How Did The Change Jimmy Valentine's Life

In the novel The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien often brings up Jimmy cross’s love for Martha and how he struggles expressing they way feel feels about her. “Right then he thought he should’ve done something brave”(O’Brian 5) Cross felt much regret because he did not act on his feelings. He did not have the courage to express his love they way he wanted to towards Martha. Jimmy Cross, who had been in love with Martha for quite sometime even though she didn't feel the same way tried to play it off as if he had gotten over her.

5.Some people change after a relationship and the same goes for Jimmy except his was an obsession instead. Jimmy obsessed about Martha but Ted Lavender’s death taught Jimmy to change himself. Jimmy no longer wishes to fantasize about Martha and will always blame himself for Ted’s death. Jimmy will assume a more guardian position in order to not repeat another Ted situation. Ted’s death opened Jimmy’s eyes that he will never be with Martha despite still loving her. Jimmy lost the hope and will to fight for Martha but now will fight for his men as Jimmy hope is that his men will live and return to those that love

He needed to unite his troops into one, and let them all know they are all in this war together, like it or not. Jimmy came to the realization that in a time of war you should have no friends. If you take the time to know the person then you are only getting yourself emotionally attached to that person, and when it comes time to act with your mind not your emotions you will hesitate therefore putting all of your men’s lives at risk. Jimmy could not have that in his squadron. He needed to overcome another great hurdle in his strive for complete leadership. Individuality against Conformity. Everyone in the story had there own things they carried, some carried lucky pebbles like Jimmy and others carried the New Testament like Kiowa.  Jimmy needed to find a way to unite everyone. They all needed to be soldiers. Jimmy decided to lead by example, when he tossed the lucky pebble away and burned his pictures, he intended for everyone to

This time he continued to be neglected by his mother, Cecilia, who later, has an affair with Richard and abandoned her own three children live in a better life. According to Jimmy, Cecilia dyes her hair to blonde and lie about her cultural heritage to get an approval from Richard’s family, “Little did I know that my mother had eloped to San Francisco with Richard, fleeing into a white world as “Sheila”, where she could deny her past, hide her identity, and lie about her cultural heritage”(17).  In addition, she does want any connection between her and her children, “Richard turned to Mom and explained that, since his parents were old- fashioned, it would be best if she said she was Anglo and that she was just babysitting us for a girlfriend” (15). Jimmy already lost his father, but now he was about to lose his mother to another man. Unfortunately, the loss of these two relationships later leads Jimmy and brother being sent to an orphanage after the death of his grandpa. Eventually, he was sent to a detention center. During his time in a detention center, Jimmy is personality became shattered.  At the detention center he exposed to individuals who were neglected by their parents and states, “Even as blood ran through the wounded kid’s fingers and down his arm, his eyes announced that it didn’t hurt, it was nothing, he had no feelings” (21). Those kids in the detention center in a

“More than anything, he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her (O’Brien 1).” Martha was a symbol of the psychological things that were carried that led some of the men to death. She was so important to Cross that he often forgot his duties of a Lieutenant which caused the blame he placed on himself for the deaths of his men. Storytelling was an important motif throughout the novel, it was a way to connect with the past and give Jimmy remembrance of his date with Martha while he was fighting a war. Like O'Brien's story about Linda, Jimmy is able to tell stories about Martha which both brought back elements from the past through memories.

Jimmy is both betrayed and a betrayer, but is ultimately not able to forgive himself or Abbad, so he cannot move on and consequently turns to

But the moment she escapes and is driving across the arroyo, she knows her life will be better remaining loyal to her children. On the other hand, Jimmy Cross wasn’t indecisive about letting Martha go. The moment Ted Lavender was killed, he knew he had to do something about it. Jimmy burned the letters he admired so much, and turned to despise Martha, "He hated her. Yes, he did.

Jimmy had been troubled throughout his life especially during his childhood. His parents didn’t love him; his teachers didn’t think much of him, and the girl of his dreams was involved in child porn. At one part of the novel Jimmy asked his mother if he could get a cat and she replied, “No, Jimmy, you cannot have a cat. We’ve been over this before. Cats might carry diseases that would be bad for the pigoons.” Jimmy did not seem to get the love that he should from his parents but seemed to get through it. Atwood never really explained what the importance was to Oryx being in child pornography and wonder why that was even put in the novel. Problems continue for Jimmy even until the end of the story where he fights to survive when he believes that he is the only one left. It seemed that Jimmy wasn’t as good as Crake and couldn’t live up to Crake’s expectations as he went to a mediocre school and Crake went to a prestigious school.

"Then at full dark he would return to his hole and watch the night and wonder is Martha was a virgin." He recognizes the ideas that she may not be a virgin, and even acknowledges that there are other men in her life. Jimmy knows that Martha has many boyfriends, and when he receives a picture from her in the mail, wonders who the photographer was. He treasures the picture and takes it everywhere with him, and yet the small shadow in the picture of the man taking it seems to be his focal point. He wants to focus purely on his unrequited love for Martha, but he can't. He seems to force himself to understand that she does not actually love him. She will never be his, and he knows that somewhere inside him, but continues to imagine that the love that she signs at the end of her letters is really a romantic love.

Trying to make ends meet, he turns to selling drugs. By the time Jimmy finds love ones more and decides to settle down tragedy occurs. Trying to escaping from a drug bust at a friend’s house his attempts end up with a conviction for murder. Due to his illiteracy, Jimmy couldn’t read the false accusations he never committed.

I feel as if she is just using jimmy as a shield to hide under and she probably does have feelings for jimmy but she is just scared to tell him how she really feels about him. I also feel as if she has a boyfriend and she is not telling anyone because she is a person that liked to hide secrets. On page 27 and 28, They’d run into each other, he said, at a college reunion in 1979. Nothing had changed . He stilled loved her. For eight or nine hours, he said, they spend most of their time together…. At breakfast the next morning she told him she was sorry. She explained that there was nothing she could do about it, and he said he understood, and then she laughed and gave him the picture and told him not to burn the picture and told him not to burn this one up. Jimmy shook his head. “It doesn’t matter”, he finally said, I love her. This quotes shows that even though jimmy and Martha ran into each other they were talking and jimmy finally knowing that martha doesn’t love him the way that he thought she loved him that way. On page 28, “ Jimmy thought it over and then gave me a smile. This quote shows that even though he found out that martha doesn’t feel the sameway that he feels about her is that he is going to

If Jimmy were to open the vault Annabel would figure out his past and not want to be with him. But Jimmy being the considerate man he really is, he busts out his tools and opens up the vault saving Agatha. “With that act, Ralph D. Spence passed away and Jimmy Valentine took his place.’’ This piece of text evidence shows how different Jimmy the man who committed crimes, is from Ralph a nice, considerate, and non-selfish man who has found the love of his life. In “Thank You Ma’am” the main conflict is Roger has nobody to care for him, causing him to not make the best decision of trying to steal from an innocent lady on the street.

This passage shows that Jimmy is not a leader. He is very passive toward his men. He says he want to keep them safe but he does not really do anything to stop them from getting killed. He feels guilty when one of his men dies and wishes he was not in charge so he would not be responsible for their safety. This shows that he is a good person but is not willing to take

Jimmy's transformation begins when he decides to burn the pictures and letters of his girlfriend, Martha. To be a leader in war was meaningless to Jimmy Cross compared to the love he had for Martha. Cross' subsequent burning of Martha's letters suggests that he's determined to put such romantic ideas behind him. He repeatedly convinces himself that there will be no more fantasies about Martha. The burning of Martha’s things is symbolically used by O’Brien to signify a turning point in Cross’ development. Cross realizes that Martha's feelings for him were not those of love, for she is an English major, a girl who lives in the world of words. Cross was rationalizing his un-requiting love for Martha to create a “home world” inside his mind so that he could mentally escape from the war when he needed to.