The novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’ Brien takes place in the Vietnam War. The protagonist, Lieutenant Cross, is a soldier who is madly in love with a college student named Martha. He carries around photos and letters from her. However, the first few chapters illustrate how this profound love makes him weak in the war.
Lieutenant Cross is a character who, until the death of a soldier, has been very loose and not taken the war seriously. He had let his soldiers throw away their supplies, take drugs, and sing happy songs in the middle of the serious war. He was only concerned with Martha; he dreamt about being with her, and he was delighted when he received letters from her. Tim O’Brien says, “Slowly, a bit distracted, he would get up and move among his men, checking the perimeter, then at full dark he would return to his hole and watch the night and wonder if Martha was a virgin.” (p. 2) This shows how all he cared about was Martha; he was not paying attention to his real life and his surroundings. He was basically living in a world of fantasy because they lived in two separate worlds. Being unable to wake up from this dream made him potentially weak because his mind was always wandering elsewhere, never in the current situation. This made him an easy target for his enemies because if this had gone on, then he would start to fear death, fear fighting, and fear the war. He would become a coward because he would wish for the day when he could be with Martha again after the war. This would greatly weaken him and his army both, and they would most likely lose to the enemy.
Another weakness that resulted from this love is shown when he says, “Right then, he thought, he should’ve done something brave. He should’ve carried her ...
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...ghts and memories with Martha. However, his current denial to accept and face reality is what is causing him to be bullied by his emotions, which is making him weaker. This will make him both physically and mentally weak; he will no longer be concentrated on the real world, and he will be constantly worrying about whether or not Martha really loved him. He does not realize that he has a greater problem to be thinking about, not just in his small world. The fate of Vietnam was in his hands.
Thus, Lieutenant Cross is weak because he loved Martha, he was always distracted from the real world, and he always wished to return to his normal life not in the war. This will make him both physically and mentally weak, making him an easy target for enemies. This is how love may affect soldiers during battle. Therefore, I think that soldiers should not love when they are at war.
One of the first women introduced to the reader is Martha. Martha is Lt. Jimmy Cross's love interest, even though she has only ever considered him as a friend and nothing more. O'Brien's uses the story of him and his misguidedness to show how the soldiers were completely separated from the war. After the war is over, the soldiers returned home attempting to get back to their normal lives. But as was shown with Cross and Martha, it didn’t turn out that way. Trying to cope with all the death that he found in Vietnam, Cross does not believe that Martha isn't a virgin and believes that they still could have a life together. This was meant to be a comfort and safety mechanism when he was possibly faced with rejection and death all around him. It got to the point that it was all he thought about up to Ted lavenders death. Trying to rid himself of the guilt he “burned Martha’s letters. The he burned the two photographs… He realized it was only a gesture… you couldn’t burn away the blame” (O’Brien 23) This shows that he knew that his obsessions with Martha is what lead to the death of ted Lavender, and even when he reali...
Vietnam War was one of the hardest wars ever fought. There are several reasons for this statement. It was basically impossible to conquer the territory because there were no boundaries. The soldiers had to put up with the climate, land, diseases and most importantly themselves. This essay is about yet another reason: the relationship between the soldiers and the officers.
One of the main characters in the short story “The Things They Carried”, written by Tim O’Brien, is a twenty-four year old Lieutenant named Jimmy Cross. Jimmy is the assigned leader of his infantry unit in the Vietnam War, but does not assume his role accordingly. Instead, he’s constantly daydreaming, along with obsessing, over his letters and gifts from Martha. Martha is a student at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey, Jimmy’s home state. He believes that he is in love with Martha, although she shows no signs of loving him. This obsession is a fantasy that he uses to escape from reality, as well as, take his mind off of the war that surrounds him, in Vietnam. The rest of the men in his squad have items that they carry too, as a way of connecting to their homes. The story depicts the soldiers by the baggage that they carry, both mentally and physically. After the death of one of his troops, Ted Lavender, Jimmy finally realizes that his actions have been detrimental to the squad as a whole. He believes that if he would have been a better leader, that Ted Lavender would have never been shot and killed. The physical and emotional baggage that Jimmy totes around with him, in Vietnam, is holding him back from fulfilling his responsibilities as the First Lieutenant of his platoon. Jimmy has apparent character traits that hold him back from being the leader that he needs to be, such as inexperience and his lack of focus; but develops the most important character trait in the end, responsibility.
In the book “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien uses imagery, figurative language and repetition to convey his message. O’Brien’s purpose for story telling, is to clear his conscience of war and to tell the stories of soldiers who were forgotten by society. Many young men were sent to war, despite opposing it. They believed it was “wrong” to be sent to their deaths. Sadly, no one realizes a person’s significance until they die. Only remembering how they lived rather than acknowledging their existence when they were alive.
In the two novels of recent war literature Redeployment, by Phil Klay, and The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, both call attention to the war’s destruction of its soldiers’ identities. With The Things They Carried, we are introduced to the story of a young Lieutenant Jimmy Cross who is currently fighting in the Vietnam War and holds a deep crush for his college-lover Martha. Jimmy carries many letters from Martha with him throughout the war, and he envisions this romantic illusion in which “more than anything, he want[s] Martha to love him as he love[s] her” (1). However, a conflict quickly transpires between his love for Martha and his responsibilities with the war, in which he is ultimately forced to make a decision between the two.
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross tried to lead his platoon the best he could. Often times Martha would be a distraction for him. In the end Cross gave up his love for Martha for the love of his men and the value of their lives. He gave up everything that kept him willing to live in order to keep the lives of those who he was in charge of.
The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, transports the reader into the minds of veterans of the Vietnam conflict. The Vietnam War dramatically changed Tim O’Brien and his comrades, making their return home a turbulent and difficult transition. The study, titled, The War at Home: Effects of Vietnam-Era Military Service on Post-War Household Stability, uses the draft lottery as a “natural experiment” on the general male population. The purpose of the NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) study is to determine the psychological effects of the Vietnam War on its veterans. In order to do this, they tested four conditions, marital stability, residential stability, housing tenure, and extended family living. However, it neglects the internal ramifications of war that a soldier grapples with in determining whether they are “normal” in their post-war lives. Thus, effects such as alienation from society, insecurity in their daily lives, and the mental trauma that persist decades after the war are not factored in. After reading the NBER study, it is evident that Tim O’Brien intentionally draws the reader to the post-war psychological effects of Vietnam that may not manifest themselves externally. He does this to highlight that while the Vietnam war is over, the war is still raging in the minds of those involved decades later, and will not dissipate until they can expunge themselves of the guilt and blame they feel from the war, and their actions or inaction therein.
the things they carried truth The definition of truth is the epitome of what we all perceive to be reality. Truth is what we sometimes think about in the back of our head, but we are unsure of whether this truth is really “true.” The objective correlative is another term that is used to refer to truth. The objective is to get enough people to feel the same emotion and agree upon it.
A work's infallibility cannot be defined by imagination's input, facts become false when they are exaggerated. The Things They Carried, is a collection of short stories that revolve around The Vietnam War. Tim O'Brien takes the reader back in time to the late 1960s, and contemplates on experiences that emotionally scarred Vietnam soldiers. O'Brien shares multiple war stories that are claimed to be authentic during the war, and migrates to the 1980s in states like Iowa and MA to discuss how these stories have influenced his life. The Things They Carried, is a collection of false war stories, the stories' authenticity is altered in hopes of evoking strong emotions from readers.
Jimmy believes that he truly loves Martha. Although the love from Martha does not seem to be reciprocated. Jimmy says of these letters, “They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping… after as day’s march he would dig his fox hole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with his fingers and spend the last hours of light pretending” (O’Brien 2640). The way that Jimmy pretended night after night that Martha truly loved him shows Jimmy’s innocence in the way of love. He knows logically that Martha does not really love him but the innocence inside him can not help but want her love. He also says of the letters, “ They were signed Love, Martha, but Lieutenant Cross understood that Love was only a way of signing and mean what he sometimes pretended it meant” (O’Brien 2640). This is a continuation of Lieutenant Cross’s pretending. The way the Cross continually pretends that Martha loves him is a way of protecting himself from the truth, to protect his
One of the hardest events that a soldier had to go through during the war was when one of their friends was killed. Despite their heartbreak they could not openly display their emotions. They could not cry because soldiers do not cry. Such an emotional display like crying would be sign of weakness and they didn’t want to be weak, so they created an outlet. “They were actors. When someone died, it wasn’t quite dying because in a curious way it seemed scripted”(19). Of course things were scripted especially when Ted Lavender died. It had happened unexpectedly and if they didn’t have something planned to do while they were coping they would all have broken down especially Lieutenant Cross. Cross...
This also supports his carelessness towards his duty and risking the life of others with him. There were sixteen other soldiers who just marched from sunrise to sunset, and they don't even know what the next step holds for them. The author writes, "After five minutes, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross moved to the tunnel, leaned down, and examined the darkness. Trouble, he thought- a cave- maybe.
One part of the story states that Lieutenant Jimmy loves Martha more than he does the soldier that was killed on his watch. He had no remorse for what happened. However, this was not the only part in the story
His love for Martha was unhealthy and almost obsessive. He still remembers clearly "touching that left knee" of Martha's. Even out in the field he still reminisces how her knee felt. During a mission to destroy some tunnels, Cross imagines the tunnel collapsing on him and Martha. He also wonders if she is still a virgin or not and wonders why her letter are signed "love". This distraction and incompetence of himself lead to the death of one of their fellow soldiers, Ted Lavender. He has been shot and killed, partly because of Cross' lack of focus on the situation. He keeps to himself as he blames the incident on only himself. Shockingly, as they were waiting for a chopper to take his body away, he digs a foxhole. While sitting in the hole, crying, he was also thinking of " Martha's smooth young face, thinking he loved her more than anything, more than his men " at the same time. This abnormal love for Martha has defected his ability to perform his duties as a leader. Martha has possessed him so much that even "without willing it, he was thinking about Martha." This shows that he has lost control on where and when is the right time to think about things like that.
In the first paragraph of the story, Jimmy Cross' rank is noted (First Lieutenant) along with the fact that he "carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey" (434). From the outset, the reader sees that Martha plays a pivotal role in his thoughts and actions. The fact that Jimmy Cross "would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire" after he marched the entire day and dug a foxhole indicates that he thinks often of Martha (434). While these thoughts of a lover back home provide some form of escape for Lt. Cross, they also burden him with the obsessive feelings of unrequited love. ...