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Theme Of Women In The Things They Carried

773 Words4 Pages

Victoria Gain
Mr. Townsend
English IIA
26 January 2023
In The Things They Carried, The way Jimmy Cross and other soldiers view women like Martha exemplifies how their fantasy of women in the war environment stray far away from reality and the views of these women.
At the time of Ted Lavender's death, Jimmy Cross is thinking about this girl from home named Martha. He creates this fake fantasy and develops a strong desire for Martha, which has definitely grown stronger while he is away at war. As O’Brien explains, “Lieutenant Cross kept to himself. He pictured Martha's smooth young face, thinking he loved her more than anything, more than his men, and now Ted Lavender was dead because he loved her so much and could not stop thinking about …show more content…

he considered asking her to his room, but instead he laughed and told her how back in college he’d almost done something very brave…he’d almost picked her up and carried her to his room and tied her to the bed and put his hand on her knee and just held it there all night long” but Martha responds coldly, as she “shut her eyes. She crossed her arms at her chest, as if suddenly cold, rocking slightly, then after a time she looked at him and said she was glad he hadn’t tried it. She didn’t understand how men could do those things. What things? he asked, and Martha said, "The things men do” (28). This combination of closing her eyes, crossing her arms and rocking slightly all suggest some kind of trauma that Cross is completely oblivious to. He creates this idea and need for her, and this is unsettling for Martha. When she finds out what he wanted to do after they saw Bonnie and Clyde, she is extremely uncomfortable, and rightfully so. She is also confused about why he would think of doing such …show more content…

The combination of the shame he has and the love he has for Martha continues throughout the story. (6), shows how Jimmy feels responsible for the death of Ted. To further support, another description from O’Brien, “He felt shame. He hated himself. 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.” (16) This reflection by Cross supports how he feels responsible for the death of Ted Lavender. He willingly admits how he plays a very big role in his death because he is thinking about Martha. He blames himself and knows that this is something he will have to carry with him

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Costing him the life of his friend and brother in combat, Ted Lavender. He never would forgive himself for Lavender’s death, how could he? These men were his responsibility and he was more focused on a girl on the other side of the earth. He felt the weight of guilt crawl slowly up his back and make it’s home deep in his rucksack, never to be relieved. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross wanted to find a way to ease his grieving heart.

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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.

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He feels guilty because the men in his company are under his command and he was supposed to keep them safe, but he failed because he wasn’t paying attention. He kept daydreaming about Martha, who Lieutenant Cross had a crush on, when he should’ve been paying attention to the battle happening at the time. And as a result, he blames his obsession on Martha and himself for the death of Ted. To atone for the death of Ted, Lieutenant Cross decided to burn “Martha’s letters” (Tim O'Brien 22), pictures, and threw away a pebble that Martha had given him. He threw away all reminders of Martha to make sure that the memory of Martha would never distract him again so that his men won’t have to die like Ted

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He would sometimes taste the evelope flaps, knowing her tangue had been there. More than anything he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her, but the latters were mostly chatty, elusive on the matter of love." From this quote we can his love for Martha, the way he still had feelings at War , where you had to be focus on serviving and not making a space for love. Martha represents love, even through the fact that she never loved Jimmy Cross, his love for her keeped him alive, she helped him to go through the day. He imagined how one day after war they will be together, he carries her photograph<

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This is made clearer when Jimmy Cross blames himself for Ted Lavender's death, as O’Brien explains, “He felt shame. He hated himself. 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” (16). Jimmy’s decision to place the tragedy upon himself shows how quick soldiers try to resolve traumatic experiences, subconsciously setting themselves up to rot with the emotional burdens they create. Moreover, O’Briens simile instantiates the emotional vulnerability of soldiers which distinctly outweighs the horrors of war by creating endless stress and

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From our initial introduction we can see that Lieutenant Cross is distracted and not focusing on the war he’s fighting in. Instead, Cross’ mind is on a young girl back home who he is not even sure reciprocates his deep love for her but he clings to her memory because a sweetheart is often one of the few escapes from war a soldier has. “On occasion he would yell at his men to spread out the column, to keep their eyes open, but then he would slip away into daydreams, just pretending, walking barefoot along the Jersey shore, with Martha, carrying nothing” (O’Brien, 641). Cross does this throughout the story, drifting in between the war and his imaginary Martha, and it doesn’t pose an issue for him until an April afternoon.

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Jimmy Cross carried letters and some photograph of a girl named Martha, he loved Martha so much. He kept the letters safe by putting them in his rucksack, and when he rewrite her letters he would imagine them together, “imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains” (O’Brien 3). He would imagine being with Martha and daydream and he would sometimes daydream about her and how he wants to tie her up in bed and touch her leg all day and how he wants to be the one who gets to make her no longer a virgin. Moreover when Ted Lavender got shot in the head, Cross felt responsible for his death because he was the lieutenant and all he has been doing is daydreaming about a girl that doesn’t love him back. After the death of Ted Lavender, Cross started to change his colors by letting go if Martha and focusing more on the war.

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