Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, a German philosopher and poet, once famously said, “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”. We risk transforming into the very darkness we try to overcome.

Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” pulls us into this world of confusion, uncertainty, and bloodshed as a group of grunts trek through the dense forests of central Vietnam, bracing themselves for the onslaught of an unseen enemy.

In the end, Claudette’s desire to belong wins out, as she consistently abandons the true self at ever higher levels. Russell steadily moves the reader through the telling by carefully manipulating the character development, behavioral interactions, and pacing to emphasize that you risk losing yourself on the road to that ever-elusive feeling of belonging.