...“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is about Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his soldiers on their journey during the war in Vietnam. He was the leader, he was in charge of all the soldier’s lives. Through the journey his soldiers carried everything. The items they cared was determined by what did in the war. They carried love, shared memories, terror, personal belongings, guns, and reputations. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross cared about Martha more than he cared about his soldiers. Martha was a longtime friend he went to college with before he was drafted in the war. Through the whole war, the only thing on his mind was Martha. He was couldn’t concentrate on the war because he was wondering when Martha would love him. One of his soldiers Ted Lavender died from a shot to the head. Lieutenant Cross blamed himself for Ted Lavender’s death. After Ted’s death, he burned all of Martha’s pictures. He stops caring about Martha. He realized Martha didn’t care about him or the war. He started focusing more on performing his duties. He wanted all of his soldiers to focus more. He learned not to be loved but to lead his people in the right direction. He was the leader and he needed to start acting like one. I enjoyed reading this story. The...
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...Physical: The Things They Carried Through Vietnam Soldiers of the Vietnam War marched miles and miles through the humid broiling forests of Vietnam. So the question every soldier asks themselves is, to hump or not to hump, though maybe not in those exact words. As Tim O’Brien so eloquently puts it in his novel, The Things They Carried, “To carry something was to hump it” (O’Brien 3). Already carrying twelve to eighteen pounds of necessities, an item must be of great significance for a soldier to lug the extra weight. Ted Lavender carried six to seven ounces of “premium dope” and an extra twenty pounds of ammunition, Kiowa carried an illustrated New Testament, and Henry Dobbins carried his girlfriend’s pantyhose wrapped around...
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...English 1302-017 March 13, 2016 The Things They Carried The story of “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is about a soldier and a platoon leader named Lieutenant Jimmy Cross who was assigned to lead a group of soldiers on a combat mission in Vietnam. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross constantly daydreams about Martha, the woman he’s in love with. He blamed himself and felt guilty for one of the soldier’s (Ted Lavender) death due to his lack of attention and vigilance. The story talks about the experiences and the conditions that these soldiers endured in Vietnam. The setting, language and tone of the story suggest that the impact of war not only causes physical strain, but it also causes an emotional, psychological,...
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...Tim O’Brien calls his book, The Things They Carried, a “love story”. In his novel, O’Brien recounts the stories of several men who are serving in a troop during the VIetnam War in order to illustrate that love. O’Brien shows the fraternal love that grows between each of the men in the troop by symbolizing how the things the men carried form tight bonds between them. O’Brien uses Jimmy Cross as an example of someone who forms tight bonds with his men through his shame. For example, Jimmy Cross shows his guilty conscience over Lavender’s death when he burns the pictures of Martha and the letters she had sent him (O’Brien 22). Cross burned these things that he physically carried because of his guilt. O’Brien utilizes these objects to symbolize...
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...What Soldiers Carried The soldiers from Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried all had to carry something during their service in the Vietnam War. O’Brien expresses these objects in his novel through the perspectives of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and himself, detailing their characters from what they carried both physically and symbolically. Initially, Jimmy Cross, the lieutenant of O’Brien’s company, brought with him memorabilia from a girl he loved named Martha and the responsibility of his men’s’ lives. He writes how Cross’s letters, “Were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping” and Martha who, “had found the pebble on the Jersey shoreline, where things came together but also separated.” Jimmy Cross, being extremely lovesick,...
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...a handful of memories and along with them, The Things They Carried gives a reason behind each thing the soldiers carry. Some things may contain sentimental value, while others are for health and fighting purposes. The soldiers have to deal with death and learn to persevere through the hardships. The theme of The Things They Carried is the physical and emotional effects of being a soldier...
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..."The Things They Carried," Tim O'Brien describes a group of soldiers marching through Vietnam. He does this by describing the items that each of them carries with him during the march. The things that the soldiers carry with them are both tangible and intangible items and what these things are depends upon the individual soldier. They carry the basic "necessities" for survival (if one can consider such things as M&M's a necessity) and the bare minimum to make life as livable as possible. But they also carry memories, and fears, and it is intangible items like these that are the prime focus of the story. The weight of these abstract items is as real as that of any physical ones, and unlike those physical objects, they are not so easily cast away. Throughout the story, O'Brien alternates between narrative passages and simple descriptions of the items that the soldiers are carrying. This fragmentation brings focus to the things the men are carrying, both tangible and intangible, without downplaying the narration. In the descriptive segments of the story, O'Brien is very exact in his descriptions and seems to be merely cataloging what is being carried: "As a first lieutenant and platoon leader, Jimmy Cross carried a compass, maps, code books, binoculars, and a .45(c)caliber pistol that weighed 2.9 pounds full loaded." O'Brien gives only straight forward descriptions in these segments and the writing is void of any feeling or sentiment. When describing the intangible things, however...
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...Mark Koon Professor Paquette English 102 / F / 8:00 AM Friday, October 15, 2015 The Things They Carried In the short story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien a Lieutenant by the name of Jimmy Cross and his squad carry a list of many things, some of these things heavy physical loads and some heavy emotional loads composed of grief, terror, love, and guilt. The things each soldier carries depends on the soldier himself including his priorities and his constitutions and also his rank or his specialty for example Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries maps, compasses, and the heavy burden of the responsibility of his men’s lives. A nervous soldier named Ted Lavender carries marijuana and tranquilizers to calm himself down and the religious soldier Kiowa carries an illustrated New Testament and every single one of these men carry the figurative weight of memory, fear, and hope and the literal weight of one another. In this short story the author uses the title symbolically for both the seen and unseen things that men at war carry and to represent the traumas and hardships they have suffered that they will carry for the rest of their lives. These soldiers know they can die at any moment and so when the inevitable happens and a soldier is actually killed in action extra tension stems from the fact that Lt. Cross knows he is responsible. When Ted Lavender is killed in action one of the soldier’s, Kiowa, cannot stop marveling at how fast and hard Lavender hit the ground. “Boom-Down”...
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...The Things They Carried is a story that takes place during the Vietnam War. It is about soldiers at war, narrated by Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, involving the explanations of the soldiers carrying literal and nonliteral objects that are either a necessity physically or mentally. Throughout The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, there are examples that can be criticized through a feministic approach. More specifically, examining the relationship between Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Martha. Even though Lieutenant Jimmy Cross used Martha as a comfort mechanism, he has a misogynistic view towards her. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross puts an overpowering emphasis on the thought if Martha is or is not a virgin. This fixation on her virginity, plays into...
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...Everyone carries luggage literally or figuratively, people carry a variety of things with them, wallets with pictures of family, credit cards, small trinkets etc. The things they carried by Tim O’Brien can be looked at in two different ways, are what they’re carrying merely items or do they have a deeper meaning for each individual. The items carried by the men in this story serve several purposes for each individual, whether its superstition, sentimental or essential to their military jobs. By using cataloging and paying close attention to the details, in The things they carried there are several characters in which we can look deeper into the items they carry, and how they affect each character and how that plays into who they are outside of their military life. Before we look into each individual character, first it is important to look at how each character is the same in what they carry. The story has an extensive list of items that each person carries as basic military items. General items they carried include P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wrist watches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits,military payment certificates, C rations and Two or three canteens of water. These lightweight items are the basic essentials that a military man needs and thusly they do not burden the soldier too much. However throughout the story the mentioning of weight is repeated several...
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...The Things They Carried Essay In The Things They Carried, assigning blame is a quick, effective, and an efficient way of coping with the burdens of war. As soldiers go into war they are faced with many overwhelming situations.The problem is sometimes it’s hard to keep moving forward when they’re constantly holding the weight of death and others with them. These soldiers assign blame on themselves and others to help them cope with the horrific warfare environment. Assigning blame on oneself seems like the quickest way to give somewhat relief on the situation at hand. Jimmy Cross seems to find this as the best method in moving on with the war. "When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy Cross understood this. You could blame the war… A moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever" (115). Jimmy questioned himself in...
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...Kylie Miller English 2025 Lisa Beans 24 January 2014 First Writing Response In the two short stories we read in class, “The Things They Carried” and “The School”, there were to very different, yet very similar journeys the characters had to face. In “The Things They Carried”, the journey was the war. The soldiers taking this journey were faced with many ups and downs during their time spent on it. They faced death and sorrow when someone in their troop was killed, but they also found joy and comfort in the things they carried with them on their long journey. They traveled, almost aimlessly, along the warpath trying to reach the end of their journey until the main character, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, decides that he is going to make the best of this journey; that he will make what they are doing mean something. Before, Jimmy Cross was facing an entirely different journey on the inside. He struggled with the thought of if a girl from back home, whom he loved, truly loved him back. However, the biggest struggle of Jimmy Cross’s journey was the one he faced when his fellow soldier Ted Lavender was killed. Cross blamed himself for Lavender’s death. He thought that if he wouldn’t have been spending all of his time thinking about the girl from back home he could have been a better leader. After this, Cross burned all of his love’s pictures and letters and vowed to be a better lieutenant for his men thinking, “He was now determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence...
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...Journal#1 In the story, “The Things That They Carried”, the setting is really important because it shows where Jimmy Cross’s mind is while he is supposed to be protecting his soldiers from the enemies in Vietnam War. The settings in the story vary in terms of both time and space. Most of the stories take place in Vietnam and also relates memories from his hometown, New Jersey, and his crush, Martha. Throughout the story, Jimmy Cross can never focus on his soldiers because he is busy thinking about Martha, who is in New Jersey, while he is in the Vietnam fighting the war. From here, we can see how the setting automatically makes us think how careless Jimmy Cross is as a Captain because he is not doing his duty of for protecting his soldiers. Moreover, the author describes the description of the jungle place where the soldiers has to fight is very dangerous because there are so many traps placed in the ground. By imagining the description of the jungle, it sounds very scary because the soldiers could die easily if they do not pay attention on their road. Nonetheless, Jimmy Cross still acts very carelessly because his mind can never focus in the war but think about something else. Furthermore, one of his soldiers, Ted Lavenders, got shot in the head and died because he took some Tranquilizer to have less fear. The only person to blame for Ted Lavender’s death is Jimmy Cross because as a captain he does not care about any of his soldiers including Lavender. From here, we could see...
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...Timothy O’Brien’s The Things They Carried deals with Death as a complicated subject of interpretation of the American soldiers and the public. Although this theme is dealt with throughout the book, He explicitly symbolizes the notion of mortality with the search for Kiowa’s body that presents a line of demarcation of mortality. The perspectives of Jimmy Cross, Azar, and O’Brien symbolize feelings of the American soldiers and public. While Jimmy Cross represents the soldiers whom are greatly affected by a comrade’s death, Azar’s unempathetic view of death represents the American public who saw soldier’s deaths as a number indicating the current winner of the war. In the search for Kiowa’s body, O’Brien utilizes...
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...The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, was not just about the physical things that each soldier carried in their pack, but also the emotional weight of loved ones, fears, and death that they have witnessed. O’Brien used details about each item the soldiers carried, especially the weight. By letting the reader know how much physical weight the soldier was carrying, it allowed them to indirectly experience the hardship of marching days on end, carrying their gear. Along with the physical weight, each soldier had to overcome their emotions and focus on the task at hand, something Lieutenant Cross failed to do so, therefore causing death among the men he oversaw and was supposed to protect. In the story, O’Brien added specific details about each item the soldiers carried. He talked about the things that were necessary for survival, but the soldiers also carried items that were important to them. The reader could plainly see that when the speaker stated “Very few carried underwear. On their feet, they carried jungle boots-2.1 pounds,” (799) and “Rat Kiley carried comic books.” (799) This allowed the reader to know more about the soldiers belongs, which helped them develop a connection or an understanding of what they each carried to keep their lives and their sanity. Unfortunately, in some cases, carrying personal items didn’t always help...
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