The things they carried

¶ … Things They Carried: Symbolism and Comparative Analysis

One of Tim O'Brien's more popular books is a collection of short stories entitled The Things They Carried. The first short story in the book shares the same name as the books title. The story The Things They Carried involves a Lieutenant Jimmy Cross who is serving in Vietnam as part of the Alpha Company. Cross is in love with a girl from his college in New Jersey named Martha, but she has not given him any indication of a returned love. He carries her letters in his backpack which are all signed "Love, Martha," but Cross takes this as a polite gesture rather than a true confession of her feelings towards him. One day, while the company is in the Than Khe area on a mission to destroy tunnel complexes, Cross imagines the tunnels collapsing on him and Martha. Still daydreaming of Martha, Cross is unfazed when an infantryman, Lavender, is shot on his way back from the bathroom. As the soldiers await the helicopter to remove Lavender's body, they smoke the marijuana he had been carrying and joke and carry on. The next morning, Cross goes into his foxhole and burns Martha's letters and photographs, plans the day's march, and concludes that he will never again fantasize. He then decides that he will call the men together and assume the blame for Lavender's death as it is his job not to be loved, but to lead.

The letters the Jimmy Cross carry from his love Martha, are a symbol not only for love but also for the world separate from war. Martha's letters are Cross' only connection to the outside world. Through reading them and looking at them he gains a sense of hope for life after the war. This sense of hope is completely lost however as soon as he puts the letter down and snaps back into his current situation of blood and violence. Fantasies that stemmed from his reading and obsessing over the letters are what Cross deems as responsible for Lavender's death, as he was not paying attention as he should have. In this way, the letters symbolize the closeness that exists between life and death. Loving is thought to be the pinnacle of living and yet Cross' love was (in his mind) responsible for another man's death. The things carried by the men in The Things They Carried are full of symbolism and Martha's letters exemplify this.

W.B. Yeats' poem An Irish Airman Foresees His Death illustrates the close proximity life shares with death much like The Things They Carried. Yeats' poem is brief and in the first person describes an Irish military man explaining his decision to fight in a war in which he foresees his inevitable death. This relates to O'Brien's short story in that both protagonists understand their life is near an end due to war and both recognize the relationship death and life have. The two pieces of literature do have some contrasting aspects though. For one, though it is labeled as fiction, The Things They Carried is largely based on real events from O'Brien's war years. Yeats' poem on the other hand, was inspired by Major Gregory, an Irish pilot who served in WWI. Ironically, O'Brien's almost autobiographical work is written in third person and Yeats' inspired poem is in first person. Both literary works do share something in common, in that both protagonists abandon feelings of love towards their infantrymen and the people whom they are protecting. Cross mentions that he is not trying to be loved by his men he is simply trying to lead them, and in line four of Yeats' poem he writes, "Those that I guard I do not love." Both men distance themselves from those around them, possibly in order for them to make an already painful life more tolerable.