Women In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Women in The Things They Carried
The women’s role in The Things They Carried are both significant and symbolic. Even if just supporting characters, various attitudes and mindsets towards females during the 1900s can be deducted from the novel. Women were perceived as objects used for personal escape from war and stereotyped by men. Tim O’Brien incorporates these beliefs in the setting of his novel, also including how women grew out of this sexist image throughout the Women’s Rights Movement.
The objectification of women is a reoccurring theme in the novel. One particular character that represents that mindset is Martha in the chapters of “The Things They Carried” and “Love”. Martha is mostly spoken of by Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who owns a

couple of photographs of her and a pebble she had sent to him as a gift. Lieutenant Cross was constantly distracted during the war, and most of the blame falls on him regularly getting lost in the thought of Martha. “He loved her so much. On the march through the hot days of early April, he carried the pebble in his mouth… he would slip away in daydreams, just pretending” (O’Brien 8). He would see her in small objects like the pebble or pictures, and as the only thing that could get him back home. To Cross, the pebble symbolized all that reminded him of a world outside the war, and all the life he imagined with the Martha he created for himself inside that pebble. Martha was objectified to serve as an escape from his cruel and dark reality, helping him forget about his soldier duties and his troubles.
Thinking of women as objects was not uncommon during the time the novel takes place.

The female figure was truly not thought of much before mid-1900s. There was still a concept of women being “less” of men, inferior beings meant to serve and pleasure. The most common and known stereotype was that of women being fragile and having an innocent and clueless mind, not capable to comprehend nor be a part of the male world. O’Brien makes sure to incorporate these mentalities indirectly in his novels. In the chapter “Sweetheart of The Song Tra Bong” the character of Mary Anne is included, giving a deeper understanding of the roles of women in The Things They Carried. Just as Martha, Mary Anne was objectified at the starting of the chapter, and also stereotyped. She is introduced by Mark Fossie, her lover who is a soldier in the Vietnam War, who just “sends her money. Flies her over” (O’Brien 86). We see the reoccurring theme of men using women not as people but as objects themselves to avoid the brutality of war and the troubled feelings that come with it. To Mark Fossie it was extremely easy to just order Mary Anne to come to him, almost like demanding and needing a particular object. Mary Anne is also described as “this seventeen-year-old doll in her goddamn culottes, perky and fresh-faced, like a cheerleader visiting the opposite team’s locker room” (O’Brien 92). Just as a cheerleader visiting the opposite team’s locker room, Mary Anne being in the war was seen as a woman being

in a men’s world, something that men thought a female could not handle. The cause of the objectification and stereotyping of women in the novel is due to the way men and the rest of the population were raised to reason. They were raised to think of a woman as a figure that would be there to a man’s necessity. That of course changed due to the growing status of females in the Women’s Rights Movement.
Challenging the standards men had of them, women were also portrayed very differently from males in The Things They Carried.

O’Brien almost makes them seem as immoral figures that discourage men by going against their desires. Examples of that can be found in various female characters such as Mary Anne and Henry Dobbins’ girlfriend. Henry Dobbins was known in the novel as the solder that carried his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck as a good luck charm, which also serves as another example of how men objectified women for their personal distraction from Vietnam. She ended up ending their relationship, and by taking control of her life she left him devastated. Mary Anne’s story was more complex and showed more character development in her part. Even if her initial description as a very innocent and feminine person, she quickly changes her attitude and way of being: “She fell quickly into the habits of the bush. No cosmetics, or fingernail filing. She stopped wearing jewelry, cut her hair short” (O’Brien 94). This shows major change due to the Women’s Right’s Movement where women get rid of previous sexist stereotypes. To prove that women were finally independent and making their own decisions going against men’s wills, O’Brien also inserts a conversation between Mary Anne and Mark Fossie on page 94 in which Mary Anne discusses her plans to not get married any time soon, in contradiction of what the pair had previously planned. The conversation follows with Mark

agreeing even though “it made him uncomfortable” (O’Brien 94). His response symbolizes the way men reacted to women’s independence, almost feeling like they lost an object they used to own.
The Things They Carried defies gender roles. Connecting his writing to his novel’s timeline, O’Brien represents the social group of women through their path of independence from the sexist and objectifying ideals of men during 1900s and the Vietnam War. From being idolized, looked down to for pleasure, and thought of as materialistic objects, women that previously played a reassuring and home figure for men developed into their own individuals.

Word Count: 978