Women and Their Role in The Things They Carried by Tim O'brien

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The Things They Carried Women and their Role in The Things They Carried Within the book The Thing’s They Carried, the stories of the male soldiers and their dealings with the Vietnam War. However he also delves into the stories of the women and how they affected the soldiers and their experiences in Vietnam. While the men dealt with the horrors of war, the women were right at their side, just not in as much of a public view as the male soldiers. O’Brien uses women such as Martha, Linda and Kathleen in The Things They Carried to punctuate how vital rememorance and recompense was to him and other soldiers in Vietnam. 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... ... middle of paper ... ...ust sees her dad’s strange actions. While someone that knows his story would see it as a final act of remembrance, putting Kiowa’s spirit and story to an end. In all, the women in The Things They Carried were important to make it apparent to the reader the different emotions that O’Brien was trying to show, remembering the fallen and learning to forgive yourself and moving on. The most prominent women within the novel used to express these points being Martha, Kathleen and Linda. They were essential in showing the key parts in O’Brien’s life that lead to the turning points which lead to the creation of this novel and his ability to be at peace with what had happened in Vietnam. He finally accepted what ad happened and embraced it instead of avoiding it. Works Cited Novel O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.Print.

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