Carrying Extra Heavy Baggage? by Krissa Fe Lim
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Protagonist Lieutenant Jimmy Cross in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien carries more than just military supplies as he bears the guilt of the death of one is his soldiers, Ted Lavender.
This short story is carried out in a third person narrative to depict the thoughts and experiences encountered by Lieutenant Jimmy Cross along with his platoon on the battlefields of the Vietnam War. Aside from describing the physical necessities such as wristwatches, dogs tags, mosquito repellant… (341), there are also the individual necessities that are also being carried such as canned peaches in heavy syrup and the M-60(machine gun) for Henry Dobbins, Kiowa’s New Testament, Mitchell Sanders PRC-25(radio) and condoms (341,343) which all reflected their personalities as well as their field specialties. The narrator goes on to trivial details about the weight of each item that is carried with the soldiers, 28-pound mine detector, medical supplies were nearly 20 pounds, M-16 gas-operated assault rifles weighed 8.2 pounds if loaded (343). What may seem trivial at first, comes off as significant to portray the hardships they endure once you total out the weight of all the items they must carry through the vast terrain in a war zone to complete missions.
Jimmy Cross’s necessities are somewhat intriguing compared to the others as he carries photographs, love letters, and a lucky pebble from Martha, a college student he was madly in love with back home in New Jersey, along with his .45 caliber pistol and strobe light (341,343,345). The irony in this is that he was the head of his squadron, meant that he would bear the responsibility for their lives (343). It was under Jimmy Cross’ watch that Ted Lavender was shot and killed, all because he was day dreaming about Martha instead of watching out for his team. This causes Jimmy Cross to feel shame and self-hatred (350) all deriving from guilt. The guilt that he cared more for Martha than the safety of his men which lead to the death of Ted Lavender (350). Ultimately, this leads him to burn Martha’s letters and photographs and eventually dispose of her lucky pebble. By doing this he has chosen to hate Martha, and focus on his duties as a lieutenant and watching over the safety of his men.
Overall, the guilt of Ted Lavender’s death was the heaviest thing to carry. It would always be a piece of baggage that Jimmy Cross would have to carry because he would accept the blame for it. Because of this, Jimmy Cross knew he would have to lighten up his load and dispose of Martha. Symbolically, it would help him carry the extra baggage a lot easier.The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Wouldn’t it be great if you had your own website, perhaps one that posted content in reverse chronological order, where you could post things like this, instead of putting them in the technical support forum for WordPress.com software?
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