Tim O’brien sends us a message that the soldiers that go to war carry emotions with them and these emotions are real and they fight these emotions internally. Tim O’brien shows this message through his descriptions of what the soldiers carry and the character development of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his team. Tim O’brien tells us about the the soldiers gear and the emotional baggage they carry, “They carried all the emotional baggage of the men that might die. Grief, terror, love , longing -- these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass” The soldiers carried all these emotions and even though emotions don’t technically have any weight the emotions they carried felt like they had mass and weight. They were fighting and dying …show more content…
with these emotions. These emotions that they carry are the things that make them fight and the things that they are forced to carry. They had struggled to carry the emotions that made them seem like cowards, “They carried the shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained. It was what brought them to the war in the first place...just to avoid the blush of dishonor.” The only reason they fought was to hold on to their reputations. They fought to because they were scared of being labeled cowards. They were going out into the battlefield and carried the terror, grief, love, and the secret of cowardice and they kept on trudging on humping around these emotions not giving up because they were scared. They were scared of being cowards. Jimmy in the battlefield was constantly thinking about Martha, He loved Martha more than his men and he struggled to fight his emotions and get his priorities straight.
He realized that he “loved Martha more than his men”( Jimmy loves Martha, a girl who is at home that may or may not love him more than the men who were willing to fight and die by his side. He loved Martha more than the men who struggled and fought with him everyday. Jimmy had these internal conflicts of showing love to Martha or being loyal and leading his men that put their lives on the line everyday for him. In the end Jimmy realizes through his internal conflict he realizes his men are the priority, “ No more fantasies he told himself. He would shut down the daydreams. This was not Mount Sebastian, it was another world, where there were no pretty poems or midterm exams, a place where men died because of carelessness and gross stupidity. Kiowa was right Boom-down, and you were dead, never partly dead.”(34) Jimmy realizes after Ted Lavender dies he would have to give up his love for Martha. He was in a place where carrying his love for Martha around would get his men killed. He could no long carry his love around for Martha and carry the grief, bravery, and loyalty that they all shared. These were the things that would keep his team
alive.
53. The chapter is told centrally in the third person omniscient point of view, providing various insight on differing characters such as Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Mitchell Sanders, a juvenile trooper, and Azar. The narrator isn’t limited to information and provides substantial background info and transcending details for each mentioned character. Essentially, the reader is given diverse point of views ranging from the many differing characters mentioned in the chapter.
Although their physical loads did not weigh the soldiers down, they definitely became their necessities. Certain physical burdens became items that helped them escape from the reality of being at war. Even though these men had things they had to carry, they elected to carry more. The items they carried were intended to illustrate aspects of their personality. All of them carried great loads of memories, fears, and desires. These abstract objects were an essential part of them and therefore could not be put down. They continued to carry these emotional burdens along with them throughout the war. And as Lieutenant Jimmy Cross came to realize, “It was very sad…the things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to
One of the most overlooked aspects in the life of a soldier is the weight of the things they carry. In Tim O'Brien's story, "The Things They Carried," O'Brien details the plight of Vietnam soldiers along with how they shoulder the numerous burdens placed upon them. Literally, the heavy supplies weigh down each soldier -- but the physical load imposed on each soldier symbolizes the psychological baggage a soldier carries during war. Though O'Brien lists the things each soldier carries, the focal point centers around the leader, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, and his roles in the war. Lt. Cross has multiple burdens, but his emotional baggage is the most pressing. Of all the weights burdened upon Lt. Cross, the heaviest baggage is located in his own mind. Specifically, the heaviest things Lt. Cross carries are an emotional obsession over Martha's love, the physical consequences caused by his daydreaming of Martha, and an unrelenting guilt about Ted Lavender's death.
In The Things They Carried, an engaging novel of war, author Tim O’Brien shares the unique warfare experience of the Alpha Company, an assembly of American military men that set off to fight for their country in the gruesome Vietnam War. Within the novel, the author O’Brien uses the character Tim O’Brien to narrate and remark on his own experience as well as the experiences of his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company. Throughout the story, O’Brien gives the reader a raw perspective of the Alpha Company’s military life in Vietnam. He sheds light on both the tangible and intangible things a soldier must bear as he trudges along the battlefield in hope for freedom from war and bloodshed. As the narrator, O’Brien displayed a broad imagination, retentive memory, and detailed descriptions of his past as well as present situations. 5. The author successfully uses rhetoric devices such as imagery, personification, and repetition of O’Brien to provoke deep thought and allow the reader to see and understand the burden of the war through the eyes of Tim O’Brien and his soldiers.
...g exclusively on the war and men of whom he is in charge of. It ends up taking the death of one of his men, Ted Lavender, for Jimmy to realize that he needed to get his priorities straight; which included, being the leader that his troops deserved. In conclusion, Jimmy’s character traits changed immensely, from several negative traits in the beginning, to ample positive traits in the end. Jimmy took on his responsibility as the First Lieutenant, and began taking the necessary steps to bettering himself, along with his troops.
Throughout the story, the author goes into great detail about the heavy physical loads that the soldiers had to carry with them. Even the way O’Brien describes the many loads seems to grab your attention on the extreme conditions these men had to go through just to survive another day. The most interesting thing I found while reading this story is that even though the soldiers carried a ton of weight around with them, they insisted on carrying as much as possible to insist they were prepared for any given situation. Also, just as we are all different individuals, each soldier carried their own personal things that depended on their own habits and hobbies. Some examples of the necessities the soldiers had to carry with them include, “Among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38 can openers, pockets knives, heat tabs, wrist-watches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C-rations, and two or three canteens of water (O’Brien 125). These were just some of the things these men had to carry with them just to undergo some of the conditions surrounding them. Besides those items I explained things like weapons and magazines made up most of the majority of the weight. What really shocked me at this point is that with all this weight the soldiers had to carry with them, they were expected to be very mobile and able to haul around everything for miles at a time. The only benefit I could possible see coming out of all the things they carried is the protection the backpack gave the soldiers from the spraying of bullets during battle. Other than that, the more the men carried, the more their moral went down under those conditions. I think that the author brilliantly described this story. It was almost like I felt my backpack getting heavier as I was reading on and the items kept increasing. Towards the end of the story I kind of felt just as the soldiers did, weighed down and dead tired.
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the readers follow the Alpha Company’s experiences during the Vietnam War through the telling’s of the main character and narrator, Tim. At the beginning of the story, Tim describes the things that each character carries, also revealing certain aspects of the characters as can be interpreted by the audience. The book delineates what kind of person each character is throughout the chapters. As the novel progresses, the characters’ personalities change due to certain events of the war. The novel shows that due to these experiences during the Vietnam War, there is always a turning point for each soldier, especially as shown with Bob “Rat” Kiley and Azar. With this turning point also comes the loss of innocence for these soldiers. O’Brien covers certain stages of grief and self-blame associated with these events in these stories as well in order to articulate just how those involved felt so that the reader can imagine what the effects of these events would be like for them had they been a part of it.
Experiences and Emotions in The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is not a novel about the Vietnam War. “It is a story about the soldiers and their experiences and emotions that are brought about from the war” (King 182). O'Brien makes several statements about war through these dynamic characters. He shows the violent nature of soldiers under the pressures of war, he makes an effective antiwar statement, and he comments on the reversal of a social deviation into the norm. By skillfully employing the stylistic technique of specific, conscious detail selection and utilizing connotative diction, O'Brien thoroughly and convincingly makes each point.
In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien repeatedly uses the word “carried” to symbolize the emotions and personalities of soldiers in the story, both individually and collectively. Jimmy Cross underwent terrible trauma as a result of “carrying” his memories and false hopes for his love, Martha. When he was finally able to let go of those memories, he understood reality and his focus returned to where should of always been: leading the squadron. As a group, the soldiers underwent trauma due to the emotions they carried including fear, grief, and love. The word “carry” comes from the Latin words “quadrare” and “caries,” meaning “suitable” and “to rot,” respectively. The things carried by the soldiers “suited” their character, but also “rotted” within them, causing them trauma until they were able to let go of them.
Tim O’Brien is doing the best he can to stay true to the story for his fellow soldiers. Tim O’Brien believed that by writing the story of soldiers in war as he saw it brings some type of justice to soldiers in a war situation.
The weights of desires, fears, and responsibility place great amounts of pressure on an individual. The soldiers in “The Things They Carried” all around lug a great deal of heavy weaponry and equipment. But the heaviest items are intangible things such as their emotions, shame and reputations. These intangible items cannot be discarded and thus, the men continue to “hump” by enduring their weight for the remainder of their lives. Lieutenant Cross realizes that the men “carry these things inside, maintaining a mask of composure” (369) and that unfortunately, the only way to release these things is death.
One of the hardest events that a soldier had to go through during the war was when one of their friends was killed. Despite their heartbreak they could not openly display their emotions. They could not cry because soldiers do not cry. Such an emotional display like crying would be sign of weakness and they didn’t want to be weak, so they created an outlet. “They were actors. When someone died, it wasn’t quite dying because in a curious way it seemed scripted”(19). Of course things were scripted especially when Ted Lavender died. It had happened unexpectedly and if they didn’t have something planned to do while they were coping they would all have broken down especially Lieutenant Cross. Cross...
Jimmy Cross used the thoughts of a made up love affair with Martha to keep his mind occupied during the rounds his team traveled through the war. He had a good-luck charm, pictures, and letters that he had received from Martha. Although he knew that she did not love him, he used his imagination to build a fantasy that helped him cope. As the troops traveled through this war Mr. Cross became increasingly involved with his thoughts, and fantasy, that his skills as a leader had diminished, which he felt lead to a solders death. As we look at this soldier’s death, it’s realized just like Mr. Cross, he used personal items as a coping mechanism. Ted lavender, used doses of tranquilizers, to help himself survive the daily rounds. He made a personal decision to drug himself up to cope. The reader comes to a conclusion that each person in this story used various items to
In this letter Jimmy explains how he has “quit the old business.” He also continues to explain how well he was doing. He was making a good living and he was going to marry the person he fell in love with the first day he saw her was what he explained in the letter. Additionally, he states in the letter, “It’s the only life. Billy- the straight one.” and, “She believes in me; and I wouldn't do another crooked thing for the whole world.” This proves that he was doing his absolute best and has changed just so he will not disappoint her. Jimmy has done his best even since the very beginning of the
In the text it stated, “He set his suitcase on the table, and opened it flat.” Jimmy may have never sold his tools, but in the end he used them for good causes. Another act Jimmy played was, “With that act Ralph D. Spencer passed away and Jimmy Valentine took his place.” Jimmy didn’t have to risk losing his new identity to save Agatha but he did what was right for him, her, and her family. “He was going to Little Rock that day to buy his wedding suit and buy something nice for Annabelle.” Jimmy wasn’t Jimmy anymore, his life was new and fresh, and he was getting married. Jimmy may have risked himself, but in the end it all turned out