Rat helps O'Brien when he is shot for the first time. He is known for spinning yarns and making grotesque exaggerations. Rat Kiley The medic of Alpha Company, Rat represents the allure and the danger of storytelling. He wants O'Brien to write a story about a guy like him who cannot talk about his war-related trauma. He feels intense culpability for Kiowa's death and cannot adjust to civilian life in his small hometown after the war.
Norman Bowker A foot soldier in Alpha Company, Bowker embodies the effect known as "survivor guilt." He cannot forgive himself for outliving his friends who died in battle. Whether in the middle of the war or 20 years later, Cross focuses on life outside of war, but also carries a heavy, self-imposed burden of guilt because of it. Cross meets up with O'Brien after the war, and he still carries feelings of unrequited love for Martha. Rather than helping to search for Kiowa's body, Cross spends time thinking about the letter he must write to Kiowa's father. Instead of concentrating on the war, Cross occupies his mind with memories of Martha, his old sweetheart. Jimmy Cross The leader of Alpha Company, Cross personifies mental escapism, the ability to project one's mind somewhere else to escape from an undesirable situation. Eventually stepping on a booby trap kills him. He even makes a dentist pull a healthy tooth from his mouth to prove to everyone that he is not afraid of dentists. He is brave and fearless to a fault, known in Alpha Company for pulling crazy stunts just for the attention and the thrill of danger. When "O'Brien" returns to Vietnam, he visits the site of Kiowa's death and leaves his moccasins as a memorial to his friend.Ĭurt Lemon Lemon represents an outdated model of masculine heroism. He is O'Brien's closest friend in Vietnam and is killed in battle when he drowns in a field during a flood. He is a foot soldier in Alpha Company, a Native American Baptist who always keeps an illustrated New Testament with him. Kiowa Kiowa symbolizes the wastefulness of war. For all of the first hand accounts and stories, "O'Brien" is the readers' source, and he demonstrates the danger of believing that something is either fact or fiction, often by evoking emotions in the reader. Readers follow "O'Brien" around Vietnam, experiencing his fear, guilt, curiosity, and blood lust. He is also the fictional persona of O'Brien the writer, and similarly is a middle-aged writer with a Midwestern, middle-class background that informs his values. He is a young foot soldier in the Vietnam War, a member of Alpha Company. "Tim O'Brien" The protagonist of the novel, "O'Brien" symbolizes memory and storytelling, two central themes of the novel.
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