"The Things They Carry", is a short fictional story that follows the man Jimmy Cross and his time spent at war with his men in Alpha Company. The story tells of his love for Martha at home, where he carries her picture and writes to her regularly to express his love. Although she is focused on her life at college and seems not to return the same feelings as Jimmy, he continues to write to her. This literary work is absolutely a story because it contains themes of death and struggle, while expressing the life of a soldier in Alpha company in such a magnificent way as to inspire feelings and emotions from the reader. Because this is a fictional story inspired by war, "The Things They Carry" it is absolutely considered a story. If this was a non-fictional …show more content…
Unlike Mericans where the main character is structured to make you feel sympathy for her, this play makes you dislike the Troy quite a bit. There are several family members that are involved in this play including Troy's wife Rose (evolves into an ex-wife), Cory (his son), his friend Bono (evolves into his ex-friend), his mistress Alberta (who dies in child birth), and his bastard son Raynell. The plays main conflict is with his son where Troy refuses to sign his son's football college scholarship. Eventually, a violent fight breaks out between the two of them that causes Troy to lose his son forever. Family in this play is seen as less important to Troy than his own selfish desires. He pushes his family away by lying, cheating and punishing them to make himself feel better. At the end of the play, the plot takes the reader to Troy's funeral where Cory and Raynell are brought together even though they are reluctant to attend. The good effects that are produced are that the death of Troy brings his family closer, while the bad effects are that Cory and Raynell never experience the love of their father, with Cory in particular being prevented from fully achieving his dream of going to college on a football scholarship (Wilson,1985, p. 1430-1472). Ultimately, the family struggles in this play are resolved, while the family struggles in the short story Mericans does not seem to end in
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.
The central theme of the story is the age-old conflict of life and death. On a more personal level with First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, the round character and protagonist of "The Things They Carried", it is a conflict of love, his antagonist and of war.
The Things They Carried is a funny little book in the sense that it isn’t told how most books are. It goes from war to camping on the borderline of Canada, back to war, and then into present day times. It works marvelously well, showing you what actually happened and then what he thought about what happened and what he could have done to change the outcome. There are many things that I think people can learn from his experiences in the Vietnam war and the way he tells those stories and lessons really bring you along for the ride.
Throughout the play, pieces of Troy’s background are exposed to the reader. It quickly becomes clear that he was a talented baseball player who could have played professionally if not for the color of his skin. Instead of going on to a successful baseball career, Troy was forced to move on with his life and settle down as a garbage man. Although this is not what he truly wants in his life, it provides stability for him and his family. Similarly to his father, Troy’s son, Cory, is a talented football player who is being scouted for college. However, instead of encouraging him, Troy constantly scolds him, telling him he has to find a ‘real job;’ Troy even tells the scout to leave. This is ultimately because of his jealousy towards Cory’s success in sports, and the fact that Cory possesses the life Troy dreamed of. Many feuds and disagreements are born between the father and son because of their different views.
...e he ruined his marriage by cheating on her. Rose takes care of Troy’s newborn baby Raynell because she believes that Raynell needs a mother figure in her life and not a worthless man; she then kicks Troy out of the house. After Troy dies, Rose forgives him. Rose married Troy after he was released from prison. Troy knows that he is unsuccessful in accomplishing what he wanted for him and his family. Troy is a garbage man who feels that the white man kept him from doing a lot of things that he wanted to do in life. Troy does not have many goals in life. Troy is in own little world and does not like to be judged.
Tim O'Brien's The Things they Carried put both my logic and emotions to great test. As it is a novel composed of war stories, one may automatically assume that reading The Things They Carried would be an enlightening endeavor, and an educational experience. However, I never thought that a book could captivate me the way that the stories in this novel have.
Troy takes advantage of his brother, Gabriel’s disability money, and eventually ends up being responsible for getting him sent away. He also puts up a fight whenever his oldest son Lyons comes around, refusing to give him money even when Lyons says he will pay Troy back. However, a villain would not care about his family so much, even if the way he shows it is not ideal. Although his relationship with his family is in shambles by the end of the play, he does eventually build the fence for Rose, signifying that he wants to keep her close. If he was a complete villain, he would not have done this. He probably would not have even told Rose about Alberta. He understands what he did was bad, and the fact that he does can allow him to be identified as a tragic hero as well as an antihero. He is still horrible to Cory in the end, and Cory is completely justified for not wanting to attend his father’s funeral. He distinguishes himself from his father, though, being the better man and agreeing to go. The final scene of the play has the gates of Heaven opening for Troy, which means that he was not completely bad after
"All that crap about how if we had a pussy for president there wouldn't be no more wars. Pure garbage. You got to get rid of that sexist attitude."
The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger once said “Perjor est bello timor ipse belli”, which translates to: “the dread of war is worse than war itself”. With this quote, Seneca identifies that war has both its physical and mental tolls on its participants. The psychological and emotional scars of war do much more damage to a solider than the actual physical battles. Tim O’ Brien repeats this idea many years later in his novel “The Things They Carried”, by describing how emotional burdens outweigh the physical loads that those in war must endure. What keeps them alive is the hope that they may one day return home to their loved ones. Yet, the weight of these intangible “items” such as “grief, terror, love, longing” overshadow the physical load they must endure since they are not easily cast away.
... does tell the truth. He talks truthfully about his father and how he is a lot like him. He also admits that the only difference with him and his father is that he does not beat his children. Troy provided for his family. Additionally, even though he was very tough on Cory, he admitted that he was responsible for taking care of him and the rest of the family. In Act One, scene three, Troy explains to Cory why he treats him the way he does. Cory asks, “How come you ain’t never liked me?” (1346). Troy can’t admit to like his own son, so points out that he doesn’t have to like him in order to provide for him. “[…] ‘Cause it’s my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you! […] I ain’t got to like you” (1347). Deep down, somewhere in the dark abyss that is Troy’s heart, he sincerely cares about his family. He just has a very different way of articulating it.
Even though Troy does not physically abuse his children like his father did to him, he verbally abuses them. He treats Cory very callously and unjustly. In a way, Troy is taking out his frustrations of having an unsuccessful baseball career by not allowing Cory to pursue his dream to play football. Troy crushed Cory’s dream. In Act One, scene four, Cory expresses his misery. “Why you wanna do that to me? That w...
In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, numerous themes are illustrated by the author. Through the portrayal of a number of characters, Tim O’Brien suggests that to adapt to Vietnam is not always more difficult than to revert back to the lives they once knew. Correspondingly the theme of change is omnipresent throughout the novel, specifically in the depiction of numerous characters.
Literary Analysis Essay on The Things They Carried The book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is fiction and truth wound together to create a frustrating and addicting novel of fiction about the Vietnam war. O’Brien created stories by using his experiences during the Vietnam whether they are true stories or not is an unattainable knowledge for the reader, the only person of that knowledge is only O 'Brien himself. Through his writing he emphasized the the fact that you cannot perfectly recall the experiences of your past when your telling a story but the way it is told is “true sometime than the happening-truth(O’Brien 171) which helps give The Things They Carried depth beyond that of a “true”, true story. O’Brien has many characters in his book, some change throughout the book and others +are introduced briefly and change dramatically during their time in war and the transition to back home after the war.
family living in the twentieth century. This conflict involves Troy trying to live his life through his sons, Lyans and Cory, while trying to keep them from making the same
Although it seems as though Cory is determined to escape from what his father wants, he still takes the same path his father went on. This ironic situation is shown when Troy says "I don’t want him to be like me! I want him to move as far away from my life as he can get” (Wilson 481). Throughout the play, Cory is also trying to pursue this individuality, but ends up trying to chase after his dreams in a sport just like Troy. Cory faces a battle inside him as he tries to form a unique identity separate from his father; however, Troy is resistant to Cory's attempts at individuality. Troy's efforts to restrain Cory from being an individual character makes Cory take on drastic measures, such as verbal and physical violence, in an effort to become the person he wants to be. Troy restrains Cory from pursuing his dreams so much that it builds up to a point where Cory points out the truth that Troy is so afraid to hear; “Just cause you didn't have a chance! You just scared I'm gonna be better than you, that's all" (Wilson 493). Sports acts as a barrier between them from ever becoming close, even though they are both interested in them. This confrontation results in Troy counting numbers until Cory