The Things They Carried Passage Analysis

This passage reflects both motifs and literary features that often present themselves throughout the novel. The motif of balancing sanity and insanity is seen several times in this book and can be seen in the syntax of this sentence because of how long and sporadic it is, but the narrator is trying to seem as if he and the others are uneffected. He does this through rhetoric absolutes in both this passage (“There it is”) and throughout the novel. The rhetoric absolutes in this novel establishes a feeling of disconnect for the reader just as the soldiers were forced into an emotional disconnect from the events of the war if they were to maintain their sanity. The phrase, “you can’t change what can’t be changed” is the base for the acceptance and apathy the soldiers obtain for the degenerate acts they must engage in, in order to survive and maintain a reasonable amount of mental stability. However, while the soldiers are doing everything that they can to appear apathetic the use of repetition in the novel is often employed to show shock, pain, fear, etc.. In this passage, the repeated use of the, “there it is” statement suggests to the reader that O’Brien

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,

Every day we go through, a million and one things occur. We either completely forget about it in the next instant or we carry it with us for the rest of our eternity. It’s possible to carry the memory of the generous tip the nice women gave you or the exact moment the wrong words came out of your mouth. We can carry these things called burdens, either physically or emotionally.

He begins by explaining that Jimmy Cross has an obsession, and her name is Martha. “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack” (pg. 1, line 1). Although Jimmy Cross wished they were love letters he would still continue to go crazy about them. ”He would sometimes taste the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there.” (pg.1, line 9) Jimmy Cross could not wait to see Martha as he continued to constantly have her on his mind. While constantly thinking about Martha, Lavender continues to be briefly mentioned then after, Jimmy Cross starts blaming himself for the death of Lavender, but the platoon knows they must move on, as the emotional effect of this story begins to lean towards the physical state of mind on the war, such as the weapons and explosives. This starts to calm down the narrator and his emotional level, however the constant reminder of not seeing Lavender, triggers his emotions and finally continues to bring up more detail about what happened after the death. This brings out the more emotional side of the story and the narrator explains what Lieutenant Cross thinks about the death of Lavender since he could not stop thinking

In the list of all the things the soldiers carried, what item was most surprising? Which item did you find most evocative of the war? Foot powder was most surprising to me. This also shows us how much these soldiers had to travel in the war.

The text, ‘The Things They Carried', is an excellent example which reveals how individuals are changed for the worse through their first hand experience of war. Following the lives of the men both during and after the war in a series of short stories, the impact of the war is accurately portrayed, and provides a rare insight into the guilt stricken minds of soldiers. ‘The Things They Carried' shows the impact of the war in its many forms: the suicide of an ex-soldier upon his return home; the lessening sanity of a medic as the constant death surrounds him; the trauma and guilt of all the soldiers after seeing their friends die, and feeling as if they could have saved them; and the deaths of the soldiers, the most negative impact a war

Thematic Statement: “The Things They Carried”- The mental and morale that a person go through is intense because it becomes the fundamental that will be throughout the whole story.

Love is a powerful force, and Lieutenant Cross sometimes gets lost in his musings while thinking of Martha. O’Brien writes: “His mind wandered. He had difficulty keeping his attention on the war. On occasion he would yell at his men to spread out the column, to keep their eyes open, but then he would slip away into daydreams, just pretending, walking barefoot along the Jersey shore, with Martha, carrying nothing.” Like any sane person in his situation, Lieutenant Cross wants to escape – to anywhere else but the war. The war brings terrible experiences – fear, death, hunger, and pain beyond imagination. The only way that Lieutenant Cross can endure these things is by escaping to an imaginary life with Martha. Although to her, he is little more than a friend, to Lieutenant Cross, Martha represents innocence, perfection, and a world free from war.

     In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, numerous themes are illustrated by the author. Through the portrayal of a number of characters, Tim O’Brien suggests that to adapt to Vietnam is not always more difficult than to revert back to the lives they once knew. Correspondingly the theme of change is omnipresent throughout the novel, specifically in the depiction of numerous characters.

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.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is a captivating recitation in which Tim O'Brien maintains that all the stories featured in the entire book are indeed true stories. Tim is the protagonist as well as the narrator of this particular story and it is the experiences that he had regarding war that have drove him to write the this story. The book gives a clear depiction of the war in Vietnam by showing the horrors of war but there have been varying views regarding the question of whether the book is an antiwar or not. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to address this particular issue by addressing different views in regard to whether the book is an anti-war on not and this will be supported by

The role of women in the book The Things They Carried is an important one. These men have various views and feeling about the women they love, the women they hate, and the women that they may not know and can only dream of. While the text given to the ideas of women is small is stature, it is quite significant in meaning. There are three main women that enter and disrupt the lives of the Alpha company; Mary-Ann, Martha, and Henry Dobbin's girlfriend, who remains unnamed. The men carry letters, rocks, and even pantyhose to remind them of the women back home, and that which they hope to

The men carried letters from Martha, P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C rations, canteens of water, canned peaches, pound cake, toothbrush, dental floss, hotel sized bars of soap, tranquilizers, steel helmets, few carried underwear, standard fatigue jackets and trousers, jungle boots, socks, Dr. Scholl’s foot powder, premium dope, condoms, a diary, comic books, an illustrated New Testament, distrust of the white man, a hunting hatchet, a steel-centered, nylon-covered flak jacket, a large compress bandage, a green plastic poncho,

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

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a collection of multiple short stories about Tim O’Brien’s, recollections of his time as a soldier in the Vietnam War. This novel depicts the experiences and effects of the Vietnam war on the lives of the American soldiers. O’Brien informs the readers that the stories may not be completely true or moral but that’s the point of a true war story. In the novel, O’Brien introduces characters by the items they carried. The thoughts of women or items women had given to these men were often recognized in the book. O’Brien incorporated a few female characters such as Martha, Mary Anne Bell, and Henry Dobbins’s girlfriend in order to show the influence they all had on the men in the novel. Though the