In the story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, O’Brien uses first person except in the first chapter, “Speaking of Courage” and the chapters, “Speaking of Courage” and “Notes” In the chapters where he does not use first person, he uses third person. There could be a few reasons behind this. For example, during the chapter, Norman comes back from the war and starts to become depressed. He realizes that people do not appreciate him as much as he would like. Also, people try and help Norman from recovering and he still feels separated. During the chapter, we never really understand how Norman feels and this could be another reason why he wrote in third person. He feels lonely in the chapter, so O’Brien wrote in third person to make the readers feel the same. In other words, O’Brien wanted the readers to feel separated just like Norman felt. Overall, O’Brien allows the reader and Norman to be separated in order for the readers to understand how Norman Baker felt when no one understood his feelings and emotions.
In our academic discussion, we were discussing the meaning of the third person and when I asked this question, I heard some interesting responses. One of the responses I got was, it was essential, in order to establish the theme in the story. O’Brien separated himself from the character, Norman Baker, to show how he was lonely and depressed. This made Norman Baker’s situation much more understandable and relateable.