The Things They Carried, Spin quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. What is Mitchell Sanders doing in the shade of the banyan tree?

   • Writing a long letter home to his family back in Ohio
   • Cleaning his rifle while the platoon waits for new orders
   • Correct answer: Prying body lice off himself to mail to his draft board
   • Playing a slow evening game of checkers with Norman Bowker

   He picks the lice off with a thumbnail, seals them in a blue USO envelope, and addresses it to his draft board in Ohio.

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2. 2

   Question 2. Why do the other soldiers find the nightly checkers game restful to watch?

   • Correct answer: The board offers clear rules, a visible enemy, and a real winner
   • The players bet cigarettes and rations on the result of each game
   • It is the only game the platoon is permitted to play after dark
   • The games end quickly and give the men something new to argue about

   The playing field is a strict grid with no tunnels or jungles, so a soldier always knows where he stands and knows the score.

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3. 3

   Question 3. How long does the platoon follow the old Vietnamese guide, and with what result?

   • Two weeks, with several men wounded by booby-trapped shells
   • One afternoon, before the guide leads them into a bad ambush
   • Three days, until the guide disappears during a night march
   • Correct answer: Five days, with nobody in the platoon getting hurt at all

   The chapter says that in those five days on the Batangan Peninsula nobody got hurt, and the men came to love the old man.

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4. 4

   Question 4. What does Azar do to the orphan puppy Ted Lavender had been feeding?

   • He trades the puppy to villagers for a case of cold beer
   • Correct answer: He straps it to a Claymore mine and squeezes the firing device
   • He leaves it behind at a firebase when the platoon moves out
   • He hides it in his own rucksack until an officer finds it

   Azar destroys the puppy with a Claymore antipersonnel mine, then asks the platoon what everybody is so upset about.

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5. 5

   Question 5. In the peace story Mitchell Sanders tells, why does the AWOL soldier rejoin his unit?

   • His money runs out and the nurse finally throws him out
   • Military police track him down and return him to the field
   • Correct answer: The peace felt so good it hurt, and he wants to hurt it back
   • He hears that his closest friend was wounded in the bush

   The soldier's own explanation is that all that peace felt so good it hurt, so he wanted to hurt it back.

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6. 6

   Question 6. How does the narrator characterize the boredom of the war?

   • As a welcome relief from the constant danger of long patrols
   • As proof that most soldiers were never in any real danger
   • As the reason the men invented so many harmless card games
   • Correct answer: As acid dripping inside a soldier, ready to snap into terror

   He calls it boredom with a twist, dripping like a leaky faucet of acid, until a burst of gunfire turns it instantly into fear.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What does the narrator's daughter Kathleen say about his war writing?

   • Correct answer: That it is an obsession and he should write about a girl and a pony
   • That she is proud of the medals he never talks about at home
   • That he should write about her grandfather's war instead of his own
   • That the stories frighten her and she would rather read them later

   Kathleen calls the writing an obsession and suggests a story about a little girl who finds a million dollars.

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8. 8

   Question 8. What does the end of the chapter claim stories are ultimately for?

   • Settling arguments about what really happened during the war
   • Correct answer: Joining the past to the future and outlasting memory itself
   • Teaching civilians the practical facts of infantry life
   • Winning the forgiveness the narrator says he cannot earn

   The closing lines say stories join the past to the future and survive even when there is nothing left to remember.

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9. 9

   Question 9. Which of these events actually occur in this chapter?

   • Mitchell Sanders mails his body lice to his draft board in Ohio.

     Happened

   • Norman Bowker and Henry Dobbins play checkers in the evenings.

     Happened

   • Jimmy Cross hugs the old Vietnamese guide before the choppers leave.

     Happened

   • Azar apologizes to the platoon for what he did to the puppy.

     Didn't happen

   • Two men are wounded by mines on the Batangan Peninsula.

     Didn't happen

   • Ted Lavender calls it a mellow war after taking tranquilizers.

     Happened

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10. 10

    Question 10. What does 'humping' mean as used in: 'If you weren't humping, you were waiting'?

    • Correct answer: Marching on foot while carrying a heavy load
    • Digging a foxhole for the platoon to sleep in
    • Standing guard on the perimeter after nightfall
    • Carrying a wounded man out to a waiting chopper

    Humping is soldier slang for marching under a full load, which the narrator pairs with waiting as the war's two constant states.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does 'servile' mean as used in: 'the grass dark and servile, bending low'?

    • Brightly colored and quick to move in the wind
    • Dry and brittle after weeks of unbroken heat
    • Correct answer: Submissive, bending as though forced to obey
    • Thick enough to hide a standing man from view

    Servile means slavishly submissive, so the elephant grass looks like it is bowing to the helicopter before springing back up.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does 'rehappening' mean as used in: 'the remembering is turned into a kind of rehappening'?

    • A story retold for a completely different audience
    • Correct answer: A memory that occurs again in the writer's present
    • A rumor that circulates through a platoon in the bush
    • A dream that repeats the same images night after night

    The narrator coins the word for memory that does not merely return but stages the past again as if it were happening now.

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