Women In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Throughout the story, we do not see many roles of women portrayed. Why do you think that is? In the time of the Vietnam war women were not able to enlist, nor were American women prevalent in rural Vietnam. The women in The Things They Carried, Martha, Linda, Kathleen, and the Unknown Girl, are all represented as variables of life. Martha represents love and danger, Linda is death and maturity, and the Unknown girl represents that life always moves forward. By using these women in the story, this represents, in whole, the better side of life, as well as the raw truth of war. In the story The Things They Carried, Lt. Jimmy Cross carries letters from a woman named Martha. Although she always signs her letters as “Love, Martha” he understands that this is not the form of love he so desires. As well as the letters, he also
She represents maturity and death. “She died, of course. Nine years old and she died. It was a brain tumor” (Pages: 223-224). By his early encounter with death Tim O’Brien seems to have a better grip on life and death. Linda represents maturity in that the maturing of others. Tim knows she is dead, he feels it in his heart, yet he just cannot fathom this possibility. “… the body in the casket was fat and swollen … in my heart I knew this was Linda, but even so I could not find much to recognize. I tried to pretend that she was taking a nap … just sleeping away the afternoon. Except she didn’t look asleep. She looked dead. She looked heavy and totally dead” (Page: 229). Though Tim has a hard time with accepting death, even in his later years, he still matures around the concept. “I can still see her as if through ice … (in) a place where there are no brain tumors and no funeral homes, where there are no bodies at all. I can see Kiowa, too, and Curt Lemon, and sometimes I can even see Timmy skating with Linda under the yellow floodlights. I’m young and happy. I’ll never die.” (Pages: