Part -1:
1. What literary genres do you notice in TTTC? Which dominates? That is, if you had to shelve it at Borders, where would you shelve it?
2. What are your attitudes and expectations about such genres of literature? When you read them, what do you look to gain?
3. To what extent is O'Brien giving you what you expect from a certain genre? To what extent is he thwarting your expectations? Why is he doing so?
4. Is there something about the Vietnam War that prevents it from being claimed by a specific genre? WWI produced some of the great poetry of the 20th century; WWII, an array of novels; our own Iraq War has produced numerous memoirs. What is it about the Vietnam War that makes it almost demand treatment through a number of genres?
5. Towards what genre do you gravitate when you read TTTC? Why? What does this say about your tastes and expectations as a reader?
6. Which chapters in TTTC have most disappointed your expectations? Why? What have you done to engage with these chapters?
7. Why did O'Brien title his book The Things They Carried? Why didn't he name the collection after another story in it? If you could choose a different story's title for the title of the collection, which would you choose, and why?
8. What characterizes a work of fiction? Plot? Dialogue? Descriptions of setting? What characterizes a work of ‘nonfiction'? Its subject matter? Its tone? Do the two genres share characteristics? Which? Which of these characteristics are present in TTTC?
9. Think for a moment of the different nonfiction books you have read in your lifetime: biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, histories, etc. How have these differed from TTTC? What characteristics, if any, do they share?
Part -2:
Questions for discussion
1. What "intangibles" does O'Brien pay attention to and ‘weigh'? Which one(s) strike you as particularly burdensome for someone in war, and why?
2. Are there any intangibles O'Brien didn't name that might have been included in the long catalogues of the story "The Things They Carried"?
3. What instances of cowardice occur in these stories? Why do they occur? Do you think that they are cowardly?
4. Are there any actions in the stories that you would consider cowardly but which aren't identified as such? Why do you think them cowardly? Why doesn't O'Brien identify them as such?
5. By speaking of Ted Lavender's death as "a stone in his stomach," O'Brien implicitly equates Cross's guilt over Lavender's death with the loss of his love for Martha, who sent him a stone from the New Jersey shore. Why does O'Brien give the two losses equal weight, when our first instinct might be to value the loss of life over the loss of love? Drop loss from the question: what is more valuable, love or life?
Part -3:
1. According to O'Brien, does suffering violence (psychological or physical) somehow unleash the capacity to inflict violence? Which character(s) exemplify this transformation? Or is the capacity to inflict violence a preexisting condition? Which character(s) exemplify this condition?
2. What does violence violate? Our physical person? Our psychological wholeness? Our sense of trust in the world? Is the experience of violence (and of war more generally) similar to the violation of trust that Sissela Bok identifies as the consequence of lying? Is there any relation between Rat Kiley's sense of betrayal by Curt Lemon's sister and the slaughter of the water buffalo?
3. What are the consequences of committing violent acts against innocents for the following characters: Stink Harris (Going After Cacciato), Rat Kiley ("How to Tell a True War Story" in TTTC), Tim O'Brien ("The Ghost Soldiers" in TTTC), John Wade (In the Lake of the Woods)?
4. How do cowards in O'Brien's works behave in the wake of their cowardice? Is the loss of innocence related to cowardice? Which characters in O'Brien's writings exemplify cowards who retaliate against others in order to compensate for their own failures? Are there any characters who behave otherwise?
5. How is it that violence against individuals escalates to violence against groups?
Part -4:
1. From what are O'Brien's characters trying to escape? Why can they not face and confront what plagues them?
2. What forms of escape are available to the soldiers in TTTC? Which one(s) does O'Brien seem to approve of? Why?
3. When do moments of escape in O'Brien's works become dangerous? Why are they dangerous? Do the character(s) involved overcome such moments? If so, how? If not, what are the consequences?
Part -5:
1. Why do characters in TTTC find themselves unable to tell stories about their experiences, wartime or otherwise? To what extent is this failure the product of outside forces and conditions, and to what extent are the individuals themselves responsible?
2. What are the consequences of not telling stories about one's experiences? Which characters exemplify these consequences?
3. Which characters tell their stories? What are the consequences for them?
4. Are there any characters who survive by following the ‘strong, silent' mode of stoic male behavior? How do you respond to them? How does O'Brien?
5. Which stories within the stories of TTTC are lies? Who tells them? Why do they tell them? Which strike you as seeming the most truthful? Why? Which elements seem fictitious? Why? What do you answers suggest about the way you perceive and understand the world?