The Things They Carried In this story the author uses many symbols to show the personality of each character and to show how different each soldier is. The items the soldiers are carrying have a deeper meaning than just the broad meaning they usually have. They are describing the soldier’s personal life. These items also represent what the soldiers are thinking about. In a way, the items were an escape from reality. No one would’ve ever thought a simple item could tell such an interesting story, until now. Lt. Jimmy Cross carries letters from the girl he loves, Martha. Lt. Cross is somewhat obsessed with Martha; however, the feeling is not mutual. “The letters weighed ten ounces. They were signed “Love, Martha,” but Lieutenant Cross understood that Love was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant” (O’Brien 117).
Martha is a kind girl who is nothing more than friends with Jimmy, but he wishes they could be more than that. Every day at sundown he stares off into the sunset and fantasizes many different scenarios in which he wishes could become reality between the two. The obsessiveness he has for Martha is symbolizing the loneliness he is having while he is at war, and the desperateness to be loved. The fantasizing is his way of escaping from reality and making himself happier. Henry Dobbins and Mitchell Sanders found a way to be comfortable while at war with the use of sexual items. Mitchell carries condoms with him and Henry keeps his girlfriends pantyhose tied around his neck because he says that it comforts and relaxes him. The possession of these items shows that these two men were probably horny and missed having sex since they’ve been at war. Dobbins also carried canned peaches in heavy syrup over pound cake. This represented Dobbins as someone who was most likely overweight. The soldiers have to deal with two tough situations, the fact of knowing that they killed someone or the fact of knowing that someone killed one of their own men. A lot of times they dealt with these deaths by talking about the irony behind it. Mitchell Sanders is the main one who uses this irony to help him recover from the sight of death, and he also points out that behind each death there is a moral to the story of that person’s death. For example, when Ted Lavenders dies, Mitchell says that is because of all the drugs that he had been using. Revenge is also shown strongly in this story. When Lavenders dies, Lt. Cross gets upset and wants revenge on whoever did this to his soldier. Angered and sad at the same time, Lt. Cross gathers up the rest of his soldiers and decides to burn down the village of Than Khe and destroy anything in his path. “After the chopper took Lavender away, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross led his men into the village of Than Khe. They burned everything. They shot chickens and dogs, they trashed the village well, they called in artillery and watched the wreckage. (O’Brien 124). Kiowa, a devout Christian carries an illustrated New Testament and he carries his grandfather’s ratchet with him while he was in the war. This is a metaphor showing that the soldier is still affected by the discrimination that his grandmother received from white people.
Related Documents: the things they carried Essay examples
Nikita Keenan 7/14/12 Throughout Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, the persona of the author often serves as a medium between the translation of emotion felt by characters in the story to the reader of the book. By developing fictitious versions of events that transpired while serving in the Vietnam War, O’Brien’s character is able to revive memories from the past as well as spark feelings of understanding and empathy in others. Surprisingly, the tone of the narrator rarely peals…
and it now lives through war. Wars have split countries and even created factions within religions. Perhaps one of the most overlooked consequences of wars are the effects it has on the people who fight them. War is a hellish thing. Only a few people return from wars without changing. In The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, explains the burdens of war through symbolism. The physical and psychological consequences war has on soldiers transforms them into shadows of their former selves. During times of war,…
surprised me the most were the tranquilizers that Ted lavender carried with him. This surprised me because it showed how he couldn’t even take the effects of the war and had to do something to almost remove him from the situation at times. This item is also the most representative of war because they showed how stressful the war was because he had to take them to numb himself. The item that stays with me would be the pebble that Lt. Cross carried around. 2. A. Curt lemon was a coward about going to the…
Carried“The Things They Carried” – The American Civil War, 1861-1865 A soldier fighting in the Civil War had mixed feelings of compelling patriotism, notably with the Confederates but undeniably just as present in the Union, and strong disgust. Battles often consisted of fathers, uncles, sons and brothers all fighting the American states bordering their own. Specific to the Civil War: * Scabbard w/ or w/out detailing (depends): Bayonet scabbards were issued to each soldier as standard…
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before or what could happen. Emotional baggage is a big part of life, and in the story The Things They Carried by Time O’Brien really portrays that both physically and emotionally and really connects to you in the real life. Throughout this story it you learn about the baggage you carry and how some can be seen and some are chosen by you and some are ones you just have and some are given. The Things They Carried is a story about soldiers that are stationed at war outside of the states. Many of these…
In the vignette “Good Form” out of the book The Things they Carried, O’Brien admits to telling the “story-truth”, not the “Happening-Truth”. This changes my view on the vignette “The Man I Killed” because in “Good Form” O’Brien admits to never seeing the faces of men he’s killed so that makes the vignette “The Man I Killed” just a humanization of the faceless men that O’Brien has killed in Vietnam. This book is essentially three literary categories in one. It is historical due to the accurate…
The Things They Carried Critical Theories/Themes The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien represents many different critical theories throughout the novel. O’Brien reflects on his experience in the Vietnam War. He also tells the reader about the people that were there with him. In the novel, the Marxist theory is very relevant. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was very pre-occupied during the war with his girlfriend Martha. All he did was think about her and the letters she sent him. He would put his…
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is loosely based on the author’s personal experiences while fighting in Vietnam. O’Brien makes the book into a work of fiction by adding and embellishing actual events as well as giving the reader bits of personal information through stories about his war experiences, home and his childhood. O’Brien often brings up the concept of “truth” in his stories by letting the reader understand that although he is not necessarily providing a historically accurate version…
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a collection of essays, all centered on anecdotes of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. The seemingly straightforward recollections slowly reveal dense layers of personal and metaphorical meanings upon closer inspection, with the exploration of the characters’ emotions and the underlying motif of love creating the opportunity to trace how war changes a person in the realm of his emotions. The Vietnam warfare acts as a catalyst for all of the unsettling…