How Does Jimmy Cross Tell The Story In Chapter 1 Of The Things They Carried

In the chapter “The Things They Carried” the author conveys the both literal and figurative things the characters are carrying with them. While the characters carry heavy physical loads, they also carry heavy emotional loads. These emotions they carry are love, grief, and innocence. Each man’s physical burden was never more than their emotional burden. The chapter depicts love as an emotion that is carried as it talks about soldiers who carry physical things needed like a poncho, bug repellent, rations, and how "They all carried ghosts". Lieutenant Jimmy Cross likes to carry letters. Cross carried the letters as reminders of his love for Martha, a girl from his college. He also has no indication of her returning his love, but Cross still

In this chapter, Lieutenant Cross shows deep grief over what happened to Ted Lavender. Cross was distracted that day, wondering whether Martha was a virgin or not. As the soldiers waited for the helicopter to carry Lavender's body away, they smoked his marijuana and told jokes, and because he carried tranquilizers they said he was probably too high to feel pain when he was shot. The methods of dealing with their grief were substance abuse, and joking around just to make it all seem like it was not real. Cross doesn’t participate in any of this, as he feels too guilty to mourn in this way. It was the morning after Lavender's death that Cross burned Martha's letters, and he plans to never again fantasize over Martha and focus on the war. Another soldier Kiowa deals with Lavender's death just repeating in marvels at how quickly Lavender fell and repeating “he was zipping up his pants one second dead, the next.” Kiowa also described his death as a brick of concrete

For the majority of the chapter, Cross carried his mind in thoughts of Martha. He was obsessed with matters such as why she signed her letters “love”, and if she did love him or if that was just formality. Cross is unable to grieve in the ways his soldiers do; he distances himself and decides it’s better to be a leader than to be loved. The weight of the responsibility he carries for his men outweighed his love for Martha. The grieving process out-weighed his fantasies of love. This chapter explored how war can mess with the mind. O’Brien even mentions "Imagination was a killer" when describing a time when they had to wait on soldiers to tell them a tunnel was clear to enter. This quote leads us to believe that the fear was scarier than an actual