The Things They Carried Linda's Death Analysis

People believe death is the end of life. And, they are afraid of dying since the death is unavoidable. However, in The Things They Carried, Linda’s death changes the meaning of the death. In the chapter, “The Lives of the Death,” Tim O’Brien tells readers the life can continue after death by recalling his memory with his first love, Linda. Linda died because of her disease, brain tumor, when she was nine years old. However, Linda was not afraid of her inevitable death. She rather thought Tim how to deal with death. Therefore, Linda was not only his first love, but she was also his life teacher who thought him how to give lives to death and cope with deaths.
Linda thought Tim the death is not the end of life. On their first date, Tim and Linda watched a movie in which the main character was a corpse. Even though the plot was tragic and unpleasant, Tim says Linda seemed to be smiling; “there were little crinkles at her eyes, her lips open and gently curving at the corner”. And, Tim states that he “couldn’t understand her” (220). For Tim or Timmy, a nine-year-old boy, it would be hard to understand Linda who was smiling while watching a corpse movie. However, if he had known that Linda had a brain tumor, Timmy could have understood her. Linda’s smile represents that she felt relieved about death as the movie gave a life to its main character, a corpse; it depicts that the …show more content…
In this chapter, the point of view on death is more positive than negative. At least, it is less tragic. Linda’s death gave a great influence on Timmy. Her death helped Tim revise his thought of death. Specifically, it led him to learn the permanence of life and how to keep the death alive. As Tim recalls his memory of Linda, he gives readers the lesson that he learned from Linda. Tim illustrates that the ways we think of death are the main factor making the death tragic or alive