Life And Death In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Most of the time love is our encouragement when we are in trouble, sometimes love can drag us to things we don’t want to happen in our lives. “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack.” ( p.1) The letters from Martha signed, “Love Martha” even though the letters were not love letters, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross understands that he doesn’t receive the type of love he hopes from Martha. He carries photographs of Martha and the memories he had with Martha when they went to the movies and how he touched her knee. When Lavender was shot, Lieutenant Cross

“Linda was nine then, as I was, but we were in love. And, it was real. When I write about her now, three decades later, it’s tempting to dismiss it as a crush, an infatuation of childhood, but I know for a fact that what we felt for each other was as deep and rich as love can ever get.”( p.216 ) This passage describe the innermost relationship between life and death. The living Dead has a larger purpose than just explaining what it is like to be in a war. Linda was died at the age of 9 by suffering brain tumor. She gives O'brien a reason to write stories, to internalize her dead. O’Brien figure out that even if someone died, you can still make them alive by telling their stories. Linda is O’Brien’s example that storytelling is the healing process of pain, confusion, and sadness that comes with unexpected death. After she dies, he uses his imagination to bring her back to life, and he also believes that the death can still be alive through literature. The death of Linda portrays how soldiers can deal with death in Vietnam even they encounter so many people dying in the