In the novel The Things They Carried, author Tim O'Brien demonstrates many ideas about war, survival, corruption, and helplessness through his collection of short stories Throughout his book, O'Brien describes many incidents that happen simply by chance and luck. In these short stories, O'Brien teaches that it is impossible to generalize about war. Ironically, war is terrible but not it is always terrible because war corrupts soldiers, but at the same time makes them feel alive. A central idea that O'Brien writes about is that soldiers are helpless regarding their own survival in the face of war and that the fate of a. soldier depends on them. Chance and luck. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay , in cases where a soldier's survival depended exclusively on chance and luck. In one particular story, O'Brien writes of a soldier who was never wounded: “Dobbins was invulnerable. Never hurt, never a scratch. In August, he tripped a Bouncing Betty [a mine], which failed to explode. A week later he was trapped in the open during a small, ferocious firefight, with no cover, he simply breathed deeply and let the magic do its work” (O'Brien 112). O'Brien writes about a soldier named Henry Dobbins who survived without any injuries by pure chance. When Curt Lemon steps on the mine, he dies, but when Dobbins steps on a mine, it doesn't explode. None of these men did anything different, yet one lives and the other dies, revealing the prominent theme of chance in the book. Another scene where the theme of the case is clear occurs after Kiowa's death: “You could blame the war. You could blame the idiots who started the war. You could blame Kiowa for doing this. You could blame it on the rain. You could blame the field, the mud, the weather… You could blame the ammo manufacturers or Karl Marx for a twist of fate or an old man from Omaha who forgot to vote.” (O'Brien 169-170). After Kiowa's death, O'Brien describes all the things that could be blamed for his death. The fact that so many things can be blamed for Kiowa's death shows that many factors must have been present in Kiowa's death. If only some of these factors had been changed, it is very likely that Kiowa would have survived the war. Consequently, Kiowa's death was based purely on chance because the presence of many of these factors is based on chance. Many of O'Brien's stories relate to the general theme of a soldier's helplessness in war. A soldier's life depends on chance and luck to the point that soldiers have little to no say in their lives or deaths. This idea is present in Jimmy Cross's thoughts after Kiowa's death: “In his head [Jimmy Cross] was reviewing the letter to Kiowa's father. Impersonal this time. An officer expressing condolences to an officer. No apology was necessary, because [Kiowa's death] was one of those strange things, and war was full of strange things, and nothing could ever change it anyway. (O'Brien 169). Kiowa's fate was based solely on chance. For Kiowa to be dead, a few things had to have happened. First, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross had to make the mistake of obeying his superiors rather than his own instincts. Secondly, the location chosen had to be the village toilet, in low ground and vulnerable to enemy fire. Third, it must have been Kiowa who died. These random factors demonstrate how.