"The Things They Carried" is a Story.
What makes a story a story? It's not just having a few colorful characters and an exciting plot. There are many elements, such as point of view, narrative, idea, and description, along with, of course, a plot and characters, that go into writing a story. If a story seems too detailed or too realistic, that does not mean that it is not a story. Having detailed descriptions of scenery or objects, and having realistic characters, conflicts, and events, just make the story that much more interesting and believable. In O"Brien's, .
"The Things They Carried", these elements are present and help to make the story so believable that one could question whether or not it should be consider a story.
Since the plot of the story seems so accurate, one might argue that "The Things They Carried" should not be considered a story. However, the plot is what makes a story, a story. The author describes the various soldiers of a platoon, discussing their personalities, their inner-thoughts, and their burdens. He mostly focuses on the mind of Lt. Cross, whose head is preoccupied with the thoughts of the girl he loves, Martha. The author later shows the guilt Lt. Cross feels after he loses one of his men, due to that fact that his mind was else where, rather than focusing on the war. O"Brien also shows the type of equipment each man had to carry. Each man carried 150 or more pounds with him on a daily basis. This may or may not seem realistic to people who know nothing about war, but to those who have experienced it, know about all the weapons, supplies, and burdens, each soldier had to carry during battle. It is also shown in the story, that almost all the soldiers felt that they were marching from place to place for no reason. They all sort of lost sight of the reason that they were there. They would just go from village to village and burn them down. They also had to search caves they came across to see if the enemy was hiding in them.
