Dead Weight
Hello everyone, my name is Miguel Hernandez, and the story i choose for my first post was "The things they carried" by Tim O'Brien. Let me start saying this short story reminded me of two literary works which are the poem "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" by Wilfred Owen, and the the science fiction novel Slaughterhouse Five from Kurt Vonnegut, in all these we are able to see how young man fight for their country, and how war is not not successful and it is not full of glory as many history book has portrayed it.
In the story "The things that they carry" Jimmy Cross very young man he is captain of a troop of seventeen men, he was sent with his men to fight in the Vietnam war, but it seems that they were very unprepared for such as great task. For example the item that they were carrying "such as pocket knives, heat tabs, wrist watches, dig tags...chewing,candy [and] kool aid."(97) In this quote we can see that they we not ready for war, but they were ready for a vacation, they were carried item that are usually use by kids and young adults. Moreover, all these items represented a dead weight not only because they were heavy and they have carry them around but they also represent a psychological extra weight that they have carry. For example "hey all carry ghost"(100). these could be memories of the family, stress of surviving this war, fear, sadness and others. Jimmy Cross had some ghosts that he had to carry around they were simple a couple of letter they only 10 ounces, but just carrying them would cost him a very high price. These letters were form his girlfriend his girlfriend Martha, he would always be thinking about her and the few moments the shared, who was to blame him as it is explain by the author Tim O'Brien he was young and he was just a kid in love during war.he would think too much about her to the point were "He had difficulty keeping his attention to the war."(100) he is so obsessed with this girl that never cared about him or how he is doing at war and that will never be his made him lose a touch with really and forget about his men. suddenly "Ted lavender was shot on his way from peeing"(104). Due to the distraction cause by his masochistic and obsessive memories he lost a man, and there was no way to bring him back. this event made him chance and decide to leave this soft and senseless love that only brought an unrealistic hope and death.
Ps. He seems more like a round character he is able to change over the curse of the story.
In the story "The things that they carry" Jimmy Cross very young man he is captain of a troop of seventeen men, he was sent with his men to fight in the Vietnam war, but it seems that they were very unprepared for such as great task. For example the item that they were carrying "such as pocket knives, heat tabs, wrist watches, dig tags...chewing,candy [and] kool aid."(97) In this quote we can see that they we not ready for war, but they were ready for a vacation, they were carried item that are usually use by kids and young adults. Moreover, all these items represented a dead weight not only because they were heavy and they have carry them around but they also represent a psychological extra weight that they have carry. For example "hey all carry ghost"(100). these could be memories of the family, stress of surviving this war, fear, sadness and others. Jimmy Cross had some ghosts that he had to carry around they were simple a couple of letter they only 10 ounces, but just carrying them would cost him a very high price. These letters were form his girlfriend his girlfriend Martha, he would always be thinking about her and the few moments the shared, who was to blame him as it is explain by the author Tim O'Brien he was young and he was just a kid in love during war.he would think too much about her to the point were "He had difficulty keeping his attention to the war."(100) he is so obsessed with this girl that never cared about him or how he is doing at war and that will never be his made him lose a touch with really and forget about his men. suddenly "Ted lavender was shot on his way from peeing"(104). Due to the distraction cause by his masochistic and obsessive memories he lost a man, and there was no way to bring him back. this event made him chance and decide to leave this soft and senseless love that only brought an unrealistic hope and death.
Ps. He seems more like a round character he is able to change over the curse of the story.
