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The Soldier's Fears In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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The Soldier’s Fears First, in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” the tangible items carried by the soldiers reveal their fears of losing a connection to home, fear of the unknown, fear of reality. Holding onto their precious items from home helped them hold onto reality. Second, “the soldiers all had fears of the war and they all carried with them certain items that gave them the comforts of home.” (366). “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha” (366) he loved her and this was a way of keeping her close, “Henry Dobbins carried his girlfriend’s pantyhose and wrapped them around his neck as a comforter” (372) he must have felt wearing his girlfriend’s pantyhose connected her to him, “Kiowa carried an illustrated New Testament and an old hunting hatchet from his grandfather” (367) his grandfather must …show more content…

The soldiers all carried different things that were either special to them or comforted them. Consequently, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross had the fear of the unknown with the love he carried for Martha, she would send letters and photographs and she would sign them love (368), he knew she didn’t love him in the same way he loved her and he would daydream about her. “She sent a pebble to him from her time at the Jersey shoreline and he would carry this pebble and she said it was a token of her truest feelings for him” (371). He had the fear of the unknown not knowing how she felt for him. Furthermore, the soldiers all had the fear of the unknown of what could or would happen to them. They all carried the emotional baggage of men who might die. “Grief, terror, love, longing – these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight” (381). The fear of the unknown was also lingering and they did not know what could happen to any of them at any

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