Isolation In Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

937 Words2 Pages

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

Open Document