The Things They Carried: The Emotional Burdens.
... is living from the past and ignoring reality. He is frustrated that Martha doesn’t love him and he spends his time daydreaming. Martha represents an unreal dream, an escape from reality and the entrance to Jimmy’s hope. He wishes Martha loved him, we see this when the narrator says, “They were not love letters but Lieutenant Cross was hopping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his fingers” (O’Brien 706). Martha is Cross’ reason to keep going, she gives him strength, just to imagine what could have happened it’s enough for Jimmy, the narrator says, “He(Jimmy) would imagine romantic camping trips into the white Mountains in New Hampshire.”(706) demonstrating how Jimmy imagines him living with Martha. Even though Jimmy knows Martha doesn’t love him, he enjoys pretending she does, as the narrator comments, “They were signed love, Martha, but Lieutenant understood that Love was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant”(706). Martha resembles the world Jimmy wishes he could live in. Martha sends a pebble to Jimmy. This pebble represents Martha, Jimmy carries this pebble everywhere the same way he keeps Martha in his mind everywhere he goes. Jimmy’s unconditional love keeps him from concentrating on war, and this result in the misleading of his group. Jimmy is supposed to be a good leader, and his initials expose one of the greatest leaders in history, Jesus Christ. Jimmy has a great love towards his soldiers, such a great love that even his partners wanted to care as he did “Kiowa Admired Lieutenant capacity of grief. He wanted to share the man’s pain. He wanted to care as Jimmy Cross cared” (715), just as Christ loved his disciples. Jimmy is leading his crew towards salvation, in this case surviving war, just as Jesus lead his disciples towards salvation, in that case eternal life. In order to do a good job, Cross realizes he has to sacrifice his life, because his life is Martha. Sacrifice is what his last name represents, a Cross, where Jesus Christ sacrificed his life. Jimmy had to sacrifice the memories he carried. The things the soldiers carried go beyond the literal meaning, they represent an emotional burden the soldiers had to bear. The narrator says, “They carried the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing. . . ”(716) demonstrating how soldiers did not only carry the physical burden, but a heavier emotional one too. The things they carried revealed each soldier’s person...