Bearing the Unbearable

          "You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it”. This was a quote I read once and it has stuck with me because I see the truth in it. Somehow we get through what at the time seems impossible. We find some way to bear the unbearable. For me sometimes it can just be a crazy week of exams. All the stress piles up and it feels like all the work can’t physically be done, but then somehow I make it through. In The Things They Carried, all of the characters carry the weight of so much more. They endure the unbearable life of war and find different ways to cope.

The narrator gives a measure to how much certain things weigh on their backs. However, there is no measuring the mental weights and emotions the men carry. These men carry fear, loss, sorrow, guilt, and cowardice. Tim O’Brien cannot carry all of his emotions inside so he seems to use writing as a way to cope, to relieve some of the burden by telling war stories. Also, when O’Brien is drafted he has to choose which burden to bear: the guilt and atrocities of war, or the embarrassment of running away and being thought a coward. Ultimately he decides he would rather bear the weight of war than the weight of the shame. Jimmy Cross bears the atrocities of war by dreaming of Martha and creating a fantasy life. However, when Lavender dies, Cross blames himself because he was not focused on his troops. He takes this guilt as another burden to bear. As a way to cope with this new weight he decides to remove the physical memories of Martha from his life by burning her letters and pictures. It is an attempt to find redemption in what he blames himself for. He no longer wants his love for her to affect how he acts around his men. Additionally, Curt Lemon and Rat Kiley cope with war by making jokes and playing games as they hike.