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Theme of the things they carried
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Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried: A Solitary View... A Life in Isolation In the beginning of this novel, Tim O’Brien introduces us to First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Cross is the leader of Alpha Company and he mentions and sculpts somewhat of a daydream-like situation where he thinks of something else instead of concentrating or looking at the big picture – being at war. He goes off talking about how the letters Martha wrote to him, “[aren’t] love letters, but [he] was hoping ” (O’Brien, 1) they were. Martha, Lt. Cross’s love interest that doesn’t feel the same way about him, was a junior and an English major at Mount Sebastian. He carried letters that she writes to him in a tight-shut Ziploc bag at the very bottom of his backpack. The letters …show more content…
In the book “Life of Pi” the protagonist, Piscine Molitor, “Pi” Patel who is the only human survivor, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He later then survives a shipwreck after 227 days and was stranded on a boat in the ocean with a tiger named Richard Parker. Pi’s isolation allows him to gain faith in himself, and trust himself to take care of both him and Richard Parker. Pi also learned to have faith that he would be saved. In a way Lt. Jimmy Cross and Pi both come together because of the way they think, but come apart because of how they think. Everyday Pi is able to get up everyday faithfully thinking that one of those days someone will come and rescue him. Also, the tiger, Richard Parker is an inspiration to Pi to get up and get going. So is Martha to Cross. Pi and Cross have both dealt with pain and suffering. Later in the book RP dies and left Pi with so many unanswered questions and doubts. “I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once” (Martel, 7). He says, “that pain is like an ax that chops at my heart.” (Martel, 7). In The Things They Carried, O’Brien talks about how Lt. Cross and other members of the platoon were thinking about Lavender’s death. Because of Lavender’s passing, Cross reached into his rucksack and he got Martha’s letters and two …show more content…
The way the diction is used helps the reader understand, comprehend, and imagine their own type of situation as if the reader is in their shoes. For instance, in “The Man I Killed” O’Brien describes how O’Brien, the character, killed a man with a grenade in My Khe. He describes how “[h]is jaw was in his throat, his upper lips and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman’s…” (O’Brien, 124). In this chapter, O’Brien is so fixated in the guilt he has upon the guy he killed. O’Brien goes on talking about how the boy’s life was cut short. His guilt has him so obsessed with the life of his victim that how he is portrayed in the story, as the protagonist and narrator, fades to the back. Because O’Brien doesn’t use first person point of view to explain his guilt, he negotiates his feelings by operating in fantasy, imagining the victim’s childhood, teen years, adult life, and what could’ve
In the first chapter of The Things They Carried, O'Brien lists all of what each man brings with them to war. It seems very truthful, but there is doubt in your mind as to whether or not Jimmy Cross really carried letters from a girl named Martha or even if a girl named Martha really existed.
Lt. Jimmy Cross is extremely affected by Martha as his one time girlfriend; he is obsessed with even the thought of her.-- So obsessed with her, he even becomes distracted to the point an accident occurs for which he blames himself for the longest time. That Martha was a distracting factor shown through Tim’s observations of Lt. Cross. He loved her so much. On the march, through the hot days of early April, he carried the pebble in his mouth, turning it with his tongue, tasting sea salt and moisture. His mind wandered.
The point of stories it to tell a tale and inflict certain emotions onto the reader. Tim O’Brien uses this in his novel The Things They Carried. These stories were fictional but true, regaling his experiences of war. In the last chapter he writes that stories have the ability to save people. He does not mean “save” in a biblical sense, but as if a person saved the progress on a game they have been playing.
This forces the reader to rethink everything that O’Brien has said in the novel. Even the things that were said that were true and things about his life. At this point in the book, there is no idea of what is fact and what is fiction. This is what makes the reader confused and wondering if O’Brien is doing this on purpose or if he is doing it intentionally.
Author Tim O 'Brien has received many honors and much recognition for his book, The Things They Carried, which is based on his personal involvement in Vietnam. He was drafted in 1968 and served in the 23rd Infantry Division, which is otherwise called the American Division. A unit from this group had been charged with the slaughter at My Lai about a year prior to O 'Brien 's entry. Originally from Minnesota, O’Brien was born in 1946 making him about twenty-two years old when he was drafted (PBS 2013).
Before O’Brien introduces the characters, he introduces the items they carry as symbols of their humanity. The reader has a chance to develop curiosity for the depth of each character presented and is not instantly alienated by the war setting. In the first paragraph O’Brien introduces the letters Lieutenant Cross carries by writing, “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping” (O'Brien 337). The letters are one of the most prominent symbols the reader encounters and at the story’s opening, act as a symbol of home, youth, and hope. Because he carries these dainty baubles, Cross seems more vulnerable, therefore, more human. The reader sees this again when introduced to more of the soldiers inventory, “Among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosqui...
Jimmy believes that he truly loves Martha. Although the love from Martha does not seem to be reciprocated. Jimmy says of these letters, “They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping… after as day’s march he would dig his fox hole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with his fingers and spend the last hours of light pretending” (O’Brien 2640). The way that Jimmy pretended night after night that Martha truly loved him shows Jimmy’s innocence in the way of love. He knows logically that Martha does not really love him but the innocence inside him can not help but want her love. He also says of the letters, “ They were signed Love, Martha, but Lieutenant Cross understood that Love was only a way of signing and mean what he sometimes pretended it meant” (O’Brien 2640). This is a continuation of Lieutenant Cross’s pretending. The way the Cross continually pretends that Martha loves him is a way of protecting himself from the truth, to protect his
To thoroughly grasp the meaning, intention and significance of The Things They Carried, the reader must pull apart the novel.
After years of searching, I came to the conclusion that it was never going to happen to me – I would never experience that magical moment of reading a book, seeing a piece of artwork, or even listening to a song and it becoming this miraculous, life-altering thing. I desperately wanted to have that moment of self-realization and discovery that reveals something important about myself as a person, but it never happened; it still hasn’t. I realized that reading a book (or any other “text” for that matter) and expecting it to redirect the entire course of my life was like waiting for rain in a drought. I was trying to manipulate and force a feeling that simply needed to happen on its own, because one day it was bound to come. Nevertheless, I have luckily stumbled upon texts that made me feel something deep; something close to an epiphany, but not quite.
During the Vietnam war, soldiers were not exposed to the traditional coping mechanisms of our American society, as illustrated in Tim Obrien's The Things They Carried. These men were forced to discover and invent new ways to deal with the pressures of war, using only their resources while in the Vietnamese jungle. It was not possible for any soldier to carry many items or burdens with them, but if something was a necessity, a way was found to carry it, and coping mechanisms were a necessity to survive the war.
Tina Chen’s critical essay provides information on how returning soldiers aren’t able to connect to society and the theme of alienation and displacement that O’Brien discussed in his stories. To explain, soldiers returning from war feel alienated because they cannot come to terms with what they saw and what they did in battle. Next, Chen discusses how O’Brien talks about soldiers reminiscing about home instead of focusing in the field and how, when something bad happens, it is because they weren’t focused on the field. Finally, when soldiers returned home they felt alienated from the country and
Most of the time love is our encouragement when we are in trouble, sometimes love can drag us to things we don’t want to happen in our lives. “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack.” ( p.1) The letters from Martha signed, “Love Martha” even though the letters were not love letters, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross understands that he doesn’t receive the type of love he hopes from Martha. He carries photographs of Martha and the memories he had with Martha when they went to the movies and how he touched her knee. When Lavender was shot, Lieutenant Cross
The book I used was The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien. This book is a detailed story about the things carried by soldiers in the Vietnam War both physical and non physical. In the book a soldier who was in the war tells his story about the guys he had met including the men in his squad and the experiences they all faced together both good and bad. There is also talks about the deaths of the men they were with, the rough setting of war and some background of each of the guys and some things about their life before the war. The common theme of this work would be weakness, this is a common theme because it is displayed throughout the book and weakness in the war and between troops is a sensitive topic because nobody wants to seem weak. A few examples of fear from the book are when Ted Lavender is shot and Jimmy Cross blames the death on himself, because of his weakness of Martha and the fact he can not let her go. Strunk and Jensen agree on a bet that if they sustained wheelchair bound injuries the other would kill them, Strunk backs out when sustaining a wheelchair bound injury and
Having just experienced the sinking of his family’s ship, and being put onto a life boat with only a hyena, Pi felt completely lost and alone. When he sees Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger from his family’s zoo, it is a familiar face to him. His initial reaction is to save the life of his familiar friend so that he may have a companion, and a protector aboard the lifeboat. Suddenly Pi realizes just what he is doing. He is saving the life of Richard Parker, by welcoming him, a 450 pound Bengal tiger, onto the small lifeboat. He experiences a change of heart when helping the tiger onto the boat. Pi realizes that he is now posing a threat on his own life. With Richard Parker on the boat, Pi is faced with not only the fight to survive stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but the fight to survive living with a meat eating tiger. The change of heart that Pi experiences might possibly mean that he is an impulsive thinker. It may mean that he often does something on impulse without thinking it through, and then later regrets his actions.
...ction of Richard Parker kept Pi aware, by showing Pi the reality of the current situation, assisted him with making the right decisions, committing certain actions, and is his sub-consciousness, his id that fights for survival. In Martel’s Life of Pi, Pi’s coping mechanism has been proven more useful in his projection Richard Parker rather than his beliefs in his religions, which has done nothing for Pi and was useless at that time. Humans and animals are very alike in certain aspects. When it all comes down to survival, humans and animals are almost alike. The human mind brings back the inner id from the human consciousness while in drastic situations to help them cope with it in order to survive. The human psychology has a very interesting way of creating coping mechanisms.