This Stuff's Gettin Pretty Heavy Guys....Guys?

In “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’Brien describes the double nature of soldiers at war, exposing both the feeling and unfeeling sides of humanity at war. By showing both of these sides through the men and Jimmy Cross, O’Brien shows the reality that most soldiers embrace their unfeeling sides as a self-defense mechanism.


The soldiers obviously have what we might consider a more humane and feeling side. The most obvious example is Jimmy Cross and his affection for his men and Martha. After Ted Lavender’s dies, Jimmy is overcome with shame and even starts to cry as he mulls over the “fact” that Lavender’s death is his fault because, as he sees it, “he had loved Martha more than his men” (42). Furthermore, he cries because he realizes that he and the woman he loves are in two completely different worlds, a fact that hurts him to the bone. The other soldiers commonly feel shame as well. After particularly terrifying skirmishes, the soldiers often emerge from their battle spots ashamed of the horror and weakness that they submitted to during battle: they “stupid promises to themselves and to Go and to their mothers and fathers, hoping not to die” (65). However, after both of these events, Cross’s and the soldiers’ breakdowns, the characters retreat to their unfeeling sides to avoid the pain and suffering that comes with feeling the full pain of the war.


The other side, the unfeeling side, of the soldiers’ personalities is the emotionally numbing response to the horrors of the war. It’s not that the soldiers don’t actually feel anything, but sometimes just separate themselves from the death and pain around them. Immediately after Lavender’s death, for example, the men don’t let themselves mourn for their comrade. They, including Cross, instead sit around smoking his cigarettes and then burn a nearby village. Kiowa later admits that he can’t be sad about Lavender’s death, even though he wants to be, and is mostly just “pleased to be alive” (60). They also hide their fear from each other. As the narrator describes it, “they carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to” (76). After even the worst skirmishes, the men won’t admit how afraid they were to each other. They make jokes that hint how scared they were, only to be countered with another joke that allows them to pretend it wasn’t that scary. The soldiers all put on “poses” to mask their fear: “Some carried themselves with a sort of wistful resignation, others with pride or stiff soldierly discipline or good humor or macho zeal” (67). They also act cruel to separate themselves from the war. Mitchell Sanders, for example, cuts off the thumb of a dead boy to have as a keepsake and the other men also kick corpses and talk about death insensitively, making it less real and terrifying.


We get insight into how the men convert themselves to feel this way through Jimmy Cross. After Lavender dies and he tries to disconnect from Martha, Cross realizes why the men act the way they do—it hurts too much not to. In the end, Cross embraces this unfeeling side, rejecting, or simply hiding, his emotions. He represents, in certain ways, the path of every soldier who has to let go of the pain and suppress his emotions, often for his own sake.
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