In the novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, there are a lot of characters that carry burdens which manifest later into themes of the novel. The novel is about the Vietnam war and the experience of drafted 18-24-year-old individuals serving in a platoon squad together. For instance, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross who is a vital member of the Alpha Company carries vital things that later translate into the theme. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries compasses, maps, and responsibilities for the Alpha Company such as marching in a line and keeping guns clean. The character accompanied with all his objects is used as a metaphor for the war that has no structure. He is a leader in the eyes of the Alpha Company who see him as the oldest and wisest but …show more content…
once you get to learn Cross’s character. We start to learn that he is a weak leader and unable to show clear ability to fulfill the leader role. This carries in with the theme of emotional burdens after the war which become prominent between the characters; Jimmy Cross carries love letters of Martha to show the many unprecedented burdens this causes him after the war. One large responsibility of Jimmy Cross’ is to emotionally and personally lead the Alpha Company. Jimmy Cross takes on the role of the leader and leads the men through the tunnels in Than Khe; suddenly, he becomes distracted with Martha and disregards the men. Lee Strunk steps up and takes over the search for the unknown dangers in tunnels of Than Khe, but this focus is not enough. Jimmy Cross doesn’t realize that love and war are connected. He cannot have both, so when he attempts to escape into his love life at home with Martha; he becomes warranted for his responsibilities. Suddenly, Lavender gets shot and killed by a sniper causing the blame to fall on the company’s leader Cross. The emotional burdens carried by Cross is illustrated by his inability to control thoughts about Martha. After Lavender’s death, he soon realizes that his inability to focus on the dangers around him is costing him unprecedented consequences. O’Brien quotes "He was realistic about it. There was that new hardness in his stomach. He loved her but he hated her." (24) which means that Jimmy Cross had an undying love for Martha, but he also realized what his addiction led to. This results into burdens that Jimmy Cross has to carry after the war, they haunt him for many years to come. After Lavender dies, the war’s emotional burdens come out with each character. They call for a chopper and sit around smoking Lavender’s dope. Jimmy Cross finds himself at the same crossroads as he becomes distracted with Martha again when the company is trying to make sense of Lavender’s death. Tim O’Brien shows us the mindset of Jimmy Cross through the quote “He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war.” (42) Now Cross’ is a bright fella and understands that his lack of focus cannot be a direct impact of this tragedy, but he is riddled with guilt when he realizes that his love for Martha may be interfering with his duties as a company leader and first lieutenant. Men like Sanders make jokes surrounding Lavender’s death in order to cope with the emotional stress. Kiowa starts to talk endlessly about how Lavender fell when he was shot and therefore results in the conclusion of “how the poor guy just dropped like so much concrete. Boom-down, he said. Like cement.” (101) when Kiowa has no one else to talk to, he quiets down and brings out his bible. As much as Jimmy Cross blames himself, this shows us that there are other people who may be affected the same way and may have to carry the same emotional burdens after the war as Cross. These are different ways the characters have to deal with emotional pain and these emotional burdens are going to be carried with them years after. Before Ted Lavender’s death, his way to copes with fears in war is by using tranquilizers and smoking marijuana. These items are a necessity for Ted Lavender or else he would not function. Just like Jimmy Cross’ addiction to Martha; Tim O’Brien implies that Lavender has a drug addiction. The reason for his drug addiction is to cope with war, find peace and escape from the war the same way Cross uses Martha to escape from his duties. This is ways Lavender was dealing with his emotional burdens before he was dead. Other characters in the war suffer from other emotional burdens that seem to manifest in the war. Mitchell Sanders carries condoms which doesn’t offer much, but he goes to a young Vietcong and cuts the thumb off. Sanders gives this thumb to Norman Bowker who uses this as a lucky charm. Sanders act of cutting off a thumb and afterward, kicking the man in the head shows us that Sanders has his own emotional burdens. Sanders appears to struggle with emotional instability and has a lack of respect for life. These issues may have developed during the war or he may have been a predisposition. All characters have a different way of dealing with emotional pain, these burdens carry with them way after the war. Another burden that Jimmy Cross carried is his responsibility and leadership, he was the leader for the platoon.
Since Jimmy Cross was the oldest he was an evident leader and assumed responsibility. Since Jimmy Cross took upon the leadership role, his memories with the war will be carried forever. For example, when Cross encounters another split-making decision regarding his soldier’s lives; he is given a warning to not make the same repeat mistake he did with Lavender and attempt to not get distracted with the concept of love but war is unpredictable and so are the burdens and consequences. Cross’ has the ability to choose the next campsite; he has told to put the camp in the field despite being warned it was a trap by the locals who lived there. This was a foreshadow to imminent death that happens later in the novel. The campsite was a trap and Kiowa, Alpha Company’s soldier, was exploded by rounds of mortar and died. This made Cross responsible for a part of a soldier’s death. This is a big part of the theme of emotional burdens such as guilt that carries with Jimmy Cross. "When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy Cross understood this. You could blame the war… A moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever." (115) shows us the struggles and emotional burdens that must have carried afterward with Cross and his platoon, all this from the result of plain carelessness despite trying not to focus on Martha and overcoming his obstacles. Other soldier’s such as Mitchell Sanders cannot make sense of their fellow soldier’s death and his only way to feel that Kiowa’s death was not meaningless and sad was to blame someone. "Ten billion places we could've set up last night, the man picks a latrine." (28) This is exactly what Mitchell Sander’s did towards Jimmy Cross, putting all the blame on him. This not only affecting Sander’s emotionally but also Cross’ which puts them with more burdens than ever before.
Kiowa’s death show us that war is truly unpredictable and any little mistake may impact you for the rest of your life. These burdens of Lavender’s, Kiowa’s death will be translated into their daily lives back home whether it is a minimal or large impact. After the emotional burdens fall onto the soldiers; Tim O’Brien emphasizes the physical weight of the items that the soldiers carry. Some objects weigh only a few pounds while some weight up to 30 pounds. The weight of these items is a hard task already to carry on top of all their gear. Still, in the face of the Vietnam War, the emotional burdens of the men are much heavier than the objects. O’Brien quotes “Grief, terror, love, longing- these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.”(22) These are all different emotional burdens that are carried with them throughout their lives. The reason these emotional burdens have their own weight is because after all the objects are taken off; the emotional burdens still carry with them for the rest of their lives. The emotional scars will always remain as a direct experience of the war itself. This goes hand in hand with the Vietnam War as the objectives of the war are also undefined and obfuscated. Lieutenant Cross’ inability to lead is evident when he becomes distracted with his girlfriend’s pictures and therefore causing Lavender to be killed. As Jimmy Cross attempts to use rationalization to cope with his mistakes, he burns up Martha’s pictures which show that he is attempting to give up the pathetic love that he has for Martha. This is a clear distraction and causes many consequences after the war. The death of Kiowa’s is unprecedented and causes many griefs as even Jimmy Cross who had been riddled with guilt before with another soldier is facing the same amount of guilt for another one. Jimmy Cross’ pictures get burned up after Lavender’s death, but this does not stop the death of Kiowa which means that Cross’ emotional burdens from the war will be carried with him forever as he cannot just get rid of the object and expect to not feel any kind of emotional burden. This is why the theme of emotional burdens carries on throughout the novel and translates into postwar struggles even though none of the war’s objects are there anymore.
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.
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.
In the short story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, each soldier carries many items during times of war and strife, but each necessity differs. This short story depicts what each soldier carries mentally, physically, and emotionally on his shoulders as long, fatiguing weeks wain on during the Vietnam War. Author Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam War veteran, an author, the narrator, and a teacher. The main character, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, is a Vietnam War soldier who is away at war fighting a mind battle about a woman he left behind in New Jersey because he is sick with love while trying to fulfill his duties as a soldier to keep America free. Tim O’Brien depicts in “The Things They Carried” a troubled man who also shoulders the burden of guilt when he loses one of his men to an ambush.
I wonder what it was like to witness the Vietnam War firsthand in combat. Well, in the short story, “The Things they Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, the theme was portrayed as the physical and emotional burdens that soldiers had to deal with during the Vietnam War.
In the aftermath of a comparatively minor misfortune, all parties concerned seem to be eager to direct the blame to someone or something else. It seems so easy to pin down one specific mistake that caused everything else to go wrong in an everyday situation. However, war is a vastly different story. War is ambiguous, an enormous and intangible event, and it cannot simply be blamed for the resulting deaths for which it is indirectly responsible. Tim O’Brien’s story, “In the Field,” illustrates whom the soldiers turn to with the massive burden of responsibility for a tragedy. The horrible circumstances of war transform all involved and tinge them with an absurd feeling of personal responsibility as they struggle to cope.
The novel “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’ Brien takes place in the Vietnam War. The protagonist, Lieutenant Cross, is a soldier who is madly in love with a college student named Martha. He carries around photos and letters from her. However, the first few chapters illustrate how this profound love makes him weak in the war.
In the book The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses many themes to help draw connections between the book and the reader. O’Brien’s “On The Rainy River” chapter contains countless motifs that make this chapter so compelling. “On The Rainy River” describes his decision whether to enter the draft or to flee to Canada where he would not get condemned. The main theme in this chapter is embarrassment. First Lieutenant Tim O’Brien goes insane from the embarrassment he would face if he did not enter the draft.
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.
In "the things they carried", author Tim O’Brien tries to teach readers that war changes people, by using baggage as a symbol throughout the book. Ultimately, "the things they carried" is literally built on a foundation of the things they carried. Whether it’s the way Jimmy Cross uses the pebble to escape from his duties as a soldier. Or the way that they all look up to the pantyhose as an almost godly relic. All the way to Norman Bowker finally realizing that courage comes from within, not from winning the Silver Star. These things, made up the soldiers attributes, made up the soldiers’ persona, made up the soldier. But they didn’t stop at the soldier; certain items characterized all the soldiers as a collective group. It even went as far as to describe an entire group by the things all of them carried, of course being the green berets. There were no single green berets just a group; nobody made an effort to distinguish one from another. Like the way we make no effort to name each and every cell in our body, they are just smaller pieces that make up one entity.
the things they carried truth The definition of truth is the epitome of what we all perceive to be reality. Truth is what we sometimes think about in the back of our head, but we are unsure of whether this truth is really “true.” The objective correlative is another term that is used to refer to truth. The objective is to get enough people to feel the same emotion and agree upon it.
The title of the book itself couldn’t be more fitting. The Things They Carried is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Tim O'Brien about soldiers trying to live through the Vietnam War. These men deal with many struggles and hardships. Throughout this essay I will provide insight into three of the the numerous themes seen throughout the novel: burdens, truth, and death.
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.
But he realizes “it was only a gesture.the letters were in his head” (370). He also discards the pebble she gave to him but cannot rid himself of the boulder that is the emotional burden of his love for her. 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.
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...