Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Things They Carried Essay

Nicholas Crow
Mrs. S. Aiken
English 1102-45
Sept. 9, 2009
Two Carrying, One Carried
In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien describes a scene out of his experience in the Vietnam War. In this scene a small unit who has managed to keep themselves out of harms way loses one of its members, Ted Lavender, and exact revenge for their fallen comrade by destroying the village of Than Khe. O’Brien tells this story in short bursts with no chronological value. Instead the story is broken into sections dealing directly with sets of items carried. These sections each give the reader a little more insight to O’Brien’s narrative, and each develops the characters a little more. Of the ten characters presented, Martha, Ted Lavender, and Lieutenant Jimmy Cross are the most essential to the story. This is because they are the story, and the reader learns essential developmental facts about them through the things they carry.
Martha carried nothing. She is a student living in New Jersey far away from Vietnam. She is an indirect character and no lengthy descriptions are given about anything she carries. She is a memory living in Jimmy Cross’s wallet through pictures, in his rucksack through letters, and in his mouth through a pebble. She is the cause of Jimmy’s daydreaming and thus indirectly responsible for Ted Lavender’s death. The fact that Martha carries nothing symbolizes her real purpose in war. Martha had no place there, and though he tried to pretend, she was nothing to Jimmy. She was merely a mental escape for Jimmy and nothing more.
Aside from all the items he carried which define him as a soldier, Ted Lavender carried an M-79 with 34 rounds, a starlight scope, tranquilizers, and several ounces of premium dope to combat the “unweighed fear” he carried (1038). This fear drove Ted to carry an extra eight and three quarters pounds of grenade ammunition. In the world Ted is walking through, weight is deadly. Extra weight can drive a soldier to exhaustion and make it impossible to fight back when strength is required. The additional ammunition symbolizes a shield to Ted. This shield is more important to him than his endurance. Ted would not be able to overcome his fear and make the march without this ammunition. Ted also carried a starlight scope which made his shield even stronger. The ability to peer through the darkness allowed Ted to make it through the night without breaking down out of fear. These two items made it possible for him to perform his duties as a soldier. Ted also carried tranquilizers and dope as an escape from his wartime world. This release from his world ended with his escape from life. It caused him to lower his shield and landed him face down on it. The items Ted carried were there for the same reason, to combat his fear. However, these two items neutralized each other, leaving him only with his fear, and a bullet in his head.
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from Martha, two photographs of Martha, a pebble (white with flecks of orange and violet) from a beach sent from Martha, a compass, maps, code books, binoculars, a .45 caliber pistol, strobe light, and responsibility for the lives of his men. The Martha free items Jimmy carried all define him as an officer and symbolize his true place. He is to be in Vietnam leading his men through the paddies, into combat, and out alive. However, the false love of Martha which he carried in pictures, pebbles, and letters all served as his escape out of Vietnam. They took him to New Jersey with Martha, and away from his heaviest burden, the lives of his men. This daydreaming on whether or not Martha is a virgin, what is implied in the letters, who took his picture of her, and what the pebble meant to her allowed Jimmy to escape from the world of war he was submerged in. They were an escape to a place where Martha carried nothing. This daydreaming lowers his guard and Ted Lavender dies in front of his eyes. He has now lost a life for which he is responsible and in hatred for his failure, he burns Martha’s pictures in the bottom of his foxhole. All that is left now are the things that make him an officer and his despair for losing one of his men. Jimmy then burns Than Khe, trying to burn out his despair as he burned out Martha, leaving only the officer Jimmy describes in the closing paragraphs of O’Brien’s story.
Tim O’Brien masterfully laces a graphic wartime scenario throughout descriptions of a select few soldiers rucksacks, but these item descriptions do more than give a physical description. The items give insight to the character’s personality, desires, and most of all, their fears. This allows the reader to understand the reasons for the events in the story, and the thought process behind the destruction of Than Khe.

3 comments:

  1. Lets the reader know what to expect from all the charachters in the story. Uses both the title of the original story and the author's name and breaks down what happens in the opening paragraph. I would watch how many times the use of the name "Martha" in the last paragraph it sounds a little redundant. Overall a good story.

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  2. I think your essay was wonderfully written. You provided great examples to back up your thesis. I like how you linked the physical with the emotional. I had also never considered that Martha carried nothing and was thus of no importance in the war.

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  3. After reading your essay, I can definitely see how I can improve my essay and make it better. Your essay is well written and organize; I really like how you described the name symbolims in depth. I especially like how you describe Mrs.Freeman daughters in reference to Hulga's that was well done.

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