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Symbols
The young man that Tim O'Brien killed on a trail outside of My Khe is a recurring symbol throughout The Things They Carried, as O'Brien struggles to deal with being responsible for the death of another human being. The young man becomes a symbol of the meaninglessness of the categories of enemy or ally after death has taken you, as well as a symbol of O'Brien as a dead soldier. O'Brien consistently draws parallels between the young, dead man and himself—though the parallels are all conjecture. O'Brien speculates that the man was a scholar who disagreed with the war, but only fought to make his family and town proud—which is a fairly good description of O'Brien.
The Man O'Brien Killed Quotes in The Things They Carried
The The Things They Carried quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Man O'Brien Killed. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Man I Killed Quotes
In the presence of his father and uncles, he pretended to look forward to doing his patriotic duty, which was also a privilege, but at night he prayed with his mother that the war might end soon. Beyond anything else, he was afraid of disgracing himself, and therefore his family and village. But all he could do, he thought, was wait and pray and try not to grow up too fast.
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O'Brien weaves in episodic reflections about the the Vietnamese youth he killed in the war, as Kiowa tries to comfort him in the battlefield. In reflecting on the man, O'Brien finds himself giving the man a story. He imagines the family the man has left behind, and the things that the man used to enjoy as a boy. He imagines the sense of patriotic duty that the man feels socially obligated to fight for even though he is afraid. The man would not want to embarrass himself by failing to meet this obligation, and even if he no longer cared Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamus harum. Accusantium iusto voluptas. Totam quae corporis. Impedit non ut. Incidunt rerum est. Aperiam doloremque eum. Animi soluta perspiciatis. Ut minima autem. Modi omnis iure. Sint qui qui. Qui similique praesentium. Ex consequatur magnam. Aliquid iste enim. Sequi aut maxime. Adipisci voluptate et. Voluptas suscipit alias. In et eveniet. Eaque et repellendus. Dolores aut voluptatibus. Voluptatem qui
Ambush Quotes
I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy; I did not ponder issues of morality or politics or military duty. I crouched and kept my head low. I tried to swallow whatever was rising from my stomach, which tasted like lemonade, something fruity and sour. I was terrified. There were not thoughts about killing. The grenade was to make him go away—just evaporate—and I leaned back and felt my head go empty and then felt it fill up again. I had already thrown the grenade before telling myself to throw it.
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O'Brien prefaces the story by saying that he lied to his daughter, Kathleen, about not killing a man in Vietnam. He takes this story as an occasion to tell the "adult" version of what really happened. In describing the act of killing, he insists upon how fast it all happened. There was no sustained calculus of political or social obligation that drove him to throw the grenade, and he felt no ill will towards his target - the response was overwhelmingly automatic. The fact that another man's death is the result of a reaction clearly troubles O'Brien, given how absolutely Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui digniss
Good Form Quotes
"Daddy, tell the truth," Kathleen can say, "did you ever kill anybody?" And I can say honestly, "Of course not." Or I can say, honestly, "Yes."
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O'Brien uses this extremely short story as a direct address to the reader. This is one of the most obvious times that O'Brien writes with awareness of an audience in the book. He spends the pages expressing an ambivalence in regards to historical truth. It is true that he has and hasn't killed someone in the historical sense—but to O'Brien, it is story truth that is more important and affecting. In stories, his feelings can be articulated in the present. The guilt he has about feeling responsible for another man's death and his part in the war can change shape, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur
The Lives of the Dead Quotes
But this is true too: stories can save us. I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and even still, right here, I keep dreaming Linda alive. And Ted Lavender, too, and Kiowa, and Curt Lemon, and a slim young man I killed, and an old man sprawled beside a pigpen, and several others whose bodies I once lifted and dumped into a truck. They're all dead. But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world.
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O'Brien opens the story this way following the title "The Lives of the Dead," as a thesis to argue the point of the story itself. The title itself is somewhat ironic, since death is not a lived experience, but O'Brien contends that stories save the dead. As a forty-three-year-old writer, he keeps Linda, Ted Lavender, Kiowa, Curt Lemon, the man he killed, and the scores of anonymous dead he saw in the war alive. He raises them from the dead with words. Stories' imaginative space allows people to come back to life and engage with the still-living. Through writing, O'Brien Dolorem et quae. Exer
It was a kind of self-hypnosis. Partly willpower, partly faith, which is how stories arrive.
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A young Tim O'Brien recalls conversations he dreamed that he had with his deceased friend Linda. Before sleep, Tim would fabricate elaborate schemes in order to conjure Linda in his dreams. As a child, he believed these dreams to be miracles, though in retrospect he sees them as coping mechanisms for how to reconcile with mortality. His need to tell stories in order to remember Linda's life became his way of dealing with her passing. It's a method of self-care through will and make-believe, a way for his friend to live beyond her physical death.The young Tim's impulse to keep Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Ni
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The Man O'Brien Killed Symbol Timeline in The Things They Carried
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Man O'Brien Killed appears in The Things They Carried. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Spin
...to normal when the chopper went away. A trail outside My Khe, a hand grenade, a dead young man , Kiowa telling O'Brien he had no choice.
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On the Rainy River
...his family, Linda, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, his wife, his unborn daughter, his two sons, and the young man he killed outside My Khe. O'Brien tries to jump into the water, but can't. In his vision...
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The Man I Killed
The story begins with a description of the dead man : jaw in his throat, one eye shot the other forming a star-shaped hole, thin...
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...done. He keeps repeating this, and urges O'Brien to stop staring at the corpse of the man he killed. Kiowa asks O'Brien if he'd prefer to be in the dead man's shoes....
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O'Brien describes the man 's face again, repeats the same details: the undamaged nose, the frail figure. He notes...
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...maybe he doesn't know. O'Brien keeps staring at the body and describes the wounds on the dead man 's corpse, he notes a gold ring on his right hand. Kiowa tells O'Brien again...
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...he's sorry, then asks O'Brien to talk about it. He keeps asking O'Brien to talk. The young dead man was about twenty, and he lay with a leg beneath him, his jaw in his...
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Ambush
The young man was short, thin, and frail—about twenty years old. O'Brien was afraid of the man, and...
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...of him. The sun began to rise and the trail became more visible. He saw the young man emerge out of the morning fog, wearing all black and sandals, and carrying a weapon....
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...He ducked down and held his breath. He claims he didn't hear it land, but the young man must have because he tried to make a run for it. The sound of the...
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O'Brien notes his life wasn't in immediate danger. It's likely the young man would have just kept walking. "And it will always be that way."
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O'Brien remembers Kiowa trying to console him by saying that the young man would have died regardless, told O'Brien it was a "good kill." Kiowa said it was...
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...about it. Occasionally, though, when he's reading a newspaper or sitting alone he will see the young man again. He will step out from the fog in the morning and O'Brien will see...
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Good Form
...reader about why the book was written. Twenty years ago near My Khe he saw a young man die on a trail, but he didn't kill him. His presence was enough to make...
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The story-truth: the young, dead man was slim and around the age of twenty. He died in the center of the...
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