Free Things They Carried Essays: The Problem of Surviving :: Things They Carried Essays

The Things They Carried In the forgetful story The Things They Carried Tim OBrien faces Jimmy Cross with the problem of surviving part fighting in Vietnam. While trying to maintain his sanity, Jimmy struggles between his old self and the person he has to become. Jimmy has to make whatever difficult decisions while in his tour, and most of them come to his attention aft(prenominal) his friend Ted Lavender is killed. Jimmys main struggle in dealing with his friends death is to figure out a way he can become a better leader. He wants to lead his march with confidence and preciseness. Before his friends death, Jimmy had constructed a breakwater to separate him from the rest of the troop. Jimmy was in his own realism, mainly buttocks in New Jersey with Martha, but sometimes in a fantasy world where nothing felt real and he would do amazing things like fly over Vietnam waving the whole wildness goodbye. His misconception of fantasy and reality is one of the first things that he changes about himself in order to become a better leader. Making this decision was tightly fitting impossible, the pictures that he had become inured to seeing every twenty-four hour period were put to kindle and Martha was no longer in his thoughts. By burning those pictures he not only breaks free from the fantasy world, but also of Martha. She was a young woman back home who he had loved dearly, and had remained in contact with end-to-end the war. His infatuation with Martha was not a sexual one, but one that had something often greater weight towards his survival. He did not think about Martha day in and day out because she was his only true love of the world he merely unavoidable something to occupy his mind with. He needed something to keep his thoughts away from the horrible tragedies going on around him. He was trying to maintain his hope. Martha gave him a goal, something to shoot for, a reason not to give up. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and al low the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and get up you into the chopper. Because of Martha Jimmy cross could not let go. He could not make himself quit. Part of this great determination came from his conflict with fear and courage.