The Things They Carried (cont.)

Agenda:

Discussion Questions:

Chapter 19: “Field Trip”
1.    Why does O’Brien return to the shit field? 2.    What is the point of putting Kiowa’s moccasins in the ground (burying them)? 3.    Explain the significance of the final sentence. Who or what is “all finished”?
 
Chapter 20: “The Ghost Soldiers”
1.    What does “The Ghost Soldiers” add to the book that we have almost completed? Does it provide any new insights, perspectives, or experiences about any of the characters? What do you think its function in the overall narrative might be?
2.    Does your opinion of O'Brien change throughout the course of the novel? How so? How do you feel about his actions in “The Ghost Soldiers”?
3.    “The Ghost Soldiers” is one of the only stories of The Things They Carried in which we don't know the ending in advance. Why might O'Brien want this story to be particularly suspenseful?
4.    Explain the significance of the title of this chapter.

Chapter 22: “The Lives of the Dead”
1.    How does the opening paragraph frame the story we are about to read?
 2.    Why is O'Brien unable to joke around with the other soldiers? Why does the old man remind him of Linda?
 3.    What is the function of the Linda plot in “The Lives of the Dead”? Consider in particular what it teaches him about death, memory, storytelling.
4.    What is the “moral” of the dead KIAs? Consider Mitchell Sanders' view.
5.    In many ways, this book is as much about stories, or the necessity of stories, as it is about the Vietnam War.  According to O’Brien, what do stories accomplish? Why does he continue to tell stories about the Vietnam War, about Linda?
6.    Reread the final two pages of this book. Consider what the young Tim O’Brien learns about storytelling from his experience with Linda. How does this knowledge prepare him not only for the war, but also to become a writer? Within the parameters of this story, how would you characterize Tim O’Brien’s understanding of the purpose of fiction? How does fiction relate to life, that is, life in the journalistic or historic sense?

Overall:

1. Assume for a moment, that the writer, Tim O’Brien, created a fictional main character, also called Tim O’Brien, to inhabit this novel. Why would the real Tim O’Brien do that? What would that accomplish in this novel? How would that strengthen a book about “truth”?

2. Finally, if O’Brien is trying to relate some essential details about emotional life – again as opposed to historic life – is he successful in doing that? Is he justified in tinkering with the facts to get at, what he would term, some larger, story-truth?

3. On the copyright page of the novel appears the following: “This is a work of fiction. Except for a few details regarding the author's own life, all the incidents, names, and characters are imaginary.” How does this statement affect your reading of the novel?