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The things they carried summary
The things they carried summary
The things they carried by tim o'brien page 186
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Shame and self-hatred surface when Lieutenant Cross realizes “…Ted Lavender [is] dead because he [loves] her [Martha] so much and [cannot] stop thinking about her” (326). Furthermore, the pebble that once symbolized his affection for Martha is replaced with a figurative “stone in his stomach” (332), representative of his guilt. In order to begin to remove his distracting infatuation with Martha, Cross takes the following action: “On the morning after Ted Lavender [dies], First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross [crouches] at the bottom of his foxhole and [burns] Martha’s letters. Then he [burns] the two photographs” (336). Cross’ burning of Martha’s letters and photographs is a physical representation of the transformation in his personality and priorities.
Though some were beneficial in helping them return home, some were fatal distractions. The author Tim O’Brien shows us these items to help us identify who these men were and what they could not leave behind. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross brought letters that a woman named Martha whom he was infatuated with wrote for him. The two were not in a relationship but in Jimmy’s mind, they were. The letters he kept from Martha were not love letters but Jimmy had felt they were in a romantic relationship.
He couldn’t help it (432).” This tells you that he is still just a boy at this point, but he knows that he should not be thinking of Martha he should be worrying about the lives of his men. Even so, Lavender is now dead and Jimmy holds himself responsible: “He would dispose of his good luck pebble. Swallow it, maybe… (437).” Mainly he is trying to get rid of all feelings for Martha, he cared more for her and himself, but he does care also about his
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
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is in a war instead of his crush Martha. She is 13,982 Kilometers away studying at college in New Jersey. Lieutenant Cross is concerned that Martha does not have the same intense love for him as he does for her. Jimmy’s emotions eventually hinder his judgement and his ability to stay focused. This results in one of the men in his platoon to lose his life.
Tim O’Brien is the narrator of “The Things They Carried” recalls his personal experience in the Vietnam War. Tim writes about Jimmy Cross who is the lieutenant goes into battle with several men in his charge. Lieutenant Cross doesn’t show that his is a born leader in the beginning of the story in fact Jimmy appears to be unsure of everything he does. Lieutenant Cross does show that he is brave when he led all his men through the war. Lieutenant Cross also shows that he is a leader and has integrity when he suffer the death of the men that lost their life’s so that the troops didn’t have to bear the brunt, or the guilt, and the confusion.
The character, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, holds onto the hope of being with his love back home, Martha. Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey, sends him love letters, except they are not actually love letters. The book states, “They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack,” (p. 1). The lieutenant would imagine Martha and him together, and the thought of her touching those letters would run through his mind.
In the things they carried by Tim O’brien, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was deeply in love with Martha. But one day when a soldier was killed under his watch, he blamed Martha for his death, and wanted to forget all about her. This was the day after Ted's death, “Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha's letters” (O’Brien 22). The letters of Martha was the only thing that he had to remind him of her. Burning the letters symbolized destroying Martha from his life.
The soldiers all carried different things that were either special to them or comforted them. Consequently, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross had the fear of the unknown with the love he carried for Martha, she would send letters and photographs and she would sign them love (368), he knew she didn’t love him in the same way he loved her and he would daydream about her. “She sent a pebble to him from her time at the Jersey shoreline and he would carry this pebble and she said it was a token of her truest feelings for him” (371). He had the fear of the unknown not knowing how she felt for him.
But after he lost a member of the group, Ted Lavender, he blamed his thoughts for Martha as the cause of his death. He then started living for his war family and not for seeing Martha again. He even went on burn all her letters and threw away the pebble she had given him. He realized that at war, he could not continue to live in the fantasy in his head. He had to be where he was, and he was
In the short story “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, he first starts talking about named Jimmy Cross. He is a first lieutenant in the military, fighting in the Vietnam War, who is in love with a girl named Martha. Martha is a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. She writes him letters and has sent him two pictures, he carries them everywhere he goes in a plastic bag. His love for her is one sided, he knows she does not love him, but he still imagines her being his.
When someone experiences a terrible loss in their life usually they can cope with it in a multitude of ways. Some cope with it through deep mournful trials, replace the terrible moment with a more light and peaceful moment, block it out entirely, or they relive the event that caused the loss of that close friend or loved one over and over in their head. These coping mechanisms are evidently used in the entire cast of characters in the short story The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. In the story the characters experience the loss of a member in their unit during a patrol through the jungles of Vietnam. After they experience the loss of their comrade in arms the entire unit undergoes a process of mourning in their own distinct way.
Emotionally dragging people down one by one, war brings sweat, tears, and blood. Although soldiers do carry many physical items, each individual also carries responsibilities which are not visible, but tend to weigh one down immensely, such as the lives of men. In the novel The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, he describes the items which the soldiers carried such as “taking up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. They carried infections.
Cross blames himself, knowing “He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead…” (p. 121). First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is distracted by his infatuation for Martha, which ultimately results in Ted Lavender’s death, forcing Cross to realize his fantasies for Martha are wrong and that he is not fulfilling his duties as a lieutenant. Lieutenant Cross is inattentive to the war and his responsibilities because he is unable and unwilling to stop thinking about his adoration for Martha.
In the story written by Tim O’Brien called “The Things They Carried”, he tells a story set during a war about the evolution of young soldiers as their mindset is affected by what they see and feel. The soldiers each carry physical and emotional weights that allow them to keep their humanity but in war, the same things that are valued in the outside world become a distraction and potentially fatal. While Martha is not physically fighting the mind with them she is subconsciously in the mind of Lieutenant Cross. Martha represents everything war is not, she represents innocence, love, and affection, that to him is a way to get away from what’s going on around him. Martha is described as a very artistic person; she is a junior at Saint Sebastian college and in the letters Lieutenant cross carries with him she writes in a very beautiful way about trivial things like her professors, roommates and her midterm exams.
