Jimmy Cross In The Things They Carried

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The Conflict of First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross in "The Things They Carried"

There is a substantial amount of natural conflict in the short story "The Things They Carried", as it is set on the battlefields of Vietnam, but I wanted to focus on the internal conflict that Jimmy Cross experiences. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross was in love. Her name was Martha, and although she was Jimmy's pen pal during the war, it was clear that she did not reciprocate Jimmy's love for her. Here is a quote from the first paragraph that describes the letters that Martha sent to Jimmy and sum up their relationship quite well. "They were signed 'Love, Martha,' but Lieutenant Cross understood that 'Love' was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes …show more content…
The author Tim O'Brien made it evident that Jimmy Cross' love for Martha weighed as much as the twenty six pound PRC-25 Radio that his RTO Mitchell Sanders carried along with him. The battle continues to wage on through quite a lot of the book as Jimmy tries to decide of Martha will ever love him back. Romantic fantasies filled his mind and caused him to lose focus of the reality of the war and fight for survival that he and his troops were in. The story reaches its climax as Jimmy is clearing out a tunnel looking for enemy soldiers. He had lead his men into dangerous territory, but with only thoughts for Martha he seemed unaware. In the midst of this, one of his platoon is shot dead. The pain from yet another loss in his squad roused Jimmy from his stupor of love and forced him to face reality. The reality that Martha was just an escape from the horror around him, but that his negligence of being present to lead his team was unfair to all. Jimmy decides that a happily ever after with Martha is just a fantasy, and that the lives of his squad are dependent on him. As a way to find closure and to end the distraction of love once and for all, Lieutenant Cross burned all of Martha's letters and photos. His mind was cleared, and the conflict was
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