The Things They Carried By O ' Brien

Jimmy Cross being the immature lieutenant is affected being responsible of his men, and carries much of the war’s burden. Every time one of Cross’s men dies, he experiences deep regrettable feelings that he should have been a better

In life, everyone has obligations. People have responsibilities they have to tend to everyday, but sometimes there are passions of love or revenge that makes one stop thinking of what their true responsibilities are. For soldiers fighting in war, their responsibility is to take care of their men and make sure no one gets hurt. They fight for their country and protect the men who have become their family. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross went against his honor to protect his men. He let his responsibly go, which caused one of the men in his group to die. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross confronts the demands of the love for Martha, which conflicts with his responsibility in the war, which affects him and the story.

The short story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien used many different types of literary devices. Imagery is used to illustrate the war in a descriptive way. Figurative and literal language is used to describe the things that the soldiers carried with them; physically and emotionally. Some of the things that the soldiers carried with them were symbols of luck. Personification was used when mentioning these good lucks symbols and it was also used to describe the dead. Alliteration was used in the short story to emphasize the sound of how fast life could end while being at war.

The Things They Carried is a war story based on the Vietnam War. One story the author, Tim O 'Brien tells is the story of Mary Anne, Mark Fossie’s childhood sweetheart. Mary Anne’s curiosity allows her to acquire knowledge about Vietnam’s culture and language. She wants to learn about Vietnam, the war and what they do. She also isn’t afraid and is eager to aid the casualties. One night she goes out on an ambition with the Green Berets, and the next day she and Fossie become engaged. Eventually she disappears for 3 weeks only to arrive at the special forces hut, and when seen Mary Anne is wearing the same outfit as before, but with a necklace of human tongues around her neck. She says what happened isn’t bad. In the end, she crossed to the other side never coming back, becoming one with the land. Mary Anne symbolizes war soldiers going through the war getting consumed by the darkness of the war.

Imagine one day you receive a mail from the government that you been draft to go a war at a different country. How would you feel if you know that purpose of this war is unreasonable in any senses? Angry, anxious or even confused. Vietnam War was “a personal failure on a national scale” (Hochgesang). There are many videos, documents and movies about the Vietnam War that show different angles of the Vietnam veterans’ experience and how the war really changes their life. In “The Things They Carried” written by Tim O’Brien, he argues about how the Vietnam War affect the soldiers in many ways, not only physically, but more important is the psychological effects before, during and after the war.

The central theme and true meaning of courage is shown vividly in numerous instances throughout Tim O’Brien’s classic novel The Things They Carried. O’Brien’s novel begins with the courage of coming of age, along with the author’s loss of his innocence. Tim, the protagonist of this novel, goes through an incredible change in belief when he must choose to either run away from the Vietnam War or unwillingly join the bloody battle, of which he strongly did not have faith in. The main courageous occurrence that O’Brien was showing the reader was the fear of going to war, and the integrity behind holding ones beliefs and morals in fighting for their country. The Things They Carried shows

However, Lt. Cross fails to realize his responsibility is not in keeping his photographs and letters safe, but in leading his men safely. Because of his delusional dreams of Martha, he is unable to prevent the death of Ted Lavender. In dealing with such a guilt and regret, Lt Cross is forced to give up the one thing he loved “more than anything, more than his men,” (318) his beloved Martha. He forces himself to burn everything that was Martha, her pictures, the letters, and pebble she sent, “because she belonged to another world, which was not quite real…because he realized she did not love him and never would” (323).

In the first chapter in the book, titled The Things They Carried, Jimmy Cross is one of the many examples throughout the novel in where a soldier has a way to escape from the realities of war. Cross, who is a lieutenant in his company, carries two photographs of a girl named Martha whom he truly loves and wishes nothing else but to be with her in the end. Along with the photographs, he carries letters from Martha herself as well as her good-luck pebble in his mouth. Martha’s letters has a huge impact on Cross’s escape on reality because those letters do not mention war at all but for him to stay safe. All of these items comforts Cross and eventually reminisce about the times when he was back home with Martha away from any war. He relives a moment when he was with Martha at the movies, and then remembers that he touched her knee but Martha did not approve and pushed his hands away. Now while he’s in Vietnam, he does nothing but fantasizes taking her to her bed, tying her up, and touching that one knee knee all night long.

In the story The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien didn’t mention anything about traditional war heroes. I think this was a great idea, because there are no traditional war heroes. A traditional war hero is someone who is fearless and someone who can’t be harmed mentally or emotionally. But in The Things They Carried the soldiers out on the front lines were emotionally and physically scarred. Tim O’Brien didn’t write about traditional war heroes, O’Brien wrote about normal people, people with different views on the Vietnam war, and how the war affected these people.

Every one of us has experienced a strong emotional fear, and in that moment of stress, we learn more about who we are. The short story “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien, follows the lives of soldiers trying to survive the emotional and physical stresses of the Vietnam War. Throughout the story, O’Brien juxtaposes the physical weight of the supplies that the soldiers must carry with the immeasurable weight of their intense emotional experiences. The theme of “The Things They Carried” is the burden of fear, which O’Brien portrays through the counter-weight of objects the soldiers cling to for consolation and escape. Some men turn to objects that remind them of love, no matter how unlikely it is that they are loved back. Other men

Jimmy Cross is the First Lieutenant who carries “the responsibility for the lives of his men” (O’Brien 429). Cross let his imagined love get in the way of his responsibilities and one of his men was killed. Cross carries the weight of Lavender’s death and adds that to the weight of his renewed responsibility to his men (427-437).

Death defines life; it has the ability to reinvent the living for better or worse. “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien, provides a non-linear, semi-fictitious account of the Vietnam War that poignantly depicts the complicated relationship between life and death. His account breathes subtle vitality and realism into the lingering presence of the dead, intimating that the memories they impart have as profound an impact as the living.

The Vietnam warriors had much to carry. The baggage, physical and emotional, is what caused Jimmy Cross to focus on Martha instead

Lieutenant Cross carried a letter and pictures from Martha, a girl back home. His obsession with Martha distracts him from his duties as a platoon leader. He constantly finds himself fantasizing about her when he should be checking the perimeter or watching for ambushes. Lt. Cross not only carried the photographs of Martha, but he also carried his love for her and the pain of knowing she would never return his love. Martha had sent him a pebble from the Jersey shoreline. Lt. Cross carried it in his mouth while humping and pretended that he was back with Martha at college instead of in Vietnam. He sat wondering if she was a virgin while Lee Strunk crawled through an underground tunnel, and a Viet Cong sniper shot Ted Lavender. The next morning Jimmy Cross burnt Martha’s picture and her letters, but the guilt remained. He resolved to stop pining and act like a Platoon Leader. Each soldier carries the same standard issue protective gear and weapons that help him survive. But they also ‘humped’ a variety of other items dictated by personal preferences, such as a Bible, comic books, foot powder, a hunting hatchet, and marijuana. Rank also dictated what they carried. Platoon leaders carried a pistol, RTO’s carried the radio, medics carried morphine and syringes, big men carried machine guns, and regular grunts carried standard issue M-16’s among other equipment. They carried a silent awe at the power of the weapons, which could keep them alive by killing the enemy. They carried

In the novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien there is an ambiguity assigned to the life of a soldier in the Vietnam war, an ambiguity that represents no clear moral victor, no clear heroes, and seemingly no end. In the movie, Platoon, written and directed by Oliver Stone, the same ambiguity is depicted, with no clear moral direction, no clear heroes, and no clear resolution. In the short story, “How to Tell a True War Story,” O’Brien talks in great detail about how a true war story, and not some reimagining, “is never moral” (O’Brien) and “cannot be believed” (O’Brien). According to O’Brien, the movie Platoon will qualify as a true war story because it is not moral, hard to believe, and has no clear resolution.