The Ending of The Things They Carried Essay

It All Comes Together

Different stories have various types of endings. Fairy tales always end up with the princess marrying the prince; mysteries end with the detective catching the villain; romance ends up with two people falling in love. Some readers like the stories based on historical events. The endings in these stories generally end up with a character accomplishing a feat or coming to some sort of realization about something. One such story by Tim OBrien ends with this reality. The Things They Carried has an ending that climaxes when the mixtures of emotions love, death, and guilt all come together.

Jimmy Cross only has letters and pictures to remember his love for Martha. OBrien tells the readers of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross love for Martha, a love that consumed him. Thoughts of Martha frequently filled his mind. Daydreams of Martha and himself lying on the beach together kept his mind off the war and put him in his own imaginary world. This love diverted his reality of his life; that of being at war. Slowly a bit distracted, he would get up and move among his men, checking the perimeter, then at full dark he would return to his hole and watch the night and wonder if Martha was a virgin. (99) Cross found himself mixed up in emotion when it came to Martha. He loved her with all of his heart and constantly fantasized about her, but he knew she didnt feel the same way.

Soldiers at war have to deal with death on a daily basis which leads Cross soldiers to suppress their emotions to deal with this reality. OBrien writes They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing-these were intangibles, but intangibles has their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. (108) Death changes a solder. Crosss solders all told jokes after the death of Ted Lavender. This was their way of making themselves deal with the loss of a close friend and soldier. Zapped while zipping (107) is what they all said because Lavender died while returning from going to the bathroom. Cross takes the death very hard. Kiowa, one of Crosss soldiers, talked about how he wished he could feel the grief that Cross was feeling. (107)

At the end of the story Jimmy Cross deals with the overbearing guilt of Lavenders death. In this story Cross was daydreaming about Martha when Lavender was shot. The day following his soldiers death, Cross burned all of Marthas letters and pictures. OBrien writes, He realized it was only a gesture. Stupid, he thought. Sentimental, too, but mostly just stupid. Lavender was dead. You couldnt burn the blame. (109) Cross felt it was his fault that Lavender had died. He felt that if he wasnt daydreaming about Martha, Lavender wouldnt have died. The weight on his shoulders was unbearable. He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry in his stomach for the rest of the war. (106)

OBrien brings this story to conclusion in a way that many men who have been in war can relate. Many men have carried the feelings that OBrien has written about; feelings of love, death, and guilt. Cross comes to the conclusion at the end of the story that he would no longer spend his days daydreaming about Martha, but rather leading his men. He did not ever want to feel responsible for another soldiers death. Cross reminded himself that his obligation was not to be loved but to lead. He would dispense with love; it was not now a factor. And if anyone quarreled or complained, he would simply tighten his lips and arrange his shoulders in the correct command posture..and move out toward the villages of Than Kae. (110). Most readers would be satisfied with this ending. It shows the character changing and growing due to the events that have happened throughout the story. The feelings of love, death, and guilt are universal to all humans on Earth. The reader is left thinking about what he/she would do in the same situation.