In order to further my argument, I closely examine O’Brien’s text and analyze the most significant interactions between people and things. This disconnection leaves them obsessively longing for meaningful human interaction throughout the book. The soldiers’ fixation on things plays a key role in establishing their feelings of alienation and disconnection from other people and in creating a break from reality which the soldiers experience. In my paper, I argue that the soldier characters depend on things to help them survive the war (physically and mentally) and that this strong dependence on things ends up having a damaging effect on the men. While less conspicuous, O’Brien also provides a complex account of the role of things in relation to his characters throughout the collection of short stories. Most will remember Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam War narrative, The Things They Carried, for its exploration of the war experience of American soldiers and for its original style and form.
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