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After reading the story "The Things They Carried," it is obvious that Lieutenant Jimmy's fixations and obsession for Martha are what kept him from doing his job the way he was supposed to. It is easy to get wrapped up in thoughts, which causes someone to be distracted and not have the right mindset to handle situations. This can also make it very easy to not make the right decisions. In the story, Lieutenant Jimmy let this happen to him. He became so infatuated with Martha that he could not even focus on his responsibilities. One part of the story states that Lieutenant Jimmy loves Martha more than he does the soldier that was killed on his watch. He had no remorse for what happened. However, this was not the only part in the story
One of the first women introduced to the reader was Martha. Martha is Lt. Jimmy Cross's love interest, even though she has only ever considered him a friend and nothing more. O'Brien uses the story of him and his misguidedness to show how the soldiers were completely separated from the war. After the war is over, the soldiers return home attempting to get back to their normal lives.
...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.
In The Things They Things Carried love is introduced in the beginning of the story where Jimmy Cross talks about Martha. It has a strong and powerful message that Jimmy Cross was in love with Martha. Now I wouldn't necessarily say the same thing about Martha having feelings for Jimmy Cross but I can say most definitely that Jimmy had some strong feeling for Martha that he didn't even know that Lavender had died. “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 war. (O’Brien 16).” Its says itself he had loved Martha more than his men witch is saying a lot. In Soldiers Home the soldiers come home and are greeted by their loved ones when they come back from war except for one because he had come home a little too late according to the community. At one point its love but at the same time its butrale. “Yes. Don’t you love your mother dear boy? No, Krebs said. His mother looked at him across the table. Her eyes were shiny. She started crying. I don’t love anybody, Krebs said. (Hemingway Soldier's Home). The butrale part has kicked in witch made Krebs act that way towards his
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 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.
Initially, Jimmy Cross started his mission with a distorted image in his head, which lead to his amazing turn around in the end. Jimmy cross had to learn the hard way, that fantasies aren’t real, they are just thoughts the mind wants to believe. He soon learned what reality was, even though it wasn’t the easiest or most of all pleasurable, way to figure out the truth. Ted Lavender’s death was a blessing in the sense that Jimmy turned his whole life around and started to focus on what support to give his men to succeed and be better survivors, than Ted Lavender was. Jimmy cared for his men towards the end, that lead him to understand what love is. “Love”, is a very powerful word, that has the power and prestige to make some people zone out of their own world and live in fantasy land, as did Jimmy. Jimmy cross carried integrity and grace in the beginning of the story, but by the end added faith and hope to his nap sack that helped him become a better person for his men.
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
Jimmy Cross in the dynamic character in the short story "The Things They Carried", at first this man was motivated to get through the war and optimistic, thinking he was going to get home to the girl he loved. Then after the tragic event of his friend and soldier dying, Cross realized that he had loved Martha more than the soldiers he was supposed to be protecting. He realized he had been living in a fantasy world, loving a woman who never loved him back; carrying the burden of fake love around with him everywhere he went. According to Tina Chen in Contemporary Literature "…the book questions the nature of truth and the possibility of ever having an unchallenged ‘sense of the definite.'" (Chen 79) After the horrifying event of losing a soldier, that is where Cross changed forever, knowing there is nothing that is definite. Men die, you love people who do not love you back, bad things happen. O'Brien used the tragic death of Ted Lavender to cause Jimmy Cross to change. He turned into a man who no longer was in this war for Martha; he jumped out of that fantasy and into reality. The author says this about Jimmy Cross, "He was now determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence." (O'Brien 428) He changed into a man who no longer thought in a fantasy land, the trauma of war had changed him, and now that
The second reason that Jimmy Valentine should have been set free is that he is making an honest living. He said in the story that he is a shoemaker that makes amazing shoes. Jimmy is also going to be starting a
Women in war stories were only heard of as nurses or when they were brought up by the men. Martha was one of them women brought up by soldiers. She, although without notice, kept Jimmy Cross sane by taking his mind off war. Cross is not the only one to love a woman who does not live him back. Soldiers use love all the time to help them cope with war whether if the love is real or not.
...ghts and memories with Martha. However, his current denial to accept and face reality is what is causing him to be bullied by his emotions, which is making him weaker. This will make him both physically and mentally weak; he will no longer be concentrated on the real world, and he will be constantly worrying about whether or not Martha really loved him. He does not realize that he has a greater problem to be thinking about, not just in his small world. The fate of Vietnam was in his hands.
His love for Martha was unhealthy and almost obsessive. He still remembers clearly "touching that left knee" of Martha's. Even out in the field he still reminisces how her knee felt. During a mission to destroy some tunnels, Cross imagines the tunnel collapsing on him and Martha. He also wonders if she is still a virgin or not and wonders why her letter are signed "love". This distraction and incompetence of himself lead to the death of one of their fellow soldiers, Ted Lavender. He has been shot and killed, partly because of Cross' lack of focus on the situation. He keeps to himself as he blames the incident on only himself. Shockingly, as they were waiting for a chopper to take his body away, he digs a foxhole. While sitting in the hole, crying, he was also thinking of " Martha's smooth young face, thinking he loved her more than anything, more than his men " at the same time. This abnormal love for Martha has defected his ability to perform his duties as a leader. Martha has possessed him so much that even "without willing it, he was thinking about Martha." This shows that he has lost control on where and when is the right time to think about things like that.
Once a successful novel hits the market, producers are inclined to adapt the story into a movie. Since imagination, symbolism, and character psyches are explored in a novel, the movies tend to lack the luster of the original text. Using their imagination, readers are able to conjure up characters and scenes that are unique. This is the case with Tim O’Brien’s, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong.” This is a story where love and war collide after a soldier brings his sweetheart to his Vietnamese post. On the whole, this chapter in The Things They Carried is far superior to the film, The Soldier’s Sweetheart, because it has thorough descriptions of characters’ feelings, including symbolism concerning objects and important events. When the audience is able to draw it's own story around an author's narrative, the experience is more satisfying than when every detail is presented through the cinematic medium - an active audience is happier than a passive one.
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. ...
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...