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Love In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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In 1990, Tim O’Brien published a powerful collection of short stories that was carefully composed into the novel, The Things They Carried. This novel has allowed many readers to gain insight on the appalling, yet realistic aspects of the Vietnam War that are otherwise not typically shared. O’Brien takes specific events from his own war life and applies them to stories in which various characters learn lessons on integrity, politics, rationality, life, and love. Without a doubt, O’Brien tackles difficult themes regarding life at war that allows others to feel the pain and horror that the characters are experiencing. Beyond the plethora of the themes shared, O’Brien specifically emphasizes how difficult situations can test the strength of love …show more content…

Love, however, does not automatically refer to the cliche notions of romance and pleasure that fiction novels commonly portray. Love, rather, is a symbolic theme that explains the level of dedication and commitment that one not only holds with their significant other, but also others that surround that person, with the places near them, and most importantly, with themselves. The connection between Martha and Lieutenant Jimmy Cross suggests unrealistic love. The two characters clearly have an unhealthy relationship, and this can be seen by Lieutenant Cross’ overly affectionate obsession with Martha. This one-sided love causes for a great deal of tension and conflict. Out of respect for his fellow soldiers, Cross attempts to flee his obsessions with Martha and strictly focus on the war. To perform such a dramatic transition, Cross burns the letters and the two pictures he has of Martha, “Stupid he thought. Sentimental, too, but mostly stupid.” (23) The juxtaposition of these two opposing ideas shines light onto the intense dedication Cross has with this relationship. He has put so much unnecessary thought into his relationship, while Martha tends to see him as simply an acquaintance. The allusion, “Mount Sebastian…” (24), is delivered strategically throughout this passage. As yet another way to explain this one-sided relationship, O’Brien alludes to Mount Sebastian, which is the college Martha attended as a youth. The reference to this location emphasizes the extent of the separation between the two individuals and the impact it has on their love. In addition, the following sentence states, “...it was a another world…” (24) which also explains how distance can affect the love shared by two people. Cross understood that the possibility of the two of them having a romantic relationship was not realistic, however, his obsession with her and the idea of love prevented him from

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205 Words | 1 Pages

Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, of the Alpha Company, carries various reminders of his love for Martha, a girl from his college in New Jersey who has given no indication of returning his love. Cross carries her letters in his backpack and her good-luck pebble in his mouth. After a long day’s march, he unwraps her letters and imagines the prospect of her returning his love someday. Martha is an English major who writes letters that quote lines of poetry and never mention the war. Though the letters are signed “Love, Martha” Cross understands that this gesture should not give him false hope.

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817 Words | 4 Pages

Single-Sentence Summary: Lieutenant Cross visits Tim O’Brien; the two of them share coffee and cigarettes reminiscing about the war and Lieutenant Cross’s old love Martha. Explanation: Lieutenant Cross spent a lot of time in “The Things They Carried” talking about his love for Martha. In the second chapter titled “Love” O’Brien ties up the loose ends of the story he started. I choose this line because it confirms all of Cross’s suspicions that how she signed the letters “Love Martha” was only a figure of speech that she did not love him. I choose it because the passage it provides closure.

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963 Words | 4 Pages

Everything start with this guy called Jimmy Cross a leader who was in love with Martha like in page 42 “He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war.” Martha was a college student in New Jersey and he usually carried letters from her but not love letters. He has some specials descriptions of her, one of the most mentioned it's that she was virgin, she had a virgin appearance that was one of the thing he most appreciated from her. The realistic feeling that I felt with this book were uniques. I have never readed a book like this before.

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751 Words | 4 Pages

In war, soldiers and civilians will experience the loss of friends and families. In Tim O’Brien’s work, The Things They Carried, the reader is introduced to soldiers fighting in the Vietnam war who lose their comrades’ loves due to mishaps. These soldiers in combat, along with civilians, learn to accept or become numb towards death by understanding the situation they are in and by finding comfort in oblivion. Early in the plot, the reader is made aware of how the soldiers comprehend their allies’ deaths. According to the author, when Lieutenant Cross’ team was contemplating about who is to enter the tunnel, “Lee Strunk drew the number 17” then he laughed (O’Brien 10).

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800 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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1530 Words | 7 Pages

Along with his usual gear, though, he carries with him the burden of not being able to be with his girlfriend and , “walking barefoot along the Jersey Shore, with Martha, carrying nothing,” (O’Brien 1480). Therefore in order to forget this burden Cross carries a pebble in his mouth because it is one Martha picked up, and he also stares at pictures of her in his foxhole every night. This is what keeps Cross, in a sense, sane during the war because he can escape the horrors around him and at the same time witness something beautiful and peaceful in a place that would be considered ugly and horrendous. Cross’s escape from the war can be contrasted to the poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” in the sense that the speaker in this poem cannot escape the war he is in, but rather he has to face it every day without a break in the war since the troops have to march on until the soldier’s, “distant rest began to trudge,” (N).

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618 Words | 3 Pages

Lt. Jimmy Cross was head over heels for this girl named Martha. He wrote her everyday, and he carried her picture everywhere. Some years after the war he met up with Martha at a class reunion. He told her how he felt about her and she did not share the same feelings as he did; she let him out to dry, rejected him.

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230 Words | 1 Pages

He is responsible for the death of Lavender. Through his guilt, Lieutenant Cross arrives at the realization that Martha will never love him in the way he wants her to, and his love for her turns into hatred. Cross, to ease his guilt, burns Martha’s letters and photographs. As the fire reduces Martha’s photographs and

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1292 Words | 6 Pages

Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.

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483 Words | 2 Pages

In the first chapter, the author lists things some of the men in Lt. Cross’ corps carry. Some items were necessities and some gave the reader ideas of what kind of person one was based on their possessions. Lt. Cross carried photographs, such as a girl named Martha, playing volleyball or in front of a brick wall. Letters signed love at the end of them, and a lucky pebble from a girl he was infatuated with. From these personal items, we can clearly see that he loves this girl and keeps her close to his heart.

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986 Words | 4 Pages

People often reminisce about the decisive victories and suffering defeats of war, but the overwhelming horrors and tragedies of the actual soldiers are often overlooked. Because of this harsh truth, Tim O’Brien sheds light on the physical and psychological burdens on the life of a common soldier through his autobiography, The Things They Carried. Despite all the atrocities found in the Vietnam War, O’Brien still manages to appreciate life and all the people around him. Through all of this, everyone who reads this book can learn something new about the world around them in addition to something about themselves. Ultimately, The Things They Carried should stay in the curriculum because it truly shows the terrors and hardships of war, exemplifies

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982 Words | 4 Pages

Plato once said, “ Only the dead have seen the end of the war”. Tim O’Brien is the protagonist of the novel The Things They Carry. He describes the events that occurred in the middle of his Vietnam experience. The book was written to share his memories and O'Brien's own stories. In those stories we discover characters like Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Kiowa,Dave Jensen and many others whom he served with in the war.

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655 Words | 3 Pages

Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is stories centered around the American soldiers in the Vietnam war. O’Brien explains how the harsh atmosphere of war can mentally and physically traumatize a soldier. In order to escape this atmosphere some men fantasize about the women they love. The men do not think of the women as people with their own thoughts and feelings, instead they think of them as forms of comfort or motivation for survival. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Mark Fossie profess to hate the women they love because the women do not fulfil the fantasies the men have created.

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688 Words | 3 Pages

“That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future ... Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (36). The Things They Carried is a captivating novel that gives an inside look at the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War through the personal stories of the author, Tim O’Brien . Having been in the middle of war, O’Brien has personal experiences to back up his opinion about the war.

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601 Words | 3 Pages

When she came aware of the obsession Jimmy Cross had for her eventually it turned her off . In The things they Carried Martha and Jimmy Cross situation is a symbol of love that Jimmy cross have

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