The things they carried essay's

Analytical Essay:

The men that go off and face war have not changed from back then to modern day today. They not only face different battles because of new technology, yet they all still love and breathe the same way. It needs to be acknowledged that love never changes and all forms of love are constant throughout life. Love always seemed to be the safety net to our leap of faith with partners in a relationship. Having that scenario play out may seem different... love might have the outer shell of being different but overall in the end, going back to the basics. It is the same as it always has been.

This scene is in the intro and is Jimmy cross giving an explanation of why he has the photographs. He goes into depth of how his love is consistent with Martha. He talks about how he thinks about her all the time. He can’t get her out of his mind. He explains the definition of “humping photographs” which means to carry the pictures around. “Almost everyone humped photographs. In his wallet, Lieutenant cross carried two photographs of Martha. At night, sometimes, lieutenant cross wondered who had taken the picture, because he loved her so much and because he could see the shadow of the picture taker spreading out against the brick wall.” (pg. 4) This whole quote is an example of the love that Jimmy cross felt for Martha as he was in the vietnam war. This is something that many soldiers did at the time. They felt that they needed to focus on love as they were over in battle. It may be seen as an odd thing to do but it is perfectly reasonable and it is needed to focus on the idea of love, not whether or not it is creepy but that it is their way to survive the war and their way of just being humans. Soldiers try to survive any way possible and this is one of the ways that they are able to. Soldiers back then all the way up to current day still use this technique. It makes them feel alive when they are in a desolate place. Love may vary for who loves who, love may vary for whether its successful or not, but love never changes. Whether love is successful or not doesn't mean where and how long they went out for. It means whether they stuck together, through thick and then for each other. A successful relationship is one that is faithful and pure.

Jimmy Cross is time flashing forward into the future. Jimmy cross is talking to Tim O’brien, and he is admitting that he still loves her even after the war. “They’d run into each other, he said, at a college reunion in 1979. Nothing had changed. He still loved her. For eight or nine hours, he told him, they spent most of their time together. There was a banquet and then a dance and then afterward they took a walk across the campus and talked about their lives. “ (pg. 28.) This is a case of love never failing. Even sometimes after the war soldiers will continue their love. Love is strange in the sense that people can pick it up almost anywhere. People tend to automatically lean to hatred so when love comes along, they try and grasp it for all their might. Other’s try and deny love.  Love is all they can rely on when they are told to do the opposite. When people are separated from their loved ones that is the true challenge and test of their faith for each other. It is testing that not only will they stay loyal to each other but it is testing that they will keep interest in each other. Again, it makes them feel human. Love is an instinct for every person and it is in our DNA to love.

Lieutenant cross in this quote, is off in another world. He is stationed in vietnam, but his mind is afar, thinking about Martha. “Lieutenant Cross gazed at the tunnel. But he was not there. He was buried with Martha under the white sand at the jersey shore. They were pressed together, and the pebble in his mouth was her tongue.” (pg. 12) This is another example of Lieutenant Cross being faced with the struggle of not being able to be with his “girl”. He is doing whatever he can to think of Martha. He was picturing himself with her and a pebble as martha’s tongue to stimulate the emotion of actually being with her. But this is also a good example of how love stays constant. He loved Martha with a deep passion and he loved her so deeply that he put a pebble in his mouth just to feel like he was with her. He represented the love that he created in his mind around her completely with just one pebble. The ironic thing about love is that love doesn’t just come out of anywhere either. It has to be based off of something. There needs to be a spark to light the fuse. And with Martha there was no spark, but the spark that lit Cross’ fuse was when he touched Martha’s leg in their so called date.

Love has always stayed constant throughout life. It is the people who translate it into different scenarios. It is them being afraid of facing love. They are not ready for love. It is something that they are cowering from. In the things they carried, Martha is the one that is cowering from love and Lieutenant Cross is embracing it. Love is sure as hell not a piece of cake, but it isn’t that difficult to achieve. Love comes naturally. All it takes is a little bit of effort from both parties. Love is not something that can just fade out. It has it’s ups and downs but stays pure throughout the end. Lieutenant stayed faithful to Martha (even though they weren’t “together”). He kept his promise and he was able to focus on her and her alone.

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

https://scienceleadership.instructure.com/courses/862/pages/tim-obrien-article-number-2

Narrative Essay:

Love was never something I experienced as I was growing up. Don’t get me wrong, my parents are the most loving parents(most of the time) you could get, but when you’re a short chubby blonde kid, nobody wants be “boyfriend and girlfriend” with you. I never understood just even close to what the general idea of love. I realized in 9th grade that the idea of love is not just a specific idea. Or at least at the time, i thought love was just a bunch of crazy awesome ideas mashed into one. I lived about a year under the impression of this. And then Anna Sugrue said something to me in a conversation we were having about love. Somehow the conversation lead into the necessities of love and thats when she told me her definition of love. “Love is a complex theory. I compare love to how i love a family member of mine. If one of these family members were to die, I would be absolutely devastated and would want to die. Now of course, if the person I “loved” died, i would be disappointed and sad but only could I say I loved them if I could not love without them. If they were to die so shall I.” After she said this, I pondered over it for the next couple of days. I was honestly dumbfounded. I knew she was right, she had completely stumped me. I had said it in a previous relationship and I knew right away that I didn’t mean it. Of course I thought I meant it, but my heart didn’t mean it. It was at this point did I realize that there is a fine line between liking somebody, and loving them. In this essence, love is always constant in whether love is present or not.

As a child of divorce and remarriage I have seen love die and then form again. My parents became separated on january 11th, 2001. My parents were together for 11 years and married for 4 and a half years. When they separated, I was 3 years of age. I don’t really remember much of the separation but I remember going back and forth from house to house. At that time, and still currently, I live my life around going back and forth. My life schedule revolves around every other week. I automatically had two of everything. A common misconception that I have heard from first hand experience is that divorce is good because of getting two of everything. “You get two birthday’s, two christmas’, etc..”(-Serge) This statement needs to be put to rest. Man is not meant to go through divorce and separation. Man is supposed to be with their spouse through death after marriage. As a christian, I believe that the bond between a man and his wife is something eternal. It is not something that you can just leave and not still be attached to. I do not believe in divorce. I have realized that when you are a child of divorce you grow up in 4 different states of minds, two of which can collaborate with each other. “The lack of attention due to the divorce. 2. Too much attention due to the divorce. 3. Growing up in the state of mind that they have to keep people at arms length. 4 And the last one is to feel that they have no love and constantly have to fill that void.” I realized these state of minds when I was in 9th grade and ever since then i have tried watching kids through divorce and separation and see how they cope with it. I started to notice these state of minds because they were state of minds that I had previously lived my life through.

One of my ex’s lives through number’s 1 and 4. Though her parents are not divorced she is adopted and I noticed that through just that she started to live in that state of mind. This also affects your relationships as well. This affects your entire life. It is how you communicate to people. When we were in a relationship I noticed that she dove in right away. She is not the easiest person to be friends with because of the fact that she is always looking for love, she will end up cheating too find love from anybody that is willing to give her love, and to rehash old drama to get more attention which she would then convert to love.