The Things They Carried: Final Chapter

           In the final chapter of The Things They Carried, O’Brien reminisces of his childhood friend, Linda. This is important when thinking about Vietnam because it shows how “war” can happen anywhere. O’Brien describes Linda with much more passion than he does any of the other deaths because he truly loves her. O’Brien is trying to conclude that death is a part of everyday life and it can happen to anyone, including loved ones. O’Brien has experienced much more death than the average human, but when he introduced Linda in a war story he showed how death and sorrow of war could be brought into a perfectly normal child’s life.

            Keeping the dead alive was one of O’Brien’s purposes for writing and storytelling. Describing many details to the reader is one way O’Brien resurrects his fallen comrades and enemies. When describing a man O’Brien “killed” he uses limitless description as if the picture was burned into his mind. “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut…His chest was sunken and poorly muscled—a scholar, maybe” (124). By describing in such great detail, O’Brien has made the dead seem alive again. Although description is one way to bring back the dead, the most powerful revitalization tool comes from just the stories themselves. By writing O’Brien has captured a part of dead’s soul and memory and put it into text where the past can be relived.