The Things They Carried: commentary on chapter 17 ‘In the
Field’
The Things They Carried is a work of fiction,
written by Tim O’Brian, filled with stories about the
Vietnam War and what happened to the people involved in
Alpha Company, the group of soldiers whose experiences
are foretold in this novel. The one catch to this novel
is that it is fiction and the stories written in it about
the war may or may not be true. Throughout the novel the
author, Tim O’Brien, tries to create a true war story by
convincing the reader to question whether, in his
stories, he is telling the truth or not. In the chapter
entitled ‘In the Field’ O’Brien best portrays the idea of
the happening truth and the story truth. He really gets
the reader to see that even though the facts behind every
war story may not be true the emotions behind each story
are, and this makes the reader ask themselves if it
really matters that the facts are not completely true,
and to O’Brien’s definition that is a real war story.
The chapter ‘In the Field’ is the chapter written
about Kiowa’s death in the shit field. It is the perfect
chapter to show how O’Brien creates a true war story not
because of how Kiowa died, but because of the ambiguity
of whose fault it was. A quote on page 177 shows the
reader that although it can be considered to be morally
wrong to place blame on someone for another’s death, in
war it is necessary. “When a man died, there had to be
blame… You could blame the war… You could blame Kiowa for
going to it… You could blame the river. You could blame
the field, the mud, the climate… You could blame God.”
In the novel Kiowa’s death is blamed on Norman
Bowker. The author may have done this in order to be able
to write another chapter on the story of Norman feeling
guilty, and to further illustrate the theme and to make
the reader understand that life is not fair. Even though
Kiowa was “a splendid human being, the very best,
intelligent, and gentle and quiet-spoken. Very brave
too.”(O’Brien 164) he died anyway. He did not deserve to
die but O’Brien uses his death to emphasize that there
are things in life that you cannot control, and no matter
who you are, you can die.
Blaming the death of Kiowa on Norman Bowker allowed
the author to write a chapter on the guilt felt by Norman
but also made the reader question what is really true,
whether it really was Norman who ‘killed’ Kiowa.
Throughout the chapter there is the mentioning of a boy,
a young soldier who felt guilty for Kiowa’s death.
However, ironically, his name is never mentioned only
that he was the soldier who was in a tent with Kiowa and
shone a flashlight; to see a picture of is girlfriend,
giving away the soldier’s positions. Instantly resulting
in mortar fire and the explosion of the shit field
killing Kiowa. Also, later in the novel the reader learns
that O’Brien went, with his daughter, to revisit the site
where Kiowa died creating the idea in the reader that
there must be some significance between why Kiowa died
and O’Brien himself. Also, in this chapter the author
brings himself into the novel with Kiowa’s death and he
does not do that very often in his war stories, so that
again suggests to the reader that Norman Bowker did not
really ‘kill’ Kiowa, and that Tim O’Brien did. Further
showing, that the reason Norman was blamed for Kiowa’s
death was so that the author was able to write a chapter
expressing his own guilt, through the guilt held by
Norman.
In this chapter the author sets up a sense of
ambiguity to the death of Kiowa, forcing the reader to
question what is and is not really true. This is
important to the essence of the novel because it is what
O’Brien believes is a true war story. When there is a
sense of contrast between happening truth, what actually
happened, and story truth, what emotionally happened.
Also to further prove that war is paradoxical and nothing
is as it seems. O’Brien retells his stories because he
wants the audience to understand how he felt, the
emotions that come with war, not the actual facts about
the war, they are not as important.