The Things They Carried By Tim O ' Brien

One of the most overlooked aspects in the life of a soldier is the weight of the things they carry. In Tim O'Brien's story, "The Things They Carried," O'Brien details the plight of Vietnam soldiers along with how they shoulder the numerous burdens placed upon them. Literally, the heavy supplies weigh down each soldier -- but the physical load imposed on each soldier symbolizes the psychological baggage a soldier carries during war. Though O'Brien lists the things each soldier carries, the focal point centers around the leader, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, and his roles in the war. Lt. Cross has multiple burdens, but his emotional baggage is

This story also describes other people with what they pack in their bags and such. These items describe the lifestyle each person lives in or even outside of the war. For example, “Ted Lavender carried six or seven ounces of premium dope, which for him was a necessity” (355), which could explain that he is a drug addict and possibly a drug dealer. Another example is, “Dave Jensen carried three pairs of sox and a can of Dr. Scholl’s foot powder as a precaution against trench foot”(355), this describes Dave could be a health nut or someone that cares for his wellbeing more than his companions. The main character and narrator Jimmy Cross describes himself with the letters he saves in his sack from Martha,

To begin, the narrator who we perceived to be O’brien himself tells the story in a third person perspective, describing the thoughts and actions of first lieutenant Jimmy Cross. As the story opens we are met by 1LT.Cross, who is carrying letters from a girl back home named “Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey” (O’brien 1-2) who he has deep feelings for but she does not feel the same for him. O’brien depicts this story as a love story because he wants the readers to feel connected to the characters and give them

Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is sent to war, but is leaving behind someone he loves. Jimmy is in love with Martha, but the love between them isn’t the same. Jimmy loves her and would wish to marry her, but Martha doesn’t love him in the same way and doesn’t want to be with him. Jimmy carries photographs of Martha with him at all times. Martha is consistently on his mind, which distracts him from his duties in the military. One day, the men are out in combat and as always, Jimmy is thinking about Martha. Ted Lavender is scared of the war and carries 34 rounds of ammo with him. While they were out in combat, Lavender gets shot, collapses, and dies. Lieutenant Cross emerged from daydreaming and felt the pain of Lavenders death. He came to realize he was to blame for the death of Ted

Memories and stories swarming the mind and twisted by imagination are the only glimpse of humanity a man can hold on to while at war. Through stories, men at war can share their thinning humanity with one another. The deafening silence of war defeats the human spirit and moral compass, thus it is not only man against man but man against sanity. Tim O 'Brien 's “The Things They Carried” provides a narrative of soldiers in the Vietnam War holding on to the only parts of themselves through their imagination. O’Brien employs symbolic tokens, heavy characterization, and the grueling conflict of man to illustrate how soldiers create metaphorical stories to ease the burden of war.

For Jimmy Cross, he humped pictures of Martha, “a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey ” (318) and the letters she writes him. O’Brien highlights these items as special things that Lt. Jimmy Cross carries because they symbolize all he has left behind and hopes to someday return to. Additionally, the letters he receives from Martha are light in weight, only “ten ounce,” (315) but prove to be a heavy burden.

“Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” Dante Alighieri. Hope is an anodyne. In times of war many soldiers require a buffer to alleviate the pain of witnessing the horrors of the war zone reality. This may manifest as emotional baggage, a reoccurring theme in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. Emotional baggage transcends the physical weight it manifests that was in the soldier’s packs. Emotional baggage can manifest as something intangible, like an obsession, or take on physical weight and mass, like something that gives comfort simply by having it on one’s person. However, there comes a time when the emotional baggage must be shrugged off if one is to move forward and onward in one’s life. O’Brien uses the reoccurring theme emotional baggage in his novel “The Things They Carried” to show not only how some soldiers utilized it in an attempt to buffer themselves from the front line, but how some put faith in the symbolism of they carried, and how some come to the realization that they must shrug off some of this distracting emotional baggage if they were to carry on.

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.

"Briefly, in the rain, Lieutenant Cross saw Martha's gray eyes gazing back at him. He understood. It was very sad, he thought.  The things men carried in side.  The things men did or felt they had to do. He almost nodded at her, but didn't." This one quote reasonably sums up the whole story. Lieutenant Cross starts the story by listing all the things the men have to carry to keep them safe and nourished. When he goes more into the story he starts to explain the mental baggage they all carry. He is in "love" with Martha. Constantly wondering if she is a virgin or who she is with now. He gets so involved with Martha's life he imagines himself on the Jersey shore with her feeling the warm sun and the waves crashing by the two. While he is deep

O’Brien begins the story with the First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross speaking about his knickknacks that Martha, a friend from back home in America, has sent him including letters, photographs, and a pebble from her last trip to the shore. Jimmy Cross has a plethora of responsibilities which must be carried out, yet he continues to put these to the side to focus on Martha and what he thinks of their relationship.

Henry Dobbins carried his girlfriend’s panty-hose around his neck. Norman Bowker carried a thumb from a corpse that was given to him by Mitchell Sanders. Towards the end of the story Lieutenant Cross realizes he is not doing his job well if he is thinking about Martha. After Lavender is shot, Cross decides that he is going to straighten up and be the leader he should have been all along. Cross blames himself for Lavender’s death.” He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of war.”(O’Brien 101) Immediately, Cross has a talk about his new expectations.”Commencing immediately, he’d tell them, they would no longer abandon equipment along the route of march. They would police up their acts, they would get their shit together, and keep it together, and maintain it neatly and in a good working order.”(O’Brien 105) After Lavender is killed, Cross has the motivation to fulfill his role in war as the leader of the platoon.

First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries with him a pebble given to him by Martha, a girl with whom he is in love and wishes to be back home with, along with letters and

Jimmy Cross was trying to become romantically involved with a college girl, Martha, that he loved so well. Unfortunately, she gave no indication of the same feelings towards him. His experiences at war were affected by this distraction. The primary items that Jimmy carried, in addition to letters from Martha, were objects that a platoon leader would need such as: maps, compass, and binoculars (Clugston, 2014, Ch. 5 p. 15). However, he valued a pebble that Martha had given him much more. He even blamed the death of Ted Lavender on himself as he should have been more focused on doing his job. The setting and point of view contributed to understanding Jimmy’s situation as he had ample amount of time to reflect while resting from the battles of war, and even indicating what his mind focused on while on the battlefield. Although this short story was not presented in the first person of Jimmy, the writer offered his thought process

O’Brien’s use of Martha’s carelessness manifests a representation of society’s abandonment of the soldiers. Society left the soldiers without support like Martha does to Cross by not inquiring more about the war. The same case pertains to Dobbins and his girlfriend. One day, Dobbins receives mail where “his girlfriend dumped him. It was a hard blow. Dobbins went quiet for a while, staring down at her letter” (112). Like Martha, Dobbins’s girlfriend does not sympathize with the pain of the soldier. She is unable to consider the relentless brutality that Dobbins is confronted with at war, and discards the idea that she may be his motivation to keep fighting and to stay alive. Instead, Dobbins’s girlfriend breaks up with him as he continues to fight for survival. Dobbins’s emotions are not taken into account, so his girlfriend carelessly moves on with her own life, leaving Dobbins alone. Losing this direct connection to home results in a loss of security which is what society did to the soldiers, so they were ostracized and left to fight and cope by themselves.

During the war, women are used to reflect society’s abandonment of the soldiers through their insensitivity that ultimately leaves the soldiers to fight alone. For Lieutenant Cross, Martha writes long letters back and forth with him, but rarely do they ever speak of Cross’s life in battle. Merely, the only time war is mentioned is to say, “Jimmy, take care of yourself” (2). Considering the pages and pages of writing that Martha writes regarding her life, she does not put in the effort to ask about Cross, who risks his life every day. Simply, she tells Cross to