The Things They Carried Stories 1- 5
The Things They Carried
Jimmy Cross is the First Lieutenant of Alpha company, but he cannot stop himself from thinking about his love interest, Martha, even as he leads the company in their chaotic operations in Vietnam. The soldiers spent the majority of their time walking from one village to another searching for the VC (Vietcong). The soldiers of the company carried several deadly weapons, ammo, essential survival equipment, markers of their rank, and specialization. Some of them carried weight exceeding 18 pounds. They brought along items of personal interest as well, for instance, Henry Dobbins carried several snacks, Kiowa carried an illustrated copy of the New Testament, Ted Lavender carried tranquilizers and dope, and all of them carried photographs. Jimmy Cross carried two photographs, which included a photograph Martha had given to him. Jimmy had trouble bringing his mind to the war, and he was obsessed with thoughts about Martha’s virginity. He would read her letters before going to sleep, and think whether the friends she wrote about were just that, or whether they were her boyfriends.
He recalled the only movie date that they had ever taken together, and he had touched her knee during the movie. She had given him an icy look that had stopped him in his tracks, and he had walked her to her dorm. Jimmy regretted his lack of courage, he wished that he had carried her away without regard for her consent, tied her to his bed, and touched her knee all night long. Jimmy Cross was forced to revise his feelings for Martha after the death of Ted Lavender, who had a habit of popping tranquilizers to deal with the chaos of their war. Kiowa remarked at how suddenly Ted had fallen over dead almost as if he had been turned to stone. Ted had been shot while the company was searching out tunnels that they had been tasked to destroy. They had called in a chopper to carry away Ted’s body, and the rest of the company had smoked Ted’s dope while joking about him. Jimmy blamed himself for thinking about Martha, and after Ted’s body had been airlifted, he led the company in burning a Vietnamese village. In the weeks following Lavender’s death, Jimmy burned Martha’s pictures and decided that he needed to stop thinking about her so that he could think about the men he was leading instead.
Love
Several years after the war, Jimmy Cross came to visit Tim O’Brien, the narrator, in Massachusetts. They looked over old pictures of their time in Vietnam while smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. Jimmy saw pictures of Ted Lavender and confessed that he had never been able to forgive himself for Lavender’s death. They moved to drink gin after that and had better thinking about all the fun they had while serving. Tim found the courage to ask him about Martha, and he pulled out a picture of her, the same one that he had burned. He explained that he had met her during a college reunion, and discovered that she had become a missionary. He had told her about his love for her and the things he wished he had done after the end of their only date. She told him that she was glad he hadn’t done it. She gave him the picture again the following day, and he continued to love her. As Tim was dropping him to the car, he asked Jimmy if he could write about Jimmy’s love for Martha. Jimmy assented gladly, and he hoped that the story would make Martha “come begging.”
Spin
The writer was in his twenties when he went to war, and although he is forty-three and a writer now, he can’t seem to put the war behind him. He recalls some fond memories from his time in Vietnam, like the time that they had been aided by an aged native man. The old man had guided them through fields of mines and booby traps. They had grown fond of the old man, who had been equally fond of them. They had cried when they had left the old man behind to go for their next mission.
On The Rainy River
The narrator recalls the summer when he had received his draft to the Vietnam War at the beginning of the 1968 summer. He had been preparing to join graduate school and felt certain that he was too good to go to war and be a soldier. He had been opposed to the war, and uncertain about the reasons for it. He understood that the government had canceled nearly all graduate deferments, and he did not have the means to protest the draft on grounds of religion. He felt trapped.
That summer he worked at a meat packaging plant in Minnesota, and his job involved washing off blood clots from the corpses of hogs. It was disgusting work that left him smelling like blood and pork no matter how hard he washed himself. By July, Tim began to have thoughts about escaping to Canada, but he was held back by what the townspeople and his family would think of him. However, something inside him snapped, and he suddenly decided that he was going to go through with it. He left the plant, drove home, where he packed a suitcase of his clothes, left a note for his parents, and drove to the Rainy River, which separated Minnesota from Canada.
Tim found accommodation in an empty resort run by an eighty-year-old man, and to him, Tim owes a great debt of gratitude. The man gave him the space to deal with his emotions, and although he never spoke to Tim for very long, the old man knew what Tim was contemplating. He refused to accept money from Tim and offered him wages for the errands that Tim had run while at the resort. On the sixth day of his stay at the resort, the old man took Tim fishing in the river. He took the boat into Canadian waters and killed the engine close to the shore. Tim tried very badly to swim to the shore but he could not bring himself to do it. He broke down and cried while the old man sat quietly fishing. Tim understood then that he would go to war because he was too embarrassed to run away.
Enemies
Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen once fought fiercely over a knife that Jensen claimed Lee had stolen from him. Dave was the bigger guy, and he got the better of Lee. He broke Lee’s nose quite badly forcing Lee to be evacuated for recovery. Lee returned a couple of days later, and Dave could not relax. He was constantly on guard for Lee’s revenge, but it never came. He nearly snapped under the pressure of it. One day, he suddenly began to fire into the bush while screaming Lee’s name. That night he broke his nose with a pistol and showed it to Lee. They agreed that they were even, but the next morning, Lee couldn’t hold in his laughter. He had stolen the knife from Dave.
Analysis
The novel develops the theme of conflict between war duties and the private lives of the soldiers. In the first story, the author describes all the things that the soldiers of Alpha Company carried. The descriptions of their burden include the tools of their trade as well as their personal history. This conflict is explored further through Jimmy Cross, who feels responsible for his comrade’s death because he had been daydreaming about a girl on the mission. For Jimmy Cross, the war ends up taking precedence over his personality as he chooses to burn Martha’s picture and focus on being a better commander to the men. The novel has been labeled anti-war by some literary scholars. None of the stories focus on any idea conventional idea of patriotism or nationalism. In On The Rainy River, the narrator describes his desire to escape the war. The author inverts the meaning of bravery by stating that he went to war because he was a coward. Tim’s reasons for going to war did not involve a desire to serve his country but rather fear of what society would say about him if he were to dodge the draft.
