Summary Of Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

Do I Die Die or Hypothetically Die? The central idea of Tim O 'Brien 's "The Things They Carried" is that it 's not always the physical baggage that 's bothersome, it could be the emotional baggage. The story was about U.S. troops in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The soldiers had to carry tangible and intangible objects. One of them died. After putting the blame on himself, the lieutenant tried to change his ways to prevent the deaths of his other troops. The lieutenant was Jimmy Cross and he was a lovesick soldier at war. Jimmy 's love for a girl in New Jersey knew no borders. Cross wasn 't ready to go to war. It seemed that he didn 't really want to be in the war, but something convinced his to sign up. He definitely wasn 't ready to hold the responsibility of his men 's lives. Proof of that is when Cross started freaking out after Ted Lavender was shot. Cross told himself that it was his fault because he was busy daydreaming about Martha instead of looking out for his men. Based on this, he seemed to have very low self esteem. Cross carried the grief of Lavender 's death so his troops wouldn 't have had to. Cross thought …show more content…
Where they were marching was heavily wooded and surrounded by the Viet Cong. The people the American soldiers were trying to save were attacking them. This made things confusing for the soldiers and added more weight to the already heavy load they had to carry. Since they had more to carry it made it even harder to deal with the war. It was an endless cycle. The point of view of "The Things They Carried" was third person omniscient. O 'Brien used it to show how everyone felt throughout the story. It made the story more engaging than if it were to be in third person limited or in first person. Third person omniscient allowed the reader to become attached to the characters. Usually when reading a story the reader would enjoy it more if they had an emotional connection to most of the