The Things They Carried

 They all carried ghosts.

The things they carried were determined to some extent by superstition.

They shared the weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear.

They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.

It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do.

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The beginning of the story starts out with minor descriptions of what the soldiers carried as they travelled through the Vietnamese War. As the story progresses, the metaphorical weight of what they carried grows heavier. Each description tells a ton about each solider. Whether they were religious, scared, superstitious, or home sick, their packed belonging showed it. By the end, their minimal items grow to the weight of the sky, showing the pressure and weight they feel of fighting in such a violent way. The quotes listed above felt the most powerful to me.

As a writer, a great thing to take away is how the author really followed the saying, "show it don't tell it." By the little detailed descriptions, the reader was able to draw so much more from the story. The detailed descriptions also make the story much more believable to the reader because the descriptions are easily visualized. I think I'd like to play more with little descriptions to grow characterization. Perhaps the characters belongings or clothing would tell much more than a general description.