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Things They Carried By Sherman Alexie And Tim O Brien

800 Words4 Pages

“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.” (Sue Monk Kidd). In The Things They Carried, O’Brien is clear in saying that he would agree with this as without stories, people would be very blind about their past and in some cases, what to do in the future. Sherman Alexie and Tim O‘Brien tell stories to help teach people, or show that people are naturally good at heart but they’re ideas can change based on events that they experience or witness in their lives. People tell stories to teach the younger generation about real life society. In this part, Alexie is explaining his father's love for books and how that same love and passion was passed down to him. But Alexie knew that books …show more content…

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.Jimmy Cross is blaming Martha to hide his own guilt, when in reality ted's death was nobody's fault but the enemy. This proves how people change under conflict. In the things they carried by Tim O’brien, there is a story of how two enemies become friends to survive in the Vietnam War. The story starts with Dave Jensen beating a man by the name of Strunk, but as the war drags on they become friends. “Over the next month they often teamed up on ambushes, they covered each other on patrol, shared a foxhole, took turns pulling guard at night.” (O’Brien 62) After times of struggle, Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk had become good friends and tried to take care of each other The relationship of Jensen and Strunk is a perfect example of how people change under conflict, because of the drastic change from hatred to friendship between two

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The Dentist "He kept replaying his own exploits, tacking on little flourishes that never happened" (82). Now, the question, "Which is more important—story-truth or happening-truth?" is asked. This above quote from Tim O 'Brein gently represents how a little thing called story-truth happens. The greatest difference between story and happening-truth is the simple fact that happening-truth reveals actual events that have occurred, whereas story-truth, which Tim O 'Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, heavily emphasizes, is subjectively reflecting a person 's thoughts and feelings when recounting a tale, and putting theme above all else. The importance of the two is where everything lies, where the author of the novel pushes for story

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How Did Lieutenant Jimmy Cross Get Responsible For The Loss In The Things They Carried

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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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Alexie not only read books, he also read cereal boxes, newspapers,

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“The things they carried were largely determined by necessity” (O’Brien 102). The weight of war is a theme strongly represented in Tim O’Brien’s story, The Things They Carried. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross starts off with no desire to be in a leadership position, because of his immaturity, his love for Martha, and inability to handle the responsibilities of lieutenant many of his men die. “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” (O’Brien 107). The soldiers carried many burdens, they carried: diseases, good luck charms, pencils, intangibles, memories, fear, responsibility, and on top of all this they carried

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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.

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The Red Convertible 'And The Things They Carried By Tim O' Brien

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From their perspectives we learn that Jimmy could burn his mementos from Martha, but he “could not burn the blame” for not being more alert before Lavender’s death. All of the soldier’s notice him crying the night it happened, but they notice how he accepts responsibility for the death the next morning and how he promises to take better care of the platoon from there on out. In Piedmont-Marton’s critical essay she discusses how Jimmy is reacting to the loss, “His alienation from the group now derives from his understanding that “you could die of carelessness and gross stupidity,” and that he is responsible for the others. He experiences this choice between Martha and his duty as a loss: “It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside.

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He decided to burn Martha’s letters and photographs, but he realized that he could not burn away the blame, (O’Brien, 103). Regardless of how much he loved her, the new Jimmy Cross would not care more about a girl than his own men ever

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Storytelling has such a large impact on all stages of life. Stories are told to teach a lesson, give hope, or get someone through a hard time. Tim O’Brien uses storytelling in his book, The Things They Carried, to teach lessons from war, and help readers understand about the baggage people bring to war. The publisher section of this novel has this warning in it, "This is a work of fiction. Except for a few details regarding the author's own life all incidents, names, and characters are imaginary” (O'Brien).

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Along with his military gear, O’Brien states, “Lieutenant Jimmy Cross humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps” (p. 115). Cross loves Martha, and “More than anything, he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her” (p. 114), but is unsure of whether she loves him back. Despite his uncertainty,

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Now to me it would have great meaning if they were letters from someone who was close to me like a spouse or child but Lieutenant Jimmy Cross has no real relationship with Martha. In fact he mentions how “They were signed “Love, Martha” but Lieutenant Cross understood that “Love” was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant.” To me it is difficult to understand why he carried her letters around when he knew she did not love him, to me importance is based on mutual feelings. I could not carry unnecessary things from someone who may not mourn me if I was killed in action but to Lieutenant Jimmy Cross they held great

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159 Words | 1 Pages

In The Things They Carried, O'Brien explores how shame can be shown in different ways for soldiers, including shame over their own actions, shame over their weaknesses, and shame over their inability to connect with or help others. One of the most notable examples of shame in the novel is the character of Jimmy Cross, who feels intense shame and guilt over the death of one of his men, Ted Lavender. Cross blames himself for Lavender's death, feeling that he was too distracted by his own thoughts of Martha to properly lead his army. This shame continues to trouble Cross long after the incident, even after he has left Vietnam.

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1430 Words | 6 Pages

“The worst affected from corruption is the common man” Kailash Kher. In a collection of short stories, Tim O’Brien writes about his horrific experiences during the Vietnam War in The Things They Carried. He recounts the graphic details of morbid ordeals he and his platoon encounter. They are forced to undergo extreme situations where they murder hundreds of Vietnamese and suffer loss. Overtime, the soldiers suffer mentally and face the consequences of their actions.

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Humans are given the gift of sight; one of the many remarkable features people share. To be able to visually see the beauty of nature is a great deal to human existence, especially when it comes from artistic matters such as pictures, videos, paintings etc. A book compared to a movie is like comparing a picture to the description of it. The description may have deeper meaning and a guide to the main point of why and where the picture was taken, but when a picture is being viewed, it is up to the audience to adopt on what the meaning behind the photograph is. It gives an opportunity of freethinking and opinion.

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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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Since he was unable to read, all he could do was look at his father’s books and admire them. As a result, an epiphany occurred and he was able to clearly comprehend the meaning of a paragraph, even though he didn’t know the technical term “paragraph”. Alexie began to see his world as in relation to paragraphs. At the same time, he began looking at Superman comic books, which displayed pictures that described the actions that were written. He would describe what the figure was doing and “read” it as though those were the words that were printed.

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