Lieutenant Jimmy Cross Character Analysis

The Inconspicuous Life of a Soldier Tim O'Brien's “The Things They Carry,” tells a story about the lives of young men during war. The narrator tells his story from first person perspective about life in the army, during the time of war. While marking all of his adventures and experiences of his companions, he also records their hardships and struggles. O’Brien crafts his piece through the use of metaphors, symbolism, and repetition to convey the idea of physical and psychological hardships of soldiers during the war. Though the literary device of symbolism, O'Brien portrays the physical and psychological hardships of a soldier. When Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his men were under attack, “[Lieutenant Jimmy Cross] could not bring himself …show more content…
For example, when carrying Ted Lavender’s (one of the soldier's) body to the helicopter, Lieutenant Cross still thinks of Marth's, “He pictured Martha’s smooth young face, thinking he loved her more than anything, more than his men, and now Ted Lavender was dead because he loved her so much and could not stop thinking about her.”(O’Brien 472). The repetition of Martha signifies distractions soldiers had during wartime; most soldiers thought about their lovers back home which distracted them from the raging war. Consequently, Martha being in the mind of Lieutenant Jimmy also shows how much soldiers had to struggle to fight their temptations while trying to focus on battle, as Cross had tried and failed causing the misfortune of his friend. Another example of how repetition is used to convey physical and psychological hardships for soldiers is when the narrator repeats the word “carried.” For example, according to the narrator, “To carry something was to hump it as when lieutenant Jimmy Cross humped his love for Martha up the hill and through the swamp” (O’Brien 470). Clearly, this indicates that figuratively the burdens which soldiers have to carry psychologically. Jimmy Cross “carried” his love for Martha as a burden because he knew no matter how much he yearned for her she would never love him back. He carried a broken heart and a melancholy mood which was his psychological hardship. Thus, repetition conveys an image of the hardships soldiers faced during

Show More

TTTC Literary Analysis: The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

The Things They Carried Jimmy Cross Character Analysis