The Things They Carried characters
O'Brien experienced the war when he was called to fight in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970. He and his unit saw untold horrors, but moments of beauty and peace that seem incompatible with the landscape of cruelty and fear as well. O'Brien calls his novel an artwork, but it’s based on the...
Jimmy Cross is one of the main characters of the novel. Senior Lieutenant, Jimmy Cross, carried letters from a girl, named Martha, who was studying at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. Martha stopped to write him any love letters, but Lieutenant Cross didn’t lose hope and...
Mitchell Sanders was one of the most likable soldiers in the war. Sanders strongly influences the narrator, O’Brien. He is kind and devoted, and he has a strong sense of justice. Because of these qualities, he is a type of father figure. Though his ideas of storytelling may or may not agree...
Kiowa was one of the best soldiers. He can be characterized by: Physical Character traits: He was 19 or 20 years. He was Native American, Pious Baptist. He carries an illustrated New Testament and his grandfather's hunting tackle and keeps moccasins for silence. The main...
Norman Bowker was an important character as well. He kept a diary. The nights were cold, the monsoons pierced with dampness; he carried a polyethylene green poncho, which served as a cloak, litter and a tent, built in a hurry. Together with the quilted lining poncho pulled almost two pounds...
Henry Dobbins is the platoon’s machine gunner and resident gentle giant. Dobbins’s profound decency, despite his simplicity, contrasts with his bearish frame. He is a perfect example of the incongruities in Vietnam. Henry Dobbins is a large, strong, dependable, unsophisticated...
Bob "Rat" Kiley is a friendly and skilled medic, who braves danger to keep his fellow soldiers alive. He carries comic books, brandy, and M&Ms. Kiley previously served in the mountains of Chu Lai, the setting of “Sweetheart of...
Curt Lemon was a childish and careless member of the Alpha Company, who was killed while tossing a grenade in a game of catch. Though O’Brien doesn’t particularly like Lemon, Lemon’s death is something O’Brien continually contemplates with sadness and regret. The...
Ted Lavender wasn’t the bravest man readers can hear of. Usually, all the soldiers took twenty-five grenades with them, but the timid Ted Lavender, when he was killed near Tan Khe, had thirty-four grenades with him. He collapsed like a heavyweight; he was twenty pounds...
Lee Strunk is another soldier in the platoon and a minor character. A struggle with Dave Jensen over a jackknife results in Strunk’s broken nose. In begging Jensen to forget their pact—that if either man is gravely injured, the other will kill him swiftly—after he...
Dave Jensen is a minor character, whose guilt over his injury of Lee Strunk causes him to break his own nose. Jensen’s relief after Strunk’s death is an illustration of the perspective soldiers are forced to assume. Instead of mourning the loss of his friend...
Azar is a minor character in the novel. The author tries to pay some attention to that character, but his role is not as important, as funny. He possesses himself as a strong man that can protect not just himself, but also his country. He uses his humor as a benevolent-mocking...
Bobby Jorgenson is the medic, who replaces Rat Kiley. He is a specialist with complete higher medical education, who is constantly engaged in the maintenance or restoration of human health through the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases and injuries. This is possible due to...
Elroy Berdahl is the proprietor of the Tip Top Lodge on the Rainy River near the Canadian border. He has the opportunity to influence something, manage something at its discretion actively. The difference in his authority and open mind in the team. Berdahl serves as the...
Kathleen is O’Brien’s daughter and a symbol of the naïve outsider. Although O’Brien alludes to having multiple children, Kathleen is the only one we meet. Her youth and innocence force O’Brien to try to explain the meaning of the war. Frustrated that he cannot...
Mary Anne Bell represents home, purity and what waits for soldiers, however pretending/fantasizing about what’s behind is dangerous, because it’s not reality. Her love isn’t returned (like when Vietnam vets returned home to anger instead of thanks). She is...
Mark Fossie was a medic assignment. Mark Fossie explained how he'd set the system up. It was expensive, he admitted, and the logistics were complicated, but it wasn't like going to the moon. Cleveland to Los Angeles, LA to Bangkok, Bangkok to Saigon. He'd hopped a...
Linda was the first love of O’Brien. He taught him the sense of feeling of love. We are all inclined to idealize our chosen person, to whom we’ve experienced a sense of love for the first time. And, over the time, people forget everything bad, and there are...