Role Of Women Essay
Roshan Shaik
Ms. Levanduski
La III Honors
12/24/15
The Role of Women in War Although women play somewhat of a secondary role in Tim O'Brien's T he Things They
Carried
, it is a significant one. Women are looked at as something that the men can look forward to when the war as over, serving as hope for many of the male soldiers in vietnam. Female characters such as Martha, Mary Anne Bell, and Henry Dobbins girlfriend all affect the men of the Alpha Company—although in two of the cases, the women aren’t even with the men they’re affecting. The men idealize these women and use their presence—in letters, photographs, and even their imagination—as a kind of solace and mental note that a world does exist outside the atrocities of Vietnam. Despite this, we learn that the women in the The Things They Carried may or may not fulfill the fantasy role that the men carve out for them. Women who initially served as a reminder of love , are strategically used by Tim O’Brien in order to show how harsh the realities of Vietnam were for some of the men. One significant example of how women affected one of the soldiers was Jimmy Crosses infatuation with Martha. Jimmy C ross, the lieutenant of alpha company, carried pictures of
Martha and the memories of their only date. He also carried the hope that she might one day return his love so that he has something to look forward to, after the war he fails to recognize, however, how love and war are connected, relying instead on his love for Martha as an escape from war. He cannot be both in love and in war; just as his relationship with Martha is a fiction,
so is his ability to perform his soldierly duties. O’Brien notes, “ Lieutenant Cross gazed at the tunnel. But he was not there. he was buried with Martha under the white sand at the Jersey
Shore” (11). By loving, therefore, he actively resists his duty as a leader — he withdraws from leadership and Vietnam.
We learn in “Love” that even
Ms. Levanduski
La III Honors
12/24/15
The Role of Women in War Although women play somewhat of a secondary role in Tim O'Brien's T he Things They
Carried
, it is a significant one. Women are looked at as something that the men can look forward to when the war as over, serving as hope for many of the male soldiers in vietnam. Female characters such as Martha, Mary Anne Bell, and Henry Dobbins girlfriend all affect the men of the Alpha Company—although in two of the cases, the women aren’t even with the men they’re affecting. The men idealize these women and use their presence—in letters, photographs, and even their imagination—as a kind of solace and mental note that a world does exist outside the atrocities of Vietnam. Despite this, we learn that the women in the The Things They Carried may or may not fulfill the fantasy role that the men carve out for them. Women who initially served as a reminder of love , are strategically used by Tim O’Brien in order to show how harsh the realities of Vietnam were for some of the men. One significant example of how women affected one of the soldiers was Jimmy Crosses infatuation with Martha. Jimmy C ross, the lieutenant of alpha company, carried pictures of
Martha and the memories of their only date. He also carried the hope that she might one day return his love so that he has something to look forward to, after the war he fails to recognize, however, how love and war are connected, relying instead on his love for Martha as an escape from war. He cannot be both in love and in war; just as his relationship with Martha is a fiction,
so is his ability to perform his soldierly duties. O’Brien notes, “ Lieutenant Cross gazed at the tunnel. But he was not there. he was buried with Martha under the white sand at the Jersey
Shore” (11). By loving, therefore, he actively resists his duty as a leader — he withdraws from leadership and Vietnam.
We learn in “Love” that even