The Things They Carried In his story 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 chocolate 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, the writing is a lot more in tune with the emotions of the characters: Jimmy Cross humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps…Lieutenant Cross remembered touching left knee. A dark theater, he remembered,…when he touched her knee, she turned and looked at him in a sad, sober way that made him pull his hand back, but he would always remember.
The Essay on The Things They Carried” Tim O Brien Short Story
... the mission they were undertaking. From the story it can be noted that at times things carried were always determined by superstition and ... and ought to have changed. As shown in this story each soldier has items they carry around as they match together at the battlefield. ... Tim o Brien’s work in the things they carried in which he shows himself as one of the main ...
O’Brien’s writing takes on more sentimentality in these sections and adds a great deal of emotional weight for the reader. This contrast in narrative style is necessary to give emphasis to the intangible things that the men carried. One thing O’Brien does frequently in describing the items is to tell how much it weighs. The weapon weighed 7.5 pounds unloaded, 8.2 pounds with its full 20 round magazine. The riflemen carried anywhere from 12 to 20 magazines…adding on another 8.4 pounds at minimum, 14 pounds at maximum. This gives the reader a sense of the burden that the men are bearing in carrying these things.
Much attention is given to the weight and pressure the soldiers feel from what they’re carrying and from external forces, such as nature. They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere…they carried gravity. But the greatest weight the men feel comes from nothing they can physically carry, but rather their emotions: Grief, terror, love, longing these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. In The Things They Carried Tim OBrien faces Jimmy Cross with the problem of surviving while fighting in Vietnam. While trying to maintain his sanity, Jimmy struggles between his old self and the person he has to become.
Jimmy has to make some difficult decisions while in his tour, and most of them come to his attention after his friend Ted Lavender is killed. Jimmys main struggle in dealing with his friends death is to figure out a way he can become a better leader. He wants to lead his troop with confidence and preciseness. Before his friends death, Jimmy had constructed a bulwark to separate him from the rest of the troop. Jimmy was in his own world, mainly back in New Jersey with Martha, but sometimes in a fantasy world where nothing felt real and he would do amazing things like fly over Vietnam waving the whole madness goodbye. His misconception of fantasy and reality is one of the first things that he changes about himself in order to become a better leader.
The Essay on Of Men And Mice – Is loneliness mans greatest enemy?
Loneliness is a state of being alone in sadness, resulting from being forsaken or abandoned. As I understand it, loneliness is when a person has no one to talk to, no one to confide in, nor anyone to keep companionship with. Loneliness also makes a person slip into a desolate state, which they try to conceal under a tough image, and is an emotion even the strongest cannot avoid. In his novel, Of ...
Making this decision was near impossible, the pictures that he had become inured to seeing everyday were put to flame and Martha was no longer in his thoughts. By burning those pictures he not only breaks free from the fantasy world, but also of Martha. She was a girl back home who he had loved dearly, and had remained in contact with throughout the war. His infatuation with Martha was not a sexual one, but one that had something much greater weight towards his survival. He did not think about Martha day in and day out because she was his only true love of the world; he merely needed something to occupy his mind with. He needed something to keep his thoughts away from the horrible tragedies going on around him. He was trying to maintain his hope.
Martha gave him a goal, something to shoot for, a reason not to give up. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper. Because of Martha Jimmy cross could not let go. He could not make himself quit. Part of this great determination came from his conflict with fear and courage.
Jimmy and his men were not very courageous, they did not do heroic things, and they did not even fight in many battles. But this did not make them cowards. They acted in a courageous way but were far from it. They carried a soldiers greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Although the men could have easily lain down and quit fighting they did not do so. For what would the other men think? Not everyone had to act in a cowardice manner just because that is how everyone felt.
Scared of what others might think cost many lives during the war. Jimmy Cross needed to figure out a way to stop the wasting of precious lives and start saving some. He needed to unite his troops into one, and reduce everyones individuality. 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 mens lives at risk. Jimmy could not have that in his squadron.
The Essay on Jimmy Cross Martha Story Picture
Released From the Grip of What He Carried: Freedom Birds " They dreamed of freedom birds. At night, on guard, staring into the dark, they were carried away by jumbo jets. They felt the rush of takeoff. Gone! They yelled. (286). 'Freedom bird' an appropriate term for the jumbo jets that take the soldiers from their tour because it gives them the freedom from what has been holding them back. ...
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 under the sole basis of their missions. 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 follow. Jimmy knew that each man would have to carry certain weight that could not be measured in units because it was inside them. Kiowa, for example, who had to learn how to deal with balancing his true emotions with the weight of being a Christian.
He knew that even though Ted Lavender had died he should not feel relieved that it was not he who had taken the fatal bullet, but sorrow and grief. Even though Kiowa had a serious internal battle to fight, Jimmy had it worse. He felt shame. He heated himself. He had loved Martha more then his men, and as a consequence Lavender was dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone for the rest of the war.” Sources: OBrien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Charters and Charters 518-531 Charters, Ann, and Samuel Charters, Eds.
Literature and Its Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Boston: Bedford, 1997..
