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The way o'brien portrays the vietnam war in his novel the things they carried
Steven Kaplan, Essay on O'Brien's "The Things They Carried
Steven Kaplan, Essay on O'Brien's "The Things They Carried
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Jimmy Cross In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” the story of a group of seventeen young men who are selected to take part in the Vietnam War is being told. Each member of the platoon has different characteristics and things they carry, which include both emotional and physical things. These features and details create multiple flat characters that each symbolize something different. One of the most interesting characters in this story is Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. He is one of the few characters in this story that is round and has depth. In this chapter alone, Cross undergoes a significant change when experiencing the death of one of his soldiers, Ted Lavender. Jimmy Cross is a round character because he goes from being careless about his platoon to more watchful over them. …show more content…
To begin, Jimmy Cross is introduced as a lovestruck young man with a huge amount of responsibility.
At just the age of twenty four, Cross is a Lieutenant and responsible for the lives of a platoon of men that are only a couple of years younger than him. This shows that he was taking up way too much responsibility at his age when he is probably not mature enough for his duties. What makes his duty even harder, was his immense love for his former classmate, Martha. The fact that she wrote to him and he imagined them to be love letters consumed a lot of his time with imaginary scenarios. Since “he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her, but the letters were...elusive on the matter of love,” he spent more time that he should thinking about how much he loved her, what he could be doing with her if she loved him too, and what she is like instead of focusing on the battlefield and safety of his men (O’ Brien 706). This version of Cross did not pay too much attention to his men and thought about Martha most of the
time. What caused Cross to mature and become more serious, was Ted Lavender’s death. Ted Lavender was a mellow young man. He was mellow because he used medications to calm down his intense fear he felt during the war. This could have perhaps added to the guilt Jimmy Cross felt since he knew how afraid Lavender was. Ted Lavender died by being shot in the head after returning from going to the restroom. At the time of this event, Cross was fantasizing about Martha, as per usual. While everyone was shocked about Lavender’s death being so quick, Cross felt incredible guilt and shame. He could not believe “he had loved Martha more than his men” (714). Because of this event, Cross evolved from a careless character to one who was aware of his mistakes and who became more careful about his men. He burned all of Martha’s letters in effort to stop distracting himself, which is a huge act considering how obsessed he was. It is even argued that Jimmy Cross transformed into a Christ figure, since he sacrificed many things for his soldiers. He not only burned Martha’s letters for them, but he also suffered in their place. While most, if not all, of the soldiers were too shocked to feel sadness or guilt for Lavender’s death, Cross felt those emotions extremely strongly. He carried the burden of feeling blamed for Lavender’s death, much like Jesus Christ carried the burden of sinners in order for us to be saved. Jimmy Cross’ name could also be seen as symbolic to Jesus’ cross. Lavender’s death caused Cross to become a stricter, more caring, and overall better leader. In conclusion, Jimmy Cross is the only round character that has developed in this chapter of the novel. He struggles to become a better leader instead of staying as an immature and love struck young man. He sacrificed many things and therefore proved he had matured as a leader and overall character. Had he been a flat character, he would have probably felt no guilt and not have snapped out of his fantasy with Martha.
In the first paragraph of the story, Jimmy Cross' rank is noted (First Lieutenant) along with the fact that he "carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey" (434). From the outset, the reader sees that Martha plays a pivotal role in his thoughts and actions. The fact that Jimmy Cross "would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire" after he marched the entire day and dug a foxhole indicates that he thinks often of Martha (434). While these thoughts of a lover back home provide some form of escape for Lt. Cross, they also burden him with the obsessive feelings of unrequited love. ...
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.
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.
One of the main characters in the short story “The Things They Carried”, written by Tim O’Brien, is a twenty-four year old Lieutenant named Jimmy Cross. Jimmy is the assigned leader of his infantry unit in the Vietnam War, but does not assume his role accordingly. Instead, he’s constantly daydreaming, along with obsessing, over his letters and gifts from Martha. Martha is a student at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey, Jimmy’s home state. He believes that he is in love with Martha, although she shows no signs of loving him. This obsession is a fantasy that he uses to escape from reality, as well as, take his mind off of the war that surrounds him, in Vietnam. The rest of the men in his squad have items that they carry too, as a way of connecting to their homes. The story depicts the soldiers by the baggage that they carry, both mentally and physically. After the death of one of his troops, Ted Lavender, Jimmy finally realizes that his actions have been detrimental to the squad as a whole. He believes that if he would have been a better leader, that Ted Lavender would have never been shot and killed. The physical and emotional baggage that Jimmy totes around with him, in Vietnam, is holding him back from fulfilling his responsibilities as the First Lieutenant of his platoon. Jimmy has apparent character traits that hold him back from being the leader that he needs to be, such as inexperience and his lack of focus; but develops the most important character trait in the end, responsibility.
Born on October 1, 1946, William Timothy O’Brien, famously know as Tim O’Brien, served as a soldier in the Vietnam War (Britannica, 2016). Tim like most of the soldiers were either drafted or volunteered to fight in Vietnam. Many of them, including Tim battled the emotions of alienation and fearfulness during the time of the war. O’Brien illustrated those emotions in his chapter “The Things They Carried”. He listed the tangibles objects the characters carried in order to define their intangible qualities.
The novel, “The Things They Carried”, is about the experiences of Tim O’Brian and his fellow platoon members during their time fighting in the Vietnam War. They face much adversity that can only be encountered in the horrors of fighting a war. The men experience death of friends, civilians, enemies and at points loss of their rationale. In turn, the soldiers use a spectrum of methods to cope with the hardships of war, dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions all allow an escape from the horrors of Vietnam that they experience most days.
Lieutenant Cross is a character who, until the death of a soldier, has been very loose and not taken the war seriously. He had let his soldiers throw away their supplies, take drugs, and sing happy songs in the middle of the serious war. He was only concerned with Martha; he dreamt about being with her, and he was delighted when he received letters from her. Tim O’Brien says, “Slowly, a bit distracted, he would get up and move among his men, checking the perimeter, then at full dark he would return to his hole and watch the night and wonder if Martha was a virgin.” (p. 2) This shows how all he cared about was Martha; he was not paying attention to his real life and his surroundings. He was basically living in a world of fantasy because they lived in two separate worlds. Being unable to wake up from this dream made him potentially weak because his mind was always wandering elsewhere, never in the current situation. This made him an easy target for his enemies because if this had gone on, then he would start to fear death, fear fighting, and fear the war. He would become a coward because he would wish for the day when he could be with Martha again after the war. This would greatly weaken him and his army both, and they would most likely lose to the enemy.
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a very uniquely written book. This book is comprised of countless stories that, though are out of order, intertwine and capture the reader’s attention through the end of the novel. This book, which is more a collection of short stories rather than one story that has a beginning and an end, uses a format that will keep the reader coming back for more.
To begin with, both Lieutenant Cross and the boy in “Araby” showed a level of immaturity by acting the way they did towards the girls they loved. In “The Things They Carried” Cross touched Martha’s left knee while they were at a movie. He constantly thought about that moment and was completely obsessed. His obsession is evident in they story when it states “Right then, he thought, he should’ve done something brave. He should’ve carried her up the stairs to her room and tied her to the bed and touched that left knee all night long” (O’Brien 936). Misinterpreting such a simple gesture and turning it into a sexual fantasy shows immaturity. In “Araby” the boy also made more of a situation than it actually was in reality. When he finally talked to the girl he was obsessed with, he took the conversation the wrong way. She expressed to him that she was not able to attend the bazaar because she had to go to a retreat. He responded “If I go, I ...
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from the woman he loved who was still back at home. “They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack.” These letters Cross carried along with him give in an insight into his past, his present, and his character. Martha, his love, was a long distance from him, but he refused to let his memories of her be erased. It didn’t matter to Cross whether or not the love he had for Martha was mutual, but he would still “spend the last hour of light pretending.” Not only would they remind him of his past, these pictures would also give Cross something to at least hope for and have faith in. It didn’t matter that he would “pretend” that Martha loved him as much as he loved her; the photographs and letters of her that he carried were “suitable” to his personality. These things may have been meaningless to other men, but to Cross they were a sign of hope, his past, and gave him some...
Written by author Tim O’Brien after his own experience in Vietnam, “The Things They Carried” is a short story that introduces the reader to the experiences of soldiers away at war. O’Brien uses potent metaphors with a third person narrator to shape each character. In doing so, the reader is able to sympathize with the internal and external struggles the men endure. These symbolic comparisons often give even the smallest details great literary weight, due to their dual meanings. The symbolism in “The Things They Carried” guides the reader through the complex development of characters by establishing their humanity during the inhumane circumstance of war, articulating what the men need for emotional and spiritual survival, and by revealing the character’s psychological burdens.
Tim O’Brien wrote the novel The Things They Carried in 1990, twenty years after the war in Vietnam.In the novel,Obrien takes us through the life of many soliders by telling stories that do not go in chronical order. In doing so we get to see the physical and mental things the soldiers carry throughout the war in Vietnam.Yet the novel is more than just a description of a particular war. In the things they carried Tim O’Brien develops the characters in the book slowly, to show the gradual effect war has on a person. O’Brien shows this by exploring the life of Henry Dobbins, and Norman Bowker.
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien offers readers very unique and interesting view of the Vietnam War and the mentality of a soldier.
But as was shown with Cross and Martha, it didn’t turn out that way. Trying to cope with all the death that he found in Vietnam, Cross does not believe that Martha isn't a virgin and believes that they still could have a life together. This was meant to be a comfort and safety mechanism when he was possibly faced with rejection and death all around him. It got to the point that it was all he thought about up to Ted Lavender's death. Trying to rid himself of the guilt, he “burned Martha’s letters”.
Obrien’s simplicity appears in what the soldiers carry; because the items may provide a sense of safety or security, a distraction from boredom or fear. The items provide comfort from the horrors of war, as did the letters from home, photos of a sweetheart, and a pebble sent from a friend (Wells, 2000). A clear example of Obrien’s simplicity is found in; “To carry something was to ‘hump’ it, as when Lieutenant Jimmy Cross humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps. In its intransitive form, to hump meant to walk, or to march, but it implied burdens far beyond the intransitive.” (Clugston, 2014) Obrien’s purpose for this passage is to express the importance placed upon what was carried. This simple use of figurative language is placed strategically throughout the story, all building towards the climax of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s epiphany of letting go of some of those things he carries, as they distract from his duty, the safety of the soldiers under his command. This epiphany not realized by the Lieutenant until Tim Lavender, a soldier under the command of First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, lost his life due to the distraction from the very items that provided a sense of security. Through the use of the preceding literary items, figurative language, epiphany, and climax, Tim Obrien takes on the act of trying to reveal the uncertainties about the Vietnam War one step further, by looking at it through imagination (Kaplan, 1993). Obrien entirely destroys the line between fact and fiction and shows that fiction can often be truer than fan fact, particularly in the case of the Vietnam War (Kaplan,