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Things They Carried By Sherman Alexie And Tim O Brien

800 Words4 Pages

“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.” (Sue Monk Kidd). In The Things They Carried, O’Brien is clear in saying that he would agree with this as without stories, people would be very blind about their past and in some cases, what to do in the future. Sherman Alexie and Tim O‘Brien tell stories to help teach people, or show that people are naturally good at heart but they’re ideas can change based on events that they experience or witness in their lives. People tell stories to teach the younger generation about real life society. In this part, Alexie is explaining his father's love for books and how that same love and passion was passed down to him. But Alexie knew that books …show more content…

In the things they carried by Tim O’brien, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was deeply in love with Martha. But one day when a soldier was killed under his watch, he blamed Martha for his death, and wanted to forget all about her. This was the day after Ted's death, “Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha's letters” (O’Brien 22). The letters of Martha was the only thing that he had to remind him of her. Burning the letters symbolized destroying Martha from his life.Jimmy Cross is blaming Martha to hide his own guilt, when in reality ted's death was nobody's fault but the enemy. This proves how people change under conflict. In the things they carried by Tim O’brien, there is a story of how two enemies become friends to survive in the Vietnam War. The story starts with Dave Jensen beating a man by the name of Strunk, but as the war drags on they become friends. “Over the next month they often teamed up on ambushes, they covered each other on patrol, shared a foxhole, took turns pulling guard at night.” (O’Brien 62) After times of struggle, Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk had become good friends and tried to take care of each other The relationship of Jensen and Strunk is a perfect example of how people change under conflict, because of the drastic change from hatred to friendship between two

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How Did Lieutenant Jimmy Cross Get Responsible For The Loss In The Things They Carried

725 Words | 3 Pages

He feels guilty because the men in his company are under his command and he was supposed to keep them safe, but he failed because he wasn’t paying attention. He kept daydreaming about Martha, who Lieutenant Cross had a crush on, when he should’ve been paying attention to the battle happening at the time. And as a result, he blames his obsession on Martha and himself for the death of Ted. To atone for the death of Ted, Lieutenant Cross decided to burn “Martha’s letters” (Tim O'Brien 22), pictures, and threw away a pebble that Martha had given him. He threw away all reminders of Martha to make sure that the memory of Martha would never distract him again so that his men won’t have to die like Ted

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The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1691 Words | 7 Pages

The Things They Carried is a book by Tim O’Brien, who appears as a character in this fictional book as a sort of self-insert in this fictional story. The book has 232 pages, and is divided into several unnumbered chapters. It was published in 1990 by Houghton Mufflin, and was printed in the USA. The story goes in a rather confusing and awkward order, rather than telling the story in a linear passage of time, each chapter takes place during a different part of O’Brien’s life. It’s written from O’Brien’s point of view many years after the Vietnam war.

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Jimmy Cross In The Things They Carried

657 Words | 3 Pages

“The things they carried were largely determined by necessity” (O’Brien 102). The weight of war is a theme strongly represented in Tim O’Brien’s story, The Things They Carried. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross starts off with no desire to be in a leadership position, because of his immaturity, his love for Martha, and inability to handle the responsibilities of lieutenant many of his men die. “He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence 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 107). The soldiers carried many burdens, they carried: diseases, good luck charms, pencils, intangibles, memories, fear, responsibility, and on top of all this they carried

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Powerful Motivator In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

686 Words | 3 Pages

He decided to burn Martha’s letters and photographs, but he realized that he could not burn away the blame, (O’Brien, 103). Regardless of how much he loved her, the new Jimmy Cross would not care more about a girl than his own men ever

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War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

643 Words | 3 Pages

Emotional worry is a major weight the men carry while in war. Jimmy Cross, the leader of the men, carries a picture of Martha, a college student, whom Cross longs the love he feels for her to be returned back. By keeping the picture of her in his bag, he constantly thinks about her and this leads to a death on his part and the carry of guilt. Cross thinks about a date they went on and continually wishes he had done more to her. This creates a longing for Martha even

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The Vietnam War In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

607 Words | 3 Pages

Having a relationship and children can become very stressful during the war because one partner is overseas fighting while the other partner is praying fr the partner fighting, taking care of the family, and doing chores. When soldiers leave for war this may be the last moment that a family could see one another because neither the soldier or their family are certain about whether or not the soldier will return home. Throughout "The Things They Carried", Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is questioning whether or not he will ever see Martha, a girl that he meet and dated in high school again. "They'd run into each other he said, at a college reunion in 1979. Nothing had changed.

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Things They Carried Shame Quotes

159 Words | 1 Pages

In The Things They Carried, O'Brien explores how shame can be shown in different ways for soldiers, including shame over their own actions, shame over their weaknesses, and shame over their inability to connect with or help others. One of the most notable examples of shame in the novel is the character of Jimmy Cross, who feels intense shame and guilt over the death of one of his men, Ted Lavender. Cross blames himself for Lavender's death, feeling that he was too distracted by his own thoughts of Martha to properly lead his army. This shame continues to trouble Cross long after the incident, even after he has left Vietnam.

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O Brien Quotes And Analysis

667 Words | 3 Pages

In The Things They Carried O’Brien shows us that telling stories are essential for life because they help us remember and relive those moments that we cherish the most, or imagine a moment and make it into a moment that we desire. O’Brien shows how stories are essential for life throughout the story. One example is In The Lives of the Dead O’Brien talks about a moment of his childhood. He talks about a date that he went on with Linda. In this chapter O’Brien says, “The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others dream with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head.

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Jimmy Cross Martha Quotes

601 Words | 3 Pages

When she came aware of the obsession Jimmy Cross had for her eventually it turned her off . In The things they Carried Martha and Jimmy Cross situation is a symbol of love that Jimmy cross have

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The Red Convertible 'And The Things They Carried By Tim O' Brien

1658 Words | 7 Pages

From their perspectives we learn that Jimmy could burn his mementos from Martha, but he “could not burn the blame” for not being more alert before Lavender’s death. All of the soldier’s notice him crying the night it happened, but they notice how he accepts responsibility for the death the next morning and how he promises to take better care of the platoon from there on out. In Piedmont-Marton’s critical essay she discusses how Jimmy is reacting to the loss, “His alienation from the group now derives from his understanding that “you could die of carelessness and gross stupidity,” and that he is responsible for the others. He experiences this choice between Martha and his duty as a loss: “It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside.

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The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1430 Words | 6 Pages

“The worst affected from corruption is the common man” Kailash Kher. In a collection of short stories, Tim O’Brien writes about his horrific experiences during the Vietnam War in The Things They Carried. He recounts the graphic details of morbid ordeals he and his platoon encounter. They are forced to undergo extreme situations where they murder hundreds of Vietnamese and suffer loss. Overtime, the soldiers suffer mentally and face the consequences of their actions.

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Truth In Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

922 Words | 4 Pages

The Dentist "He kept replaying his own exploits, tacking on little flourishes that never happened" (82). Now, the question, "Which is more important—story-truth or happening-truth?" is asked. This above quote from Tim O 'Brein gently represents how a little thing called story-truth happens. The greatest difference between story and happening-truth is the simple fact that happening-truth reveals actual events that have occurred, whereas story-truth, which Tim O 'Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, heavily emphasizes, is subjectively reflecting a person 's thoughts and feelings when recounting a tale, and putting theme above all else. The importance of the two is where everything lies, where the author of the novel pushes for story

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Lieutenant Jimmy Cross In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1173 Words | 5 Pages

Until that point in the book readers know more about the way Cross feels about Martha than any other character. Therefore, when Cross burned the letters it is easier to see the effect of losing a man and failure on him considering he had been in love with her for a long time. Despite not being able to save Lavender, Cross gave up Martha in order to become a better leader, a leader that would "not tolerate

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Tim O 'Brien's' Platoon, And The Things They Carried

1315 Words | 6 Pages

Humans are given the gift of sight; one of the many remarkable features people share. To be able to visually see the beauty of nature is a great deal to human existence, especially when it comes from artistic matters such as pictures, videos, paintings etc. A book compared to a movie is like comparing a picture to the description of it. The description may have deeper meaning and a guide to the main point of why and where the picture was taken, but when a picture is being viewed, it is up to the audience to adopt on what the meaning behind the photograph is. It gives an opportunity of freethinking and opinion.

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Innocence In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

1049 Words | 5 Pages

Tim O’ Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, is a collection of short stories with a common topic that discuss events (before,during, and after the Vietnam war) that the men of the Alpha Companies live through; their challenges, thoughts, decisions, and of course the things they carried. The vignettes in this book put you in the characters shoes, allowing you to picture the certain joys and tragedies with detail, witnessing truth, religion, superstition, and loss of innocence. In the first chapter of the story, you are introduced to Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, a weak and insecure leader, always daydreaming and fantasizing about the love of his life, Martha. He carries letters from her and when he reads the word “Love” at the end

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