Jimmy Cross Character Analysis Essay
Analysis of “The Things They Carried”
Lieutenant Jimmy cross serves as a metaphor for the Vietnam War, particularly the war’s lack of a definite structure. The dominant trait of Jimmy Cross is that he is lacks a definite purpose and he fails in his role as the leader of the Alpha Company who should offer clear instructions to his troops on what to do. The author Tim O’Brien used Jimmy cross to show how situations that people are placed in lead to external and internal conflict. The war made Jimmy doubt himself and the internal conflict intensified the doubts relating to his leadership and worthiness to lead the company. The goal of internal conflict is to give a literary work suspense. Internal conflict shows through Jimmy’s inability to take …show more content…
His training focused more on marching in line and following preset rules and strategies rather than adapting to the environment and motivating his subordinates. Though he led the Alpha Company, he never truly belonged to his company and he separated himself from his subordinates, as his way of maintaining superiority as he could not have attained the authority he had among his subordinates were it not for his rank. After the death of Lavender, he increasingly relies on standard operating procedures to persuade himself of his competence and exonerate himself from the personal responsibility he feels for his death. The story explains that Jimmy signed to join the military out of impulse as his friends had decided to join the military. He fails to cultivate the sense of personal responsibility that it takes to lead his subordinates and he often ignores his responsibilities by drifting into a daydream. He did want to join the military and he did not desire to be a leader of his company. “Jimmy Cross did not want the responsibility of leading these men. He had never wanted it. In his sophomore year at Mount Sebastian College, he had signed up for the Reserve Officer Training Corps without much thought... He was unprepared. Twenty-four years old and his heart was not in it. Military matters meant nothing to him. He did not care one way or the other about the war, and he had no desire to
Lieutenant Jimmy cross serves as a metaphor for the Vietnam War, particularly the war’s lack of a definite structure. The dominant trait of Jimmy Cross is that he is lacks a definite purpose and he fails in his role as the leader of the Alpha Company who should offer clear instructions to his troops on what to do. The author Tim O’Brien used Jimmy cross to show how situations that people are placed in lead to external and internal conflict. The war made Jimmy doubt himself and the internal conflict intensified the doubts relating to his leadership and worthiness to lead the company. The goal of internal conflict is to give a literary work suspense. Internal conflict shows through Jimmy’s inability to take …show more content…
His training focused more on marching in line and following preset rules and strategies rather than adapting to the environment and motivating his subordinates. Though he led the Alpha Company, he never truly belonged to his company and he separated himself from his subordinates, as his way of maintaining superiority as he could not have attained the authority he had among his subordinates were it not for his rank. After the death of Lavender, he increasingly relies on standard operating procedures to persuade himself of his competence and exonerate himself from the personal responsibility he feels for his death. The story explains that Jimmy signed to join the military out of impulse as his friends had decided to join the military. He fails to cultivate the sense of personal responsibility that it takes to lead his subordinates and he often ignores his responsibilities by drifting into a daydream. He did want to join the military and he did not desire to be a leader of his company. “Jimmy Cross did not want the responsibility of leading these men. He had never wanted it. In his sophomore year at Mount Sebastian College, he had signed up for the Reserve Officer Training Corps without much thought... He was unprepared. Twenty-four years old and his heart was not in it. Military matters meant nothing to him. He did not care one way or the other about the war, and he had no desire to