ABSTRACT

In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien’s fictional account of his experiences in Vietnam, the narrator, a soldier himself, reflects on one of the memories he carries with him from childhood. He recalls how his best friend Linda had fallen ill with a brain tumor when she was ten. After undergoing chemotherapy she lost her hair and wore a red beret to school every day to hide her baldness. O’Brien’s reflections on how he and his classmates treated Linda in the fourth grade awaken insights about his dispositions as an adult.