29 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
comparison of the typical soldier with visiting girlfriend Mary Anne: “Seven-
teen years old. Just a child, blond and innocent, but then weren’t they all?” Other
stories also offer ground for analysis of constructions of masculinity and femi-
ninity—for instance, Martha in “The Things They Carried,” the female letter
recipient and the middle-aged women who attend the writer’s readings in “How
to Tell a True War Story,” and the interactions among the various soldiers. Lorrie
Smith argues that The Things They Carried “offers no challenge to a discourse
of war in which apparently innocent American men are tragically wounded and
women are objectified, excluded, and silenced.” On the other hand, Susan Farrell
contends that O’Brien critiques overly masculinist perspectives. The interview
with Hicks, the article by Pamela Smiley, and the book by Alex Vernon offer
helpful perspectives for exploring gender in The Things They Carried. Are women
objectified? Is masculinity held up as a beacon, or is it critiqued?- O’Brien has identified Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzger-
ald, and James Joyce as major influences and has expressed his admiration for,
and some sense of influence from, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez,
Toni Morrison, and Anne Tyler. Students might compare O’Brien’s writing
with any of these figures to identify common techniques or themes. Or stu-
dents could turn to other key American texts dealing with war, particularly
those by Hemingway, Stephen Crane, or James Fenimore Cooper, and com-
pare their depictions of soldiers and the experience of war with such depictions
by O’Brien.
RESOURCES
Primary Works
Patrick Hicks, “A Conversation with Tim O’Brien,” Indiana Review, 27 (Winter
2005): 85–95.
Rich interview in which Hicks and O’Brien discuss the fiction, his sense of
outrage over the way the Vietnamese were treated, his influences and reading
preferences, the friend in Vietnam who served as the model for Curt Lemon, and
his interest in magic.
Martin Naparsteck, “An Interview with Tim O’Brien,” Contemporary Literature,
32 (Spring 1991): 1–11.
Discussion concentrates primarily on details in the books through The Things
They Carried.
Debra Shostak and Daniel Bourne, “Artful Dodge Interviews Tim O’Brien,” Artful
Dodge, 22/23 (1991): 74–90; <www3.wooster.edu/ArtfulDodge/interviews/
obrien.htm> [accessed 6 December 2009].
Extensive and fascinating interview with significant discussion of The Things They
Carried.
“The Vietnam in Me,” New York Times Magazine, 2 October 1994, pp. 48–57.
Powerful essay alternating descriptions of June 1994 struggles with depression
and an account of a February 1994 trip to Vietnam with a girlfriend who had