The Things They Carried

My favorite thing about “The Things they Carried” is the extreme use of details. I love how in the description of the items that the soldiers carried, the items revealed character details and different personalities. As the author lists different items, he goes into stories. I also like the constant contrast between strong and weak. Lieutenant Cross, as a soldier, is supposed to be weak; yet, when he is weak, he and his team suffer- same for Ted Lavender. I loved how the soldiers didn’t just carry things, but also carried each other, as well as infections, lice, and ringworms. The author mentions how the soldiers carried the “burden of being alive,” which encompasses things- not just their items, but the difficulties and complexities of life. So in a sense, the items symbolize the obstacles human encounter. Yet at the end, when Cross burns the letters from Martha, we realize that the things don’t matter.