Necessity in O'Brein's The Things they Carried

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RR- “The Things They Carried”

What’s More Important?

Necessity can usually be described as something or someone that is needed. However, this word has different meanings and is based solely on what the individual requires for his or her survival. These needs may increase or become distorted as he or she finds themselves in a life-or-death situation such as war. Circumstances may also provoke an average person to become emotionally distressed and thus the desire to hold on to all that he can. Despite the fact that these "necessary" items or ideas that he clings to may impair the person, abandoning them may seem impossible. This is the case in Tim O’Brien’s, “The Things They Carried.” For First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, while struggling to say alive during the Vietnam War, he is forced to deal with the emotional burdens that come with his title. His only escapes are pictures of his beloved, Martha and the idea of reuniting again.

As the story begins, O’Brien lists the basic items soldiers carried with them in order to survive. They carried, “P-38 ...

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