“The Things They Carried” is a unique piece of writing by Vietnam war veteran, Tim O’Brien. It’s not a novel, short story, or even a memoir. It can be better described as many sections, put together to give readers a view into the burdens of war. They are told in a mixture of third person narrative, and centralized first person narrative. O’Brien has structured this story to focus on emotions. He does this by putting its readers into the subconscious mind of Lt. Jimmy Cross, and his platoon members. To me, this is done in two layers; the first layer is the story of Lt. Jimmy Cross, and the second layer is the “weight” of what the men had to carry.
In the first layer, you get to know the story of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, a “kid at war” (O’Brien 138). We immediately learn that the Lieutenant is preoccupied with thoughts of Martha, his love that he had been forced to leave at home. He’d often imagine what they’re life would be like if they were together. He wondered what her life was like at Mount Sebastian, and of all the things he could have done with her when he had the chance. “He had difficulty keeping his attention on the war” (O’Brien 135). Even during high stress situations, Martha was the only thing on his mind (O’Brien 137). While worrying about the life of one of his men, Lee Strunk, Cross was still able to think of her. Through
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He uses repetition in his writing of “The Things They Carried”, but he does it in such a well written way that none of it is redundant. While the story moves on, certain scenes are retold with more and more details. Within the first two pages, we know the fate of Ted Lavender. His death is brought up multiple times afterwards, each time with more a little more detail. This is something I struggle with in writing, and enjoyed the sporadic way O’Brien accomplished this. His way of telling you what happened, but still leaving you wanting more is captivating to the
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...
Lt. Jimmy Cross is extremely affected by Martha as his one time girlfriend; he is obsessed with even the thought of her.-- So obsessed with her, he even becomes distracted to the point an accident occurs for which he blames himself for the longest time. That Martha was a distracting factor shown through Tim’s observations of Lt. Cross. He loved her so much. On the march, through the hot days of early April, he carried the pebble in his mouth, turning it with his tongue, tasting sea salt and moisture. His mind wandered.
The things they carried, by Tim O'Brien. "Oh man, you fuckin' trashed the fucker. You scrambled his sorry self, look at that, you did, you laid him out like fuckin' Shredded Wheat." I chose to start off my essay with this particular extract from the book because I think that it very much represents the story in itself. Azar said this, after Tim (supposedly) killed a Vietnamese soldier with a hand grenade. It shows that in times of war, how callous men can become. However, callousness varies, whether they choose to be apathetic, like Tim shows us after his grenade episode.
O'Brien's repeated use of the phrase "they carried" attempts to create a realization in the reader that soldiers in wars always carry some kind of weight; there is always some type of burden that servicemen and women will forever hold onto both throughout the war and long after it has finished. The specification of what the soldier bear shows that the heaviness is both physical and emotional and in most cases the concrete objects carried manifest into the continued emotional distress that lasts a lifetime (sentence about what they carry from novel) "The Things They Carried" emphasis this certain phrase in order for those that do not have the experience of going to understand the constant pressure of burdens they are under. O'Brien draws on
To begin with, both Lieutenant Cross and the boy in “Araby” showed a level of immaturity by acting the way they did towards the girls they loved. In “The Things They Carried” Cross touched Martha’s left knee while they were at a movie. He constantly thought about that moment and was completely obsessed. His obsession is evident in they story when it states “Right then, he thought, he should’ve done something brave. He should’ve carried her up the stairs to her room and tied her to the bed and touched that left knee all night long” (O’Brien 936). Misinterpreting such a simple gesture and turning it into a sexual fantasy shows immaturity. In “Araby” the boy also made more of a situation than it actually was in reality. When he finally talked to the girl he was obsessed with, he took the conversation the wrong way. She expressed to him that she was not able to attend the bazaar because she had to go to a retreat. He responded “If I go, I ...
In the short story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, each soldier carries many items during times of war and strife, but each necessity differs. This short story depicts what each soldier carries mentally, physically, and emotionally on his shoulders as long, fatiguing weeks wain on during the Vietnam War. Author Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam War veteran, an author, the narrator, and a teacher. The main character, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, is a Vietnam War soldier who is away at war fighting a mind battle about a woman he left behind in New Jersey because he is sick with love while trying to fulfill his duties as a soldier to keep America free. Tim O’Brien depicts in “The Things They Carried” a troubled man who also shoulders the burden of guilt when he loses one of his men to an ambush.
Written by author Tim O’Brien after his own experience in Vietnam, “The Things They Carried” is a short story that introduces the reader to the experiences of soldiers away at war. O’Brien uses potent metaphors with a third person narrator to shape each character. In doing so, the reader is able to sympathize with the internal and external struggles the men endure. These symbolic comparisons often give even the smallest details great literary weight, due to their dual meanings. The symbolism in “The Things They Carried” guides the reader through the complex development of characters by establishing their humanity during the inhumane circumstance of war, articulating what the men need for emotional and spiritual survival, and by revealing the character’s psychological burdens.
In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien the author tells about his experiences in the Vietnam war by telling various war stories. The quote, "It has been said of war that it is a world where the past has a strong grip on the present, where machines seemed sometimes to have more will power than me, where nice boys (girls) were attracted to them, where bodies ruptured and burned and stand, where the evil thing trying to kill you could look disconnecting human and where except in your imagination it was impossible to be heroic." relates to each of his stories.
Symbolism in stories is dependent on how the author writes, the title, and the characters. Titles in literature are very important to the symbolism of a story an example of this is Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”. As the story goes on it shows not only the literal meaning of what they carried but also symbolically the burdens that they had mentally.
O’Brien’s repetition emphasizes how the soldiers carried things emotionally. He uses “They carried” to emphasize the importance of the phrase. He uses “They carried” to emphasize how the soldiers struggled when they were in war. Another form of rhetoric O’Brien uses to aid the reader is his repetition. He tends to begin most of the sentences with “They carried.” In addition to this O’Brien occasionally switches the word carried for other actions: “endured, kept, imagined, crawled, spoke, or did not submit.” This mixture of actions words/phrases, in combination with “they,” allows the reader to view the men in many different dimensions at once. Persistent men, cowardly men, delusional men and etc…. O’Brien adds to the reading experience when he does this and again allows the reader to truly understand the burden of the war through the eyes of the Alpha
The novel, “The Things They Carried”, is about the experiences of Tim O’Brian and his fellow platoon members during their time fighting in the Vietnam War. They face much adversity that can only be encountered in the horrors of fighting a war. The men experience death of friends, civilians, enemies and at points loss of their rationale. In turn, the soldiers use a spectrum of methods to cope with the hardships of war, dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions all allow an escape from the horrors of Vietnam that they experience most days.
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.
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. ...
The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War, but in reality, the book centers around the relationships the men make, their connections to the world they left behind and the connections that they formed to Vietnam. The stories are not war stories, but stories about love, respect and the bonds made between men when they spend day after day fighting just to stay alive.
The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about the Vietnam War that the author, Tim O’Brien, uses to convey his experiences and feelings about the war. The book is filled with stories about the men of Alpha Company and their lives in Vietnam and afterwards back in the United States. O’Brien captures the reader with graphic descriptions of the war that make one feel as if they were in Vietnam. The characters are unique and the reader feels sadness and compassion for them by the end of the novel. To O’Brien the novel is not only a compilation of stories, but also a release of the fears, sadness, and anger that he has felt because of the Vietnam War.