“The Things They Carried” lists off the physical objects that soldiers “humped” through Vietnam. These physical things that they carry are certainly metaphors for the emotional things that they are forced to heave through this foreign land, and the theme is that the emotional sides of the items they carry are much heavier than the physical weight of the item. A perfect example of this is the character Henry Dobbins. Dobbins carries his girlfriend’s pantyhose, but with them he also carries the want for affection, compassion and comfort. This longing for love is much heavier than the twenty-three pound machine gun and the ten to fifteen pounds of ammunition that he carries. It is the same for every character in this story: Cross, who carries the maps and a compass, has to carry the responsibility of the lives of the rest of the soldiers in the Alpha Company. There is no burden heavier than this.
“The Man He Killed” makes similar claims, though does it in an entirely different way. Hardy supplies the reader with an unsettling monologue that gives a unique view into the mind of a soldier. This poem tackles the nature of war, and through that confrontation it opens up the mindset of a soldier and really shows how harsh the reality of war is on the psyche of a soldier. The dramatic pause in line 9, then the repetition of because is as if the speaker is trying to convince himself that he did nothing wrong. He goes on to say that of course the guy he shot was a foe, and the speaker expresses real doubt that this is the case by ending the stanza with the word “although” then going on to say that “well, he was only there because he was out of work, same as me” in more poetic words. This questioning of his actions, however long after-the-fact shows that the speaker may very well have deep psychological issues due to the emotional baggage of war.
Thomas Hardy and Tim O’Brien would definitely agree that the emotional cost on the soldiers is one of the most tragic parts of war. When O’Brien defines “hump” on page 1173 as “walk[ing] or march[ing], but [with] implied burdens far beyond the intransitive” he’s not just talking about the just physical weight, but also the emotional weight, that the items that the soldiers have to carry. Similarly the speaker in “The Man He Killed” expresses that war is “quaint and curious” and that if the speaker had met the man that he killed in a bar, he’d treat him to a drink, or at least help him to “half-a-crown.” This shooting of someone that he had nothing against seems to haunt the speaker, and one can only imagine how burdening that must be.
These eye opening tales use different styles to allow the reader to get the reader to understand just how destructive the overbearing emotions of war can be on the psyche of a soldier. Some of the literary elements used in “The Things They Carried” are metaphors, flashbacks, repetition and imagery. These elements used together are very effective, especially since the narrator is third-person omnipotent. “The Man He Killed” uses a bit of jargon, when the speaker says “but ranged as infantry” it doesn’t flow nearly as well as the rest of the poem, because they’re not really words that the speaker fully understands. It also uses an alternating rhyme scheme, to help the poem flow, and to make the pauses that much more dramatic.
“The Things They Carried” and “The Man He Killed” are two different works, by two different authors, but share a very similar view of war. Be it through the use of metaphors or dramatic pauses, these works allow readers to look into the minds of soldiers, and see how they’re emotionally affected by war, and the act of killing. These works share the theme: emotional baggage caused by war is overwhelming and forever damaging.
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