In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, O’Brien makes it clear that the minor characters he includes play a chief role in the story’s significance. For example, Linda is introduced as an insignificant character, but the reader finds out that she plays a critical role in the development of the story’s main theme regarding the power of storytelling, and how the memories from these stories keep people alive. O’Brien constantly repeats himself by stating, “Stories can saves us,” making it a reoccurring theme in his book, and it is especially exemplified throughout his story about Linda. In the last chapter titled, “The Lives of the Dead,” it is the point where O’Brien begins his story about Linda, his lover, at the end of his overall story.