The Things They Carried Character Analysis Essay

In the The Things They Carried, the emotions are more than just a mental problem, they become life changing conflicts. The author of this book is Tim O’Brien. Tim O’Brien is the main character throughout the whole book. In the beginning of the book, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien goes in depth describing what each of the men carried with them. He started with actual things having to deal with war, then talking about the emotional burdens the men carried. As the novel goes on he begins getting in touch with their emotional and physical feelings. For example, Rat Kiley, he was a well known character in the book. He began having mental breakdowns throughout the book. He had seen his best friend get blown up, and then goes into shutdown mode. Rat keeps to himself not talking as much as he did, and walking away from the other guys. In The Things They Carried. Tim O’Brien illustrates Bob Kiely’s (Rat) physical and emotional burden weighs on him to cope with war.
In the beginning of the this novel Rat Kiley was mentioned. He was a combat medic. “As a medic, Rat Kiley carried a canvas satchel filled with morphine and plasma and malaria tablets and surgical tape and comic books and all the things a medic must carry” (Pg 5). He was the first to step up when something had to be done. Rat kiley was a very outgoing guy. When his best friend passed away

Although he learned that he had to learn to cope with every single physical, emotional and mental stress factor that came his way. He learned with every guy in his platoon, they all stuck together. This novel was a very well written book. Each story was different, and gave a different aspect on war every time. The emotions were real, and very descriptive. War isn’t easy; no one said it would be either. How you learn to cope with stress is something you and your peers learn. You can then carry that on with you the rest of your