In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things We Carried,” the setting and situation that the characters are involved in is the war in Vietnam in the 1960s. The war and the different experiences of the soldiers is what the novel is centered around. The description of one of the characters, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, and a vague, yet detailed, description of the situation that he was in was enough for the reader to understand where he was and what he was going through. The detail given at the beginning of the story is enough for the reader to know that Jimmy Cross was currently in a warzone; “In the late afternoon, after a day’s march, he would dig his foxhole […].”
Within the first few paragraphs, the items that each of the soldiers was required to carry, as well as the items that they choose to carry, were described in great detail, from what the item was to how much it weighed. These items alone give insight into the current situations and the personalities and lifestyles of the characters. Some of these items, such as pocket knives and a large compress bandage, gave the idea of the dangers these characters faced in this war setting. One of the items that many of them choose to carry was a green plastic poncho, which had many uses – a makeshift tent, a coat, or a blanket for themselves or the ground they sat on – but was, at one point, used to cover a fallen soldier; “[…] when Ted Lavender was shot, they used his poncho to wrap him up […] then lift him into the chopper that took him away.”
As the setting of the novel is that of a Vietnam warzone, many of the emotional characteristics of the characters can be assumed. They would all clearly be nervous, frightened, and possibly paranoid, and they would each be reacting differently to how they felt. Lieutenant Cross found peace in reading the letters from a girl that he liked back home, something to remind him of a setting that he had been familiar and comfortable in. The other characters found comfort in some of the things that...