Lieutenant Jimmy Cross Character Analysis

Kailey Myers
Maria Sebastian
Eng 102 Short Story Draft
5 June 2013

In the short story “The Things They Carried” Tim O’brien uses physical objects that each solider is carrying to try to give us a glimpse of their lives and some insight into their personalities. Most of the things the soldiers carried were determined by necessity, such as can openers, heat tabs, helmets and canteens of water. (269). While the reasoning for O 'brien 's “The Things They Carried” is to speak about the physical objects each soldier carried with them, the internal things they carried were much more meaningful. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is the protagonist of the story. Cross carries many things while he is away at war but he mostly carries Martha. Cross is responsible for being a leader to all the soldiers who he is with. His character seems to be unsure about the orders he gives and also, seems to feel very guilty anytime anything bad happens. It is obvious that he feels the most guilty when Ted Lavender
is killed. While Cross lets his mind wander to Martha, “a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey”, (269). he is brought back to reality by the death of Lavender. Cross begins to feel that he loves Martha more than anything, even his own men. (272). O’brien shows each characters means of dealing with the awful things that happen while away at war by explaining what they carry.
The men use certain items to escape the things they deal with each day and to feel a sense of security. Each man carries some object to escape whether it is by imagination or even drugs. “Lieutenant Cross physically carries letters, photographs and a ‘simple pebble, an ounce at most,’ all given to him by a junior at Mount Sebastian College, named Martha.” (McCleary). Cross will sometimes even taste the envelope flap because he knows Martha has licked it. Every time he looks at the pictures he thinks of new things he should’ve done while with Martha. (271). Lieutenants’ obsession with Martha symbolizes how desperate he is for love. “Another character, Kiowa, is described as a ‘devout Baptist’ who carries a copy of the Old Testament, which was given to him by his father”. (McCleary). Ted Lavender uses dope and tranquilizers to evade daily
life.
McCleary April. Numerous themes are illustrated by the author in “The Things they Carried”. There was a definite and obvious emphasis on the word “carry”, as the title points out. The things they carry are about the burdens the war faces upon them. The themes behind the word carry could be burden as well as escape. O’brien emphasizes on the physical and emotional weight that the soldiers carry, which almost always seems like too much of a burden. The men carry items from home to help them mentally escape from the war, whether it is mind altering drugs like Ted Lavender’s tranquilizers or photographs and letters like Jimmy Cross. Carrying these items allows the men to think about life after war. Tim O’briens “The Things they Carried”, has a lot of emotion throughout it. Jimmy Cross’ character does a great job of displaying that. The story beings with Cross finding any opportunity to use the pictures and letters Martha sends to slip away from reality, as the story goes on and he believes he is to blame for Lavender’s death he realizes that his men need him more than Martha. Each solider is assigned things to carry based on their weight and speific missions. It is clear though that the most important things that they carry are not their tactical military gear but, are in fact their memories and few personal belongings from home that allow them to be somewhere else even if only for a moment or two.

Works Cited McCleary, April. “The Emotional Burdens in ‘The Things they Carried’”. BlogSpot.com. Sep. 9. 2009. Jun. 5. 2013. Web. O’brien, Tim. “The Things They Carried”. Portable Literature. Ed. Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell. Wadsworth Cengage Learnning, 2013. 269-281. Print.