The Lives of the Dead, depicts how difficult it is for a person to go through war and witness multiple deaths. The affects that these events can have on a person’s life is difficult to understand, but this chapter lays the situation out clearly for the reader.

This chapter begins with the words “…stories can save us,” which explains the overall reason that O’Brien wrote this novel: to cope. O’Brien is coping with his emotional baggage by writing stories about the man he killed, people he witnessed get killed, and someone he loved that died, because these people changed his life, both for the better and for the worse. Even though all of the people he writes about are dead, in a story the dead can “smile” and even “return to the world” so O’Brien can remember these people how he wants too, not how they appeared to him when they were dead.

As mentioned before, O’Brien writes about many different deaths that he witnessed, not only in Vietnam, but also back at home. The story that stuck out most to me was about O’Brien and his childhood sweetheart, Linda. Linda and “Timmy” were in the fourth grade when he realized he loved her. Not just “infatuation” but real, “I wanted to melt into her bones” love. Linda had “dark brown eyes,” a “slender” frame, and a “quiet” personality. On the couples’ first date, with Tim’s parents’, Linda wore a “red cap” that was too long and went way down her back. The cap symbolizes the covering of not only the head, but also the covering up of a bigger issue, which the reader finds out later in the chapter.

After their date, Linda wore her red hat to school every day. Of course, like most kids, people at school are talking and making fun of her for wearing the hat. One day during a test, a kid walked by Linda and pulled off her hat. When the hat was removed, the entire class, including Tim, saw the unexpected: a mostly bald head covered with stitches and scars. The imagery O’Brien uses to describe Linda’s head helps the reader to understand that this young girl is sick. When her hat was pulled off, Linda simply sat still and didn’t say a word or make a sound. Soon after this incident, Linda was not able to overcome the impediment of a brain tumor, and died at the age of nine.

So, what was the significance of putting Linda into this chapter? I find that the story about Linda sets up how O’Brien would handle other deaths throughout his lifetime. Having a “girlfriend” die at such a young age can really shake someone up emotionally. The way O’Brien copes with losing someone he loved after the death of Linda is similar to the way he handles the effects of the war. After Linda dies, O’Brien goes home to be alone. He shelters himself from the outside world so he can simply dwell on what has happened. O’Brien seems to handle his life after the war the same way. He shelters himself from other people so he doesn’t have to speak of what he saw and experienced. The only way to free himself of his emotional baggage is to tell stories, so he writes.