Mukherjee 1

Akash Mukherjee
Ms. Komperda
English 319
12 March 2016
The Things We Carry for OBrien and Hemingway
The harrowing experience of war is something all too familiar these days. With new
improvements in science leading to better understanding of the minds of soldiers, the common
citizens who never have suffered the pains of war themselves now know more than ever the
agony that soldiers suffer as a result of war. Yet the knowledge of the existence of this pain does
not equate an understanding of it, and OBrien and Hemingway both realize this fact. There is an
undeniable gap between the soldiers and the common citizens, so OBrien and Hemingway
create a path for these common citizens to understand this emotional burden that soldiers face. In
the story A Soldiers Home and in the book The Things They Carried, both Hemingway and
OBrien use the motif of loneliness to develop the theme of alienation from society as a result of
lies. By sharing this truth with the society that creates this distance, both authors are able to
relieve themselves of this societal pressure and break free from the alienation.
OBrien and Hemingway repeatedly use lies within the stories of their characters to
highlight the distance between soldiers and society, but in their own ways. Hemingway
condemns the lies soldiers must say to tell their war stories in Soldiers Home through Krebs.
Krebs becomes unable to tell his war stories, unlike the character OBrien, as he realizes that
[h]is town had heard too many atrocity stories to be thrilled by actualities. Krebs found that to
be listened to at all he had to lie (Hemingway). Krebs sees the fact that the civilians are
desensitized to the realities of the war as they have heard too many atrocity stories so the only

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way to get their attentions is lying. Krebs desperately wants to share his story with those around
him, especially with his family, yet Krebs desires integrity and thus has to live in silence alone.
The veteran's disconnection from the society of civilians is exacerbated by the fact that, when
Krebs is finally ready to share his experiences, he discovers that [he must lie]. The former soldier
is left nauseated by such a prospect (Ciocia). Krebs is therefore alienated from the world around
him and Hemingway is able to show the power of lies as a means for creating isolation. OBrien
makes this same point using lies to create distance between his audience and himself factually,
but keeps a connection by making the story true emotionally. OBriens writing frequently makes
the facts about what actually happened... not important. They cannot be important because they
themselves are too uncertain (Kaplan 79). Using his lies, he is able to create a distance between
his audience and himself by denying them the truth as he states how he is forty-three years old,
true, and I'm a writer now, and a long time ago I walked through Quang Ngai Province as a foot
soldier. Almost everything else is invented (OBrien 120). In this statement, he leaves no hope
for the readers that he is sharing any part of the truth and that the premise of the whole book
itself is invented. He thus factually distances the readers in the same way he himself feels
distances from society and demonstrates the power of lies as a means of alienation.
Once both authors establish alienation as a result of lies, they demonstrate the powerful
and damaging effects of isolation. Krebss reluctance to lie causes him to accept his isolation and
separate himself from the world around him. This distance is best shown when Krebss mother
asks the simple question Don't you love your mother, dear boy? (Hemingway). Krebss concise
and honest denial leads his mother to be hurt, and Krebs has to again lie to his mother to console
her. The problem becomes simply that his mother doesnt understand, and Krebs couldn't tell
her, he couldn't make her see it. It was silly to have said it. He had only hurt her (Hemingway).

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Again, this statement demonstrates the pain Krebs feels as a result of his loneliness. He desires to
reveal the pain he feels to his mother but he is ultimately unable. However, to truly understand
Krebss pain requires an understanding of Bowker in Speaking of Courage. Bowker, similar to
Krebs, finds himself alienated from the society around him as shown by his driving of his father's
car around the small lake by his home town. It is during this aimless route that Bowker imagines
the conversation that he would like to have about Kiowas death. Bowker's imagined
conversation is a speculation of how the story of Kiowa's death would be received remains a
fiction as Bowkers town seemed remote somehow. Sally was married andhis father was at
home watching baseball on national TV (O'Brien 140). While Hemingway focuses on Krebss
isolation, O'Brien focuses on the damage of this isolation. In many ways, Speaking of Courage
continues from where Soldier's Home had endedO'Brien thusarticulates what Krebs
would not say Krebs's muted fear becomes the graphic and irredeemably ignoble account of
the shitfield (Ciocia). Thus Bowkers emotional burdens that he carries, revealed in Notes
when he hangs himself in the YMCA, are the very things that Krebs holds and desires to share.
Moreover, Ciocia is not the only one who finds this connection as Kaplan states how Bowker's
dilemma is remarkably similar to that of [protagonist Harold] Krebs in [writer Ernest]
Hemingway's story Soldier's Home... (Kaplan 80). Through this comparison between Krebs
and Bowker, it becomes clear that the isolation damages them both to a great extent; while
Krebss future is unknown, Bowkers future allows the reader to predict the dark path that Krebs
would take and makes the dangers of isolation clear to the reader. OBrien explores loneliness
farther in The Things They Carried using other characters. The soldiers all long for... a
witness...due to the isolating effects of the traumatic experience (Farrell). Crosss witness
becomes Martha and a part of her purpose to him is To combat the isolation of the tunnels and

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the fear of being swallowed up by the war Jimmy Cross imagines a ...union with a
sympathetic listener, in his case, Martha who could truly understand the experience of men at
war (Farrell). As a result, Cross feels alone after the war because his hope for happiness is
ruined by Marthas rejection. OBrien understands this danger through the stories he tells; thus
the character OBrien in the book becomes an attempt by the author OBrien to combat the
destructive isolation that his actual Vietnam experience fostered.
By utilizing the power of lies and isolation, OBrien and Hemingway are able to create a
bridge between their audience and themselves through their respective fictional characters.
Hemingway uses a tone of sympathy to open up a connection between the reader and himself. As
the narration follows him through his day, there is never any negative judgment of his choices to
stay in bed, play pool, or just watch girls walk by. When Krebs's mother begins her lecture about
finding work, the narrative voice compares her voice to "bacon fat hardening on his plate"
(Hemingway), a particularly unattractive image. Furthermore by the end, the narrative voice
seems to have merged with that of Krebs himself. Multiple sentences in the last paragraph could
just as well start with "I." This charitable tone yields a sense of sympathy for Krebs and allows
the audience to accept Krebs for who he is. Ciocia mentions that Krebs is an autobiographical
character and that his relationship with his mother stems from Hemingway's own troubled
relationship with his mother (Ciocia). Thus the acceptance of Krebs essentially becomes an
acceptance of Hemingway himself and allows Hemingway to escape his own alienation. On the
other hand, OBrien uses the same motifs of lies and loneliness as seen before and infuses them
within his storytelling to help connect his audience to himself. Towards the beginning of his
book, OBrien mentions the things that the characters carry are both literal and figurative. While
they all carry heavy physical loads, they also carry heavy emotional loads composed of grief,

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terror, love, and longing. After the war, the emotional burdens the soldiers carry in Vietnam
continue to haunt them. Most of the survivors carry guilt, grief, and confusion, and OBrien
spends a lot of time looking at the effect of these feelings. Bowkers grief and confusion over
Kiowas death are so strong, they cause him to ultimately commit suicide in Notes. OBrien
realizes through Bowker and the other characters the danger of loneliness, so, while the lies he
tells the readers factually distance them, the emotional truths behind the stories creates a
psychological bridge. Hence OBriens ultimate purpose in the book is for Timto save
Timmy's life with a story (OBrien 233). While Bowker bears his burdens alone, OBrien shares
the things he carries with us. This connection allows the readers help him carry his emotional
burden from the Vietnam War and so OBrien is saving his own life with a story.
Through the use of the motifs of lies and loneliness, OBrien and Hemingway escape
from the very theme they develop in their stories. The alienation of Bowker and Krebs provides a
glimpse into the dark reality for most soldiers after war, and the isolation allows the audience to
not just know of their pain but to understand through the path both authors create. The readers
feel the sheer weight of all the things a soldier must carry and understand the result of carrying
this weight alone. Thus OBrien and Hemingway open a bridge for the audience to join them in
carrying the things they carry as part of everyones collective past.

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Works Cited
Ciocia, Stefania. "Tim O'Brien, Ernest Hemingway, and the Short Story Cycle Tradition."
Critical Insights: Tim O'Brien. Ed. Robert C. Evans. Hackensack: Salem, 2015. n. pag.
Salem Online. Web. 25 Mar. 2016.
Farrell, Susan. "Just Listen: Witnessing Trauma in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried."
Critical Insights: Tim O'Brien. Ed. Robert C. Evans. Hackensack: Salem, 2015. n. pag.
Salem Online. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.
Hemingway, Ernest. "Soldiers Home." Ernest Hemingway: The Short Stories. New York:
Scribner, 1995. PDF File.
Kaplan, Steven. "The Things They Carried Contains Fictitious Truths." War in Tim O'Brien's
The Things They Carried. Ed. Gary Wiener. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2011. 69-80.
Social Issues in Literature. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 25 Mar. 2016.
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction. First Mariner Books edition.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.