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 changes in the soldiers’ minds, raising the question whether the battlefield is actively responsible for this result or merely accelerating the inevitable manifestation of these personal issues, inherent in every person.
In the collection of essays
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The first mention of love is in “The Things They Carried,” when Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’ strong infatuation with Martha is revealed. His attitude seems innocent enough as he “want[s] Martha to love him as he loved her” (1). The reciprocity of this pure emotion, illustrated by the repetition of “love,” is quickly shot down as the officer is portrayed as obsessed with Martha’s rejection of him rather than simply in love. One of the most striking moments that interweaves the violent nature of war with his memories of the girl is presented in his desire to “carr[y] her up the stairs to her room and t[ie] her to the bed and [touch] that left knee all night long” (4). The run-on structure of the sentence conveys the unhealthy excitement of a man who plays this moment over and over again in his mind. In the context of war, such an act does not seem too extreme of harmful, but from a human standpoint it is still unthinkable. The character’s desensitization at the hands of the violence of Vietnam bleeds into his universal judgment of right and wrong, resulting in his reminiscence of Martha’s affections taking on a disquieting
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s love for Martha is his way to get through the terrors of war, but his love for Martha is also a distraction from the war and from leading his men. Jimmy Cross not only carries the responsibility of upholding the mission, but he also carries the responsibility of his men’s lives. Jimmy Cross was obsessed with Martha, and that obsession, blinded him from the dangers of the war. For example, Ted Lavender was shot down while Cross was daydreaming of being together with Martha. For Jimmy Cross, his love for Martha is the most precious thing he carried.
Lt. Cross can not keep his mind off of the girl that he loves back home, even while on duty. “He would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire. He would sometimes taste the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there. More than anything, he wanted Martha to
In the "Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, Tim O'Brien, Norman Bowker, and the young boy whose name was never revealed are all examples of soldiers who couldn't or at least had a hard time talking about their expiriences in war. In the NPR interview with Tim O'Brien one caller who happened to be a Vietnam soldier said he “couldn’t tell anybody what [he] had witnessed”. Many of the soliders who served in Vietnam had a hard time talking about their experiences of the war. The soldiers felt as if nobody cared about how they felt because they were supposed to be strong-minded individuals. If they had someone to talk to often times bringing up memories of the horrifying scenes of the war made their situation worse.
More often than not, soldiers and people in a war zone will be affected by the war one way or another. Either that being during or after the war, one could have a negative or positive outlook on the war, but one single event could automatically change that person's behavior. During 1957-1973, the longest war in the United States history took place, the Vietnam War. Many soldiers have lost their lives in this battle, but the ones that survived have significantly changed from this event.
Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.
Hidden somewhere within the blurred lines of fiction and reality, lies a great war story trapped in the mind of a veteran. On a day to day basis, most are not willing to murder someone, but in the Vietnam War, America’s youth population was forced to after being pulled in by the draft. Author Tim O’Brien expertly blends the lines between fiction, reality, and their effects on psychological viewpoints in the series of short stories embedded within his novel, The Things They Carried. He forces the reader to rethink the purpose of storytelling and breaks down not only what it means to be human, but how mortality and experience influence the way we see our world. In general, he attempts to question why we choose to tell the stories in the way
Cross felt that if only he had been paying attention to his men instead of thinking of Martha, Lavender would not be dead. The weight of guilt had begun taking away Cross’s innocence. In his guilt, he burned the letters from Martha. “In those burned letters Martha had never mentioned the war… She wasn’t involved.
Although the soldier he killed was an enemy soldier, instead of vilifying him he was able to humanize the man. O’Brien was able to describe the physical appearance of the soldier and imagine her life before war. The author was able to portray an emotional connection and made the line between friend and enemy almost vanish. This was able to reveal the natural beauty of shared humanity even in the context of war’s horror. O’Brien is able to find the beauty in the midst of this tragic and horrible event.
During the war, Lieutenant Cross and his troop had mission to destroy the village in Vietnam. Lee Strunk was assigned to explore a tunnel, while the rest of the troops had the responsibility of securing the area. After a couple of minutes of waiting, Lieutenant Cross suddenly thought about Martha. “Kneeling, watching the hole, he tried to concentrate on Lee Strunk and the war, all the dangers, but his love was too much for him, he felt paralyzed, he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered. He wanted her to be a virgin and not a virgin, all at once.
Cross blames himself, knowing “He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead…” (p. 121). First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is distracted by his infatuation for Martha, which ultimately results in Ted Lavender’s death, forcing Cross to realize his fantasies for Martha are wrong and that he is not fulfilling his duties as a lieutenant. Lieutenant Cross is inattentive to the war and his responsibilities because he is unable and unwilling to stop thinking about his adoration for Martha.
In November of 1955, the United States entered arguably one of the most horrific and violent wars in history. The Vietnam War is documented as having claimed about 58,000 American lives and more than 3 million Vietnamese lives. Soldiers and innocent civilians alike were brutally slain and tortured. The atrocities of such a war are near incomprehensible to those who didn’t experience it firsthand. For this reason, Tim O’Brien, Vietnam War veteran, tries to bring to light the true horrors of war in his fiction novel The Things They Carried.
Psychological Warfare in The Things They Carried Unless you have been in war or have read The Things They Carried, you can't fully understand the psychological toll on a person's mind and body, you can't understand the psychological hardship soldiers go through in war. However, The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, is written to where it shows the overall psychological effects of war on soldiers in and out of Vietnam; as shown throughout the story, the recurring themes of trauma, love, and guilt give the clear psychological implications of war.
Tim O’Brien states, “Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (O’Brien 16). In this quote, Tim O’Brien explains that since Jimmy Cross blames himself about Ted Lavender’s death, he will always be in lieutenant’s head. Thus, the lieutenant will always feel the guilt. With this, Tim O’Brien makes the reader think that Jimmy Cross is the person to blame since he is the head of the group and he has to pay more attention to his plans. Having questions about his love, Martha, in his mind instead of being careful about his men is the reason of him feeling guilty that “the lieutenant’s in some deep hurt” (17).
The things they carried is a novel by Tim O’Brien. About the Vietnam war. About the lives of people going there. It’s a collection of war stories. Some of them true, some of the untrue and that’s the main topic that’ll be discussed in this paper.
Death deeply affects how he leads his men and also his love life after the war. By being ashamed of this moment, he never ends up with Martha and is not mentioned to have a wife after the war. After this event he makes the rules of the squadron more strict to try to avoid unnecessary out-of-combat casualties. Jimmy also burns the pictures he has of Martha to try to lessen the shame he feels for letting his friends death occur but he knows that, “You can’t burn the blame” (22). If he could take away the blame of his death, he would not learn the importance of humility and accepting the ugly truth of the situation.