...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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...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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...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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...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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...In the book,“The Things They Carried” by Tim O'Brien, is about soldiers who March through Vietnam war and fight for the united states of America and tell stories about their experience in Vietnam War. Many of the soldiers in the Vietnam war had experienced emotional burdens that are clearly the most difficult element of the Vietnam war. One of the soldiers named, Jimmy Cross, faced the emotional burden of losing his fellow soldiers in war. Another soldier named,Rat kiley, faced the emotional burden of living in the Vietnam war. Third soldier named Tim O'Brien, faced the emotional burden of killing someone in the Vietnam war. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was the leader of the soldiers in Vietnam war and ordered them around and told them what to do. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was responsible for the entire group of soldiers and during the war, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross had a crush on a girl from back home named Martha. Thinking of Martha was a big distraction to Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and lead to the death of Ted Lavender. “Lieutenant Jimmy Cross felt the pain. He blamed himself” (O'Brien 6). The emotional burden that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross had during the vietnam war was, blaming himself for the death of Ted Lavender. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross didn't want to lose a single soldier in vietnam war and as the leader of the group he failed them by losing Ted Lavender....
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...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. It wouldn’t help...
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...The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien The this short story “ The Things They Carried” take place during the Vietnam War. The narrator describes his story in the third person and speaking through accounts of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. Lt. Cross is an active duty combat soldier completing a tour of duty in Vietnam. Lieutenant Cross is preoccupied by thoughts of Martha, a young woman he met prior to enlisting in the Army and going off to war. Lt Cross uses his personal time to think about a young woman he met. The young lady is named Martha who sends Lt. Cross letters, keeping him updated on the events of home. Each evening after completing a force march Lt. Cross prepares a place of safety by digging a fighting hole (foxhole). He settles down in the safety of the fighting hole where he...
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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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...Tim O’Brien’s book, “The Things They Carried,” provides valuable insight into the minds of soldiers, and enlightens us to the emotional and psychological costs of war. Specifically, the stories of Mary Anne, the baby water buffalo and the chapter, “In the Field,” help us to relate to the metamorphosis that soldiers undergo. While the obvious correlation for O’Brien’s novel is to speak about the physical objects each soldier carried were much more significant, including such things as personal doubts, fears, and dreams. The soldiers have a crazy amount of mental baggage. O’Brien wrote this novel as a type of therapy for himself as a way to deal with everything he had experienced in the Vietnam War. They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried....
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...the short story taken from the novel, The Things They Carried, Tim O’ Brien narrates a chilling excerpt taken from his past during the Vietnam War. Each soldier carries a mental and physical emotional burden as they struggle through the march. The main protagonist, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, has to lead his men through a gruesome war and is forced to transition from his unrestricted past to a life as a soldier. O’Brien reinforces the destruction of young male innocence—especially in the case of Jimmy Cross, who blames himself for the death of his soldiers. Through the use of tone and writing style consistency, diction, and symbolism, the influences of the war cause the soldiers to see war is actually hell. Jimmy Cross is forced to take the...
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...Evaluating A Story: “The Things They Carried”, By Tim O’Brien The Vietnam War really tested the emotions of the soldiers who deployed there. “The Things They Carried” explained from the physical items carried to the emotional burdens of soldiers fighting in Vietnam. Tim O’Brien, the author had also served time over in Vietnam. This story gives the reader a good understanding of the daily things that can occur. Even if it is abrupt and traumatic, the soldiers have to carry on to continue their mission. Tim O’Brien really writes with a simple style. The sentences themselves were not very long, but more so to the point. He had explained things in detail, but it was not overly done. I thought the style of writing went well with the soldiers mindsets of the checklist of events that go along with their lives over there. From getting one thing done to another, as simple as it is, the sentences complimented the events that played a long. The word choices were with good vocabulary, and they didn’t require anything higher than a high school education. He used several military abbreviations that one outside of the military may not understand (example: PFC stands for Private First Class). The tone of the story is sadness. Realizing the events that happen over in a war zone can be really sad. It is a shock to read about a man, an American Soldier just fall down and die. There was also emotional shock with some of the soldiers who had to just shrug it off, and even the shock of realizing...
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... Passage analysis test Throughout The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien presents the horrific events, the average young American soldier experienced in the Vietnam War in a realistic and gut wrenching manner. In the chapter "The Things They Carried", O’Brien effectively employs syntax, detail and repetition and simile to vividly describe the tragic death of Ted Lavender and the sincere regret by the lieutenant Jimmy Cross. The use of syntax and detail can be easily seen throughout the entire passage, especially in describing Ted Lavender’s death “[He] carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed outside Thai Khe, and he went down under an exceptional burden, more than twenty pounds of ammunition, plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers, and all the rest, plus the unweighed fear.” (O'Brien, 1990) By using compound-complex sentence and listing “twenty pounds of ammunition, flak jacket, helmet, rations, water, toilet paper and tranquilizers [and most importantly], the unweighed fear” (O'Brien, 1990), O'Brien demonstrates not only the physical burdens but also the emotional burdens that a young soldier endures to convey the reader that not only the weight each soldier has to carry in order to survive, but also the weight of their emotional burden. At the same time, Lieutenant Cross feels the pain and guilt because he could have done something to save the young man’s life...
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...What We Learn from “The Things They Carried” “War is a bitch” (O’Brien 30), said Azar, an American soldier who joined Vietnam War. War doesn’t bring anything good to anybody. It just creates sorrow and pains to people. In “The Things They Carried”, the author Tim O’Brien shows us a realistic picture of what the war in Vietnam was like. He demonstrates how brutal the war is and the horrible reality of death in war, and how soldiers deal with the pain. This novel should be on the reading selections of The Interpretation of Literature because as it is a novel composed of war stories, it brings some enlightening endeavor and educational experiences to make us understand more about the war. To make us have an objective perspective of what happened in Vietnam War in 1968, O’Brien let us know a little about each soldier and what they carried with them along with the war in the first chapter. The “things” that the soldiers carried were both literal and figurative. The soldiers carry out of necessity for survival, such as guns, helmets, and other forms of weaponry, as well as things they carry more out of habit. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from Martha, a girl that he loved. “Henry Dobbins, who was a big man, carried extra rations, Dave Jensen, who practiced field hygiene, carried a toothbrush, dental floss, and several hotel-sized bars of soap. Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers”(2). O’Brien also describes specifically the weight of the item that...
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...First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross finds himself a platoon leader, responsible for 17 men for Alpha Company during the Vietnam war. The reader might find themselves entrenched on the different journeys of each character. Every soldier has their own coping mechanisms, characteristics, and each one will impact the reader as they see their lives play out. Tim O’Brien in The Things They Carried follows a young First Lieutenant, Jimmy Cross Who is inexperienced with love and war. While reading you find out about Jimmy Cross’s i infatuation with a young girl named Martha. We learn he keeps her letters and photographs sealed in a plastic bag at the bottom of his rucksack, like a secret. Prior to reading these letters from...
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