The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien)
By
Eric Sissom
English Composition I
November 13, 2005
While fighting the war in Vietnam, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross daydreamed about a girl he knew from his college back home. “He would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire.” (151) Her name was Martha and she was an English major at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. She wrote letters to him about everyday life. “She wrote beautifully about her professors and roommates and midterm exams, about her respect for Chaucer and her great affection for Virginia Woolf.” (151) Lieutenant Cross wished they were love letters. He wished she loved him as much as he loved her. Even though she signed her letters “Love, Martha,” he knew that was just the way she signed her letters and did not necessarily mean she loved him romantically.
He always kept every letter she sent him in his rucksack and treated them as the most important pieces of paper in his life. He treasured them as gold and wanted Martha to be the girl of his dreams. “He would sometimes taste the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there.” (151)
He carried two photos of her in his wallet. In one picture, she was smiling straight at the camera in front of a brick wall. He wondered who took that picture "because he knew she had boyfriends, […] and could see the shadow of the picture-taker spreading out against the brick wall." (152) The other picture was an action shot of her playing volleyball at Mount Sebastian College. She was wearing gym shorts and had nice legs, which reminded him of his only date with her. He touched her knee during a movie in a dark theater. “Martha wore a tweed skirt, and during the final scene, when he touched her knee, she turned and looked at him in a sad, sober way that made him pull his hand back.” (153) At the end of the evening when he kissed her goodnight, he wished he made a move to let out his romantic feelings for her. He felt he should have “carried her up the stairs to her room and tied her to the bed and touched that left knee all night long.” (153)
Lieutenant Cross’s consistent daydreaming took away his focus and attention of his duties of leading his soldiers during the mission. He was slacking off and as a result, one of his soldiers was killed. He was devastated by that tragedy and hated himself and Martha for his stupidity. “This was not Mount Sebastian, it was another world, where there were no pretty poems or midterm exams, a place where men died because of carelessness and gross stupidity.” (166) He burned all of Martha’s letters and pictures and started paying attention to his responsibility as a Lieutenant. It was hard for him to forget Martha, but he did to prevent another tragedy. “[…] Lieutenant Jimmy Cross reminded himself that his obligation was not to be loved but to lead.” (167)
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Grade: 78/100 | This essay was written by Eric Sissom, e-mail: essay@ericsissom.com
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