More handpicked essays just for you.
War and post traumatic stress disorder
The emotional effects of war on soldiers
Essays on post traumatic stress disorder in veterans
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
War is hell. This is the concept of war, however few experience it. Soldiers are molded by their experiences, they learn, conform, and revise. The War in Vietnam wasn't something that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was prepared for. He day dreamed in order to disengage himself from his current situation. In the beginning of the story, Jimmy believed that Martha, his muse, was much more interesting than Vietnam. Eventually, when his man died sensibility replaces imagination. Jimmy, as a leader, is dejected, the realization that his lust for Martha and his duty to his men can not cohabitate, overcomes him. A major element at this time for Jimmy is repentance, to learn from his mistakes and cope with them. Ted Lavender's death in William Timothy O' Brien's …show more content…
"The Things They Carry," teaches Jimmy the harsh reality of war. The story describes his reflection on the situation through, the emotional burdens it imposes on him, the disillusions of his fantasies, and the his newfound urge to become a present leader in response. First, the demise of Ted Lavender shows the profound power that death has.
The constant feeling regret and guilt. As the leader of Alpha Company Jimmy feels responsible for the casualty. The narrator describes the feeling as "something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach until the end of the war." (107) Jimmy's young age and inexperience amplifies his grief. In Jimmy's mind, he has never made proper love to a woman. However, now he's tasked to lead men through a strange and hostile environment eight thousand miles from home, and now one of them are dead and it's his fault. The narrator paints Jimmy as a "kid at war", "in love" and "twenty four years old."(104) Also, Jimmy believes that he could have prevented Ted's death if he was not distracted by Martha. When Ted died Jimmy pictures "Martha's smooth young face", he thought "he loved her more than anything" and blames his love and imagination for Ted's death. …show more content…
(103) As a result, Ted's passing teaches Jimmy to disconnect his fantasies from reality.
Jimmy comes to the conclusion that it was indeed his ideation of Martha that leads him astray. He develops a cynical outlook, and tells himself to resent Martha. The narrator expresses this by stating "He hated her. Yes, he did. Love, too, but it was a hard, hating kind of love."(111) The feeling he has for Martha is not burning hatred, rather he hates himself and Martha for how his this pathetical relationship with a woman that didn't love him back effected him drastically. This is derived from the author's statement on the nature of his hate, "He was realistic about it, there was a new hardness in his stomach, he loved her but he hated her."(111) As Jimmy works on the emotional aspect of hating Martha, he decides to deal with the physical ties he has to her as well. In a symbolic gesture Jimmy burns all his correspondence with the young English Major. The text describes the scene: "On the morning after Ted Lavender died, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha's letters. Then he burned the two photographs ." ( 110) The notion of Ted Lavender's death forces Jimmy to revaluate his priorities to stay alive himself. It could have easily been him who was shot while relieving himself. The narrator reinforces this by saying "This was not Mt. Sebastian, this was another world... a place where men died because of carelessness and gross stupidity."
(111) Finally, from Ted's termination Jimmy understands that he has to become a more present leader. Jimmy feels he can not stand for another casualty due to neglect on his part. In response, Jimmy enacts strict personal rules in order to protect themselves. Lt. Cross wants his men to be clean and sober in order to stay vigilant. Jimmy orders his men to "clean their weapons" and he "confiscates Lavender's dope".(111) In addition, he imposes better field discipline. Lt. Cross wants to be more careful in order to avoid fatal mistakes. He decides that " On the march he would impose strict field discipline... be more careful to send out flank security" (111) Overall, Jimmy's goal now is that "They would get their shit together and maintain it neatly and in good working order." (111) As a result of Ted's death Jimmy reflects on himself as a leader. He realizes that he could not be friends with the men that he leads. He illustrates this by stating "He would not tolerate laxity. He would show strength, distancing himself." ( 111) Jimmy reveals his self actualization in the end by stating, "His obligation was not to be loved but to lead." (111)
Additionally, O’Brien returns to the theme of the influence of others when describing Cross’s experiences. O’Brien touches upon the ideal by utilizing Jimmy Cross as a prime example. According to the passage, Cross was never destined to be a commanding officer in the U.S. military. Cross essentially joined the commanding officer program as a result of his friends peer pressuring him to enroll and for a few credits without acknowledging the repercussions of his actions in pursuing the war. Jimmy Cross now resents his ill decision as he endures Hell in Vietnam, especially after taking responsibility over Kiowa’s death. This ideal is significant and prominent as it reflects the basis and justification for many soldiers who enlisted in the army, which is due to the influence of others. This is a recurring ideal, which is evident in “On the Rainy River” where O’Brien is ultimately persuaded into pursuing the war as a result of a mirage portraying his loved ones cheering him to enlist in the war.
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. ...
...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.
A composer’s construction of distinctive voices in a text plays a crucial role in portraying how life experiences shape an individual’s identity, world view and response to their environment and others. It is through the careful selection of language techniques that composers represent how individuals respond to life experiences, thereby positioning the responder to think about the significant issues of the world, as it can shape the individual’s perception, persona and interpretation. Both Merele Day’s 1990’s detective fiction nobel ‘The life and Crimes of Harry Lavender’ and the 1980’s poem ‘Stealing’ by Carol Ann Duffy confronts us with various characters related with crime giving us an intuition into the motivation and perspectives of unique individuals. Day presents both Claudia Valentine, a subverted representation of the hardboiled detective and also Harry Lavender a typical criminal mastermind. Likewise Duffy presents an ambiguous individual who glamourises criminal acts against society. Eventually expressions within the two texts ensure that readers understand the actions taken by each protagonist.
The death of Ted Lavender was not his fault at all. Jimmy Cross was just a youth and not fully mature to be a First Lieutenant. Jimmy Cross daydreaming and fantasies of Martha letters and photos. Allow him to escape the war, think about life at back at home. The Vietnam War was very repetitive day to day life because they had no clear mission. They just matched village to village doing the same things over and over. Ted Lavender’s death was a great tragedy of the Vietnam War, and not the fault of Jimmy
When the war breaks out, this tranquil little town seems like the last place on earth that could produce a team of vicious, violent soldiers. Soon we see Jim thrown into a completely contrasting `world', full of violence and fighting, and the strong dissimilarity between his hometown and this new war-stricken country is emphasised. The fact that the original setting is so diversely opposite to that if the war setting, the harsh reality of the horror of war is demonstrated.
The violent nature that the soldiers acquired during their tour in Vietnam is one of O'Brien's predominant themes in his novel. By consciously selecting very descriptive details that reveal the drastic change in manner within the men, O'Brien creates within the reader an understanding of the effects of war on its participants. One of the soldiers, "Norman Bowler, otherwise a very gentle person, carried a Thumb. . .The Thumb was dark brown, rubbery to touch. . . It had been cut from a VC corpse, a boy of fifteen or sixteen"(O'Brien 13). Bowler had been a very good-natured person in civilian life, yet war makes him into a very hard-mannered, emotionally devoid soldier, carrying about a severed finger as a trophy, proud of his kill. The transformation shown through Bowler is an excellent indicator of the psychological and emotional change that most of the soldiers undergo. To bring an innocent young man from sensitive to apathetic, from caring to hateful, requires a great force; the war provides this force. However, frequently are the changes more drastic. A soldier named "Ted Lavender adopted an orphaned puppy. . .Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device"(O'Brien 39). Azar has become demented; to kill a puppy that someone else has adopted is horrible. However, the infliction of violence has become the norm of behavior for these men; the fleeting moment of compassion shown by one man is instantly erased by another, setting order back within the group. O'Brien here shows a hint of sensitivity among the men to set up a startling contrast between the past and the present for these men. The effect produced on the reader by this contrast is one of horror; therefore fulfilling O'Brien's purpose, to convince the reader of war's severely negative effects.
War is hell. The images that passed through the conciousness of those who participated in the Vietnam War left indelible visions. Rather than giving an opinion of,the war, Komunyakaa writes with a structure designed to allow the reader to experience the images and form their own opinions. The visions, images and experiences of thevietnam War as expressed by Komunyakaa vividly displays the war through his eyes and allows one to obtain the experiences of the war without being there. The title of the book when translated means "crazy soldier." This title gives the reader an immediate sense of the mind set developed by the soldiers. In providing further insight to the soldiers point of view, Specialist 4 Arthur "Gene" Woodley, Jr. states," There was this saying: 'Yeah though Iwalk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil, 'cause I'm the baddest mother *censored*er in the valley... 1. The first selection "Camouflaging the Chimera" first describes soldiers preparing themselves for combat,"We tied branches to our helmets. We painted our faces & rifles.with mud from a river bank," They become nature in order to disappear, yet they are awareof their separateness from it: We wove ourselves into the terrain, content to be a hummmingbird's target .... Chameleons
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.
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...
The concept of shame has had a profound impact in the lives of these soldiers in the Vietnam war, as shame is both what brought most of these soldiers to the Vietnam war and is what keeps them there. When O’Brien states, “I survived, but it 's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war” it can be logically inferred that the concept of shame both drove him to the act of heroism as well as the act of stupidity (61). O’Brien going to war depicts the act of heroism because he decided to overcome his fears, and decided to fight for his country’s reputation and honor, by risking his own life – the most precarious gamble. On the contrary, the concept of shame also illustrates O’Brien’s stupidity in his decision of going to war because
One of the first women introduced to the reader is Martha. Martha is Lt. Jimmy Cross's love interest, even though she has only ever considered him as a friend and nothing more. O'Brien's 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 returned home attempting to get back to their normal lives. 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 lavenders death. Trying to rid himself of the guilt he “burned Martha’s letters. The he burned the two photographs… He realized it was only a gesture… you couldn’t burn away the blame” (O’Brien 23) This shows that he knew that his obsessions with Martha is what lead to the death of ted Lavender, and even when he reali...
Often times people are unable to control what motivates them, as well as our desires. The heart has a mind of its own; sometimes we bypass our ethical responsibilities for these motivations and desires. Consequently, people need adversity to hit so that people can refocus like a phone camera zooming in on pictures. In Tim Obrien’s The Things They Carried, it’s obvious that Jimmy Cross’s one and only desire was a girl named Martha. Tim Obrien uses the power phrase "Lieutenant Jimmy Cross humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps." Tim Obrien explains the importance of the word "in it's intransitive form, to hump meant to walk, or march, but the word implied burdens far beyond. Richardson states "to hump has a sexual meaning, which gives the reader a sense of Cross's sexual frustration."" The story states “they were not love letters,
In The Great Gatsby, James Gatz is a poor boy who falls in love with a beautiful, eccentric millionaire named Daisy Fay. In an attempt to gain her affection, he quickly recreates himself to mimic her wants in a man. He finds ways to be near her, even after she is married, and moves into the West Egg of Long Island. When Daisy and Gatsby finally meet again, the romanticism is short lived. After many nights together, Daisy prepares herself to tell her husband, Tom, that she is leaving him for Jay Gatsby. In the end, she panics and plans on dropping the topic, but a quick glance with Gatsby gives her feelings away. Daisy wants to ignore her feelings, but she fails to move past her relationship with Gatsby, which becomes evident to her friends. In the end, she chooses to stay with her husband despite her feelings; she does this because she believes that change would only cause more problems. Gatsby is crushed by her actions, but fails to realize the true extent of them. He continues to pester her with hopes of rekindling a relationship that ended years ago, but she refuses, and immediately moves away with Tom. This action drives Gatsby mad, and his utter devotion for Daisy is the last thought on his mind when Wilson kills him. Sara Teasdale, a poet in the 1900s, is scared of this kind of commitment; she knows that love for another will only bring about her own demise. Faced with depression and an illness that leaves her bed-ridden for much of her life, she is heavily dependent on others to survive. She becomes close with few friends because she does not want to burden them. When she must choose between two lovers, she picks Ernst Filsinger, despite her affection for another, just as Daisy does. These actions leave not only herself hur...
Persuasive, confident, intelligent, the ability to make quick critical decisions, these are all attributes everyone looks for in a leader and what can be seen in Tyler Durden is no different. When it comes to the character of Tyler Durden, there are many facets of his personality. Like a diamond Tyler is alluring, brilliant, he has luster, and character. The character of Tyler Durden truly defines the story of Chuck Palahniuk’s, Fight Club. All throughout Fight Club, every single character Tyler comes into contact with idolizes him. Why is he so alluring? What makes Tyler so attractive? His outlook on life, possibly. Tyler’s ultimate goal is to achieve self-actualization, where he is fully aware of who he is, and what purpose he serves in life. This draws on the significance that almost everyone wants to be self-actualizing, to realize one’s true potential, the pinnacle of what someone is meant to be.