Themes and message

Three important themes prevail in the short story “The Things They Carried”: the theme of war, the theme of weakness and the theme of guilt. The message of the short story relates to the horrors of th…

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War

The theme of war is very important, as the story deals with the events that take place during the war in Vietnam. Since the very beginning, when First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is presented, readers’ expectations are set. As you have seen, Jimmy is presented as a daydreamer and a romantic, not as the war hero one might expect him…

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Weakness

The theme of weakness is very important because weakness is what defines the soldiers in Jimmy Cross’ platoon. Even though one would expect for soldiers to be brave and act like heroes, the men in Jimmy’s platoon are far from it. They are presented as weak and fragile, moving out of inertia and without any real motivation behind their acts:

They plodded along slowly,…

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Guilt

Finally, the theme of guilt is illustrated by First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. As he is constantly thinking about Martha, he cannot fully focus on his company and, as a consequence, he does not pay attention to his men when Ted Lavender is killed:

Lieutenant Cross kept to himself. He pictured Martha's smooth young face, thinking he loved her more than anything, more than his men, and now Ted Lavend…