Femininity In The Things They Carried

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Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried portrays the difficult and complex shifts that occur in the mentalities of the young soldiers in the Vietnam War, who had often barely entered adulthood when they were drafted into a literal warzone. By utilizing many different perspectives in a series of insightful stories and interconnected stories, the novel challenges conventional social definitions of girlfriends and gender roles as well as femininity and how it relates to the male characters in the novel’s arc. Through careful attention to the recurring shared qualities of the female characters and the men’s interactions with them, greater insight can be gained into the unique role that femininity played in the lives of soldiers, as well as how …show more content…
Woven throughout the story are the musings of the platoon leader, Jimmy Cross, on a girl named Martha, whom he is infatuated with, but rejected his advances back home. In the next story, “Love,” Jimmy Cross’ deep feelings for Martha are further explored, as he tells the narrator of where Martha is now, and how she is still unmarried, and he still harbors hopes of one day connecting with her. Towards the middle of the novel, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” has Rat Kiley recounting how an old platoon member brought over his girlfriend Mary Anne with him to Vietnam, and she slowly become more feral and savage, before one day disappearing into the bush. In the final, slightly unique story in the collection, “Lives of the Dead,” O’Brien recalls his nine-year-old girlfriend Linda, who died of cancer, and his feelings towards her both then, and later on in his life. In The Things They Carried, the soldiers maintain more traditional views on the femininity of “girlfriends” and women, viewing them as pure and comforting possessions which contrast sharply with the violence and grit of Vietnam. Each time a female appears in the narrative, it is a significant and notable
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