Themes
Physical and Emotional Burdens
The things that the characters carry are both literal and figurative. Even though the things they carried are heavy physical loads, they also carry large emotional loads. Henry Dobbins, for example, carries his girlfriend’s pantyhose and, with them, the longing for love and comfort. Although every member of the Alpha Company experiences fear at some point in the book, showing fear will only reveal vulnerability to both the enemy and sometimes cruel fellow soldiers.
Fear of Shame as Motivation
Fear of shame not only motivates reluctant men to go to Vietnam but also affects soldiers’ relationships with one another. Concern about social acceptance, which might seem like unimportant preoccupation given the immediacy of death and necessity of group unity during war, which leads O’Brien’s characters to engage in absurd or dangerous actions. An example would be when Curt Lemon decides to have a perfect tooth pulled out, in The Dentist, to ease his shame about having fainted during an encounter with the dentist in the past.
The Subject of the Truth to Storytelling
By giving his name and other people in the story, we thought this book would be truthful but O'Brien censors that distinction between fact and fiction. Statements like "This is true" in the beginning of the chapter "How to Tell a True War Story" does not establish events that actually occurred. Rather they indicate the styles and thematic content in which the truth is from other soldiers' stories. The point of these stories is to relate the emotion of truth of experience, not to make false emotions from the readers.