ipl-logo

War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

890 Words4 Pages

People go through life experiencing both big and small events. The soldiers had to deal with fear, guilt ,and death at war. These things can change a person for the better, or for the worse, but it’s what they do after the events that make them who they are. For soldiers in war, this is what they have to deal with everyday when they were in Vietnam fighting. Tim O’Brien tells of these stories in The Things They Carried to show how war can change their mentality and their destiny in life. Lt. Jimmy Cross was just a young man that took on the role of leading the men. He carried the responsibility of trying to keep the men of his platoon alive. Whenever he had time he also thought about his love for Martha. For Tim O’Brien, he was just another …show more content…

Jimmy Cross had to deal with the fact that martha was never going to love him like he loves her. He knew that he was never going to get over his love for her and he tried to get over her but he knew that it wasn't possible, “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha's letters. Then he burned the two photographs” (O’Brien 21). For Rat Kiley he hated the war and seeing all the death around him. He finally couldn't take the fact that no matter what he did people were going to die and he hated that, “He said he’d done his best. He’d tried to be a decent medic. Win some lose some, he said , but he’d tried hard” (O’Brien 129). He next day after he was talking to Mitchell Sanders he shot himself in the foot after doping himself up and eventually he died. He thought that they only way to get out of the war and not think about the war was suicide. Tim O’Brien it was a different ending then it was for Rat Kiley. O’Brien never killed himself like Rat Kiley did but they both hated the war and having to see the death of people around them. O’Brien hated what happened in Vietnam, the death of his friends, the fear he had, and the guilt that he had about going to war. For Rat Kiley his was out of the war was death, for O’Brien the way he dealt with the war was that he wrote stories about the war. That was his little way of dealing with what happened while he was at war in Vietnam. He made a living about writing stories from the war and now he has a wife and

Show More
Related
670 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
1757 Words | 8 Pages

War is one of the most complex yet completely understood subjects to read or write about. Tim O’Brien has captured the true essence of being drafted into a war. “The Things They Carried” is a novel composed of multiple short stories; Each taking the reader through the perspective of the narrator showing his multiple landscapes, situations, and changing feelings from being drafted into the Vietnam War to surviving it. These stories really help one understand the effects of war on someone’s mind as well as body. Tim O’Brien is the main character and protagonist in this novel.

Read More
188 Words | 1 Pages

Tim O 'Brien recalls when, many years after the war, Lt. Jimmy Cross visits him .They spent the day looking at old photographs and talking, remembering both the good and bad memories from the war. Tim asked Jimmy about Martha. He got pretty surprised when Jimmy shows a photograph of Martha playing volleyball , because he thought Jimmy had burned it after one of his men died. At first Jimmy did

Read More
705 Words | 3 Pages

Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is overcome by guilt when Ted Lavender, one of his men died, Lieutenant Cross then finds solace in the

Read More
657 Words | 3 Pages

“They carried shameful memories” (O’Brien 109). In their heads were flashbacks of all the men they killed, the friends they lost, and the families they split up, everything they had ever seen while battling was forever implanted in their thoughts. To escape their memories of the war many soldiers committed suicide. Lieutenant Cross on the other hand carried a good memory, about Martha of course. Jimmy was a day dreamer, he fantasized about Martha, and she was all he could think about, she was an interference.

Read More
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.

Read More
1085 Words | 5 Pages

The Vietnam War was full of grief, heartache and tragedy, no one experienced this more than the soldiers who fought in it. Tim O’Brien shows the trauma the war has caused him in his book The Things They Carried. The story focuses on the character Tim, a member of Alpha Company, who tells his stories of the war. Many of these stories circle around guilt, and each character in the book has a different way of coping with it. One character, Kiowa, acts as the glue that holds Alpha Company together.

Read More
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.

Read More
1658 Words | 7 Pages

Throughout history, the United States have only drafted soldiers in two wars, World War II and Vietnam. Thousands of teenagers who had just turned 18 were selected to go fight overseas in Vietnam. Soldiers only had eight weeks to prepare before getting deployed in enemy territory. The young soldiers that were drafted were assigned to infantry positions. The horrifying eyewitness accounts the soldiers witnessed led to psychological changes in their behavior for the rest of their lives.

Read More
1339 Words | 6 Pages

More often than not, soldiers and people in a war zone will be affected by the war one way or another. Either that being during or after the war, one could have a negative or positive outlook on the war, but one single event could automatically change that person's behavior. During 1957-1973, the longest war in the United States history took place, the Vietnam War. Many soldiers have lost their lives in this battle, but the ones that survived have significantly changed from this event.

Read More
786 Words | 4 Pages

In the chapter, Night Life, Rat Kiley’s fear of death leads him to deal with it in a horrifyingly brutal way. Kiley, holding the position of medic in his platoon, dealt with countless disturbing injuries as well as several deaths. As O’Brien describes Kiley’s state of mind he recounted, “Always policing

Read More
775 Words | 4 Pages

The Things They Carried Essay Many lives were lost during the Vietnam War. War, a word used to describe major battles, a word used to describe a catastrophe within a period of time. War is unavoidable, it will always happen at some point in time and can cause many different effects. In the book, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the author describes his experiences as a soldier during the Vietnam War by recalling the many vivid descriptions of several people that undergo a change from their experience during the war

Read More
1009 Words | 5 Pages

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,

Read More
648 Words | 3 Pages

Jimmy Cross is the first lieutenant who carries pictures and letters from Martha, the woman he loves who—sadly—does not love him back. The pictures and letters from Martha symbolize Jimmy’s longing to be loved and comforted. It is ironic that although he is the first lieutenant who is expected to take charge and lead others, yet he never took charge of his own love life. This is a regret and burden Cross carries to the end of the story. “It was very sad, he thought.

Read More
774 Words | 4 Pages

War has a profound and lasting impact on individuals and society. In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, he tells different stories of before, during and after war and how it affects the soldiers, mentally and physically. In these stories Tim O’Brien illustrates these traumas and the long-lasting effects and impact that the war will always have on these men. Even though all the men didn’t survive the ones that did continue to have traumatic flashbacks. War has a lasting impact on individuals and society, affecting not only the physical but the mental and emotional well-being of those involved.

Read More

More about War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

Related Topics

Open Document