Blog post 2: The Things They Carried

Last time in the previous blog post, In The Things They Carried I talked about themes and conflicts that are currently happening in the book. I talked about how the troops fear shame from their families. I also talked about Ted Lavenders death as one of my conflicts. In this post I will post about a couple characterizations and archetypes of what I have read so far.

LT. Cross is who I will be doing my characterization on. Jimmy Cross is a young boy and doesn’t know much about being a leader. Lt. Cross functions as a metaphor for the war, specifically its lack of meaningful structure. Like the war, Lt. Cross is characterized by a lack of purpose. Lt. Cross's role should be a strong leader who gives his troops clear instructions for attacking the enemy. The Vietnam War, however, makes this kind of leadership impossible because the steps to achieve the objective of the war are undefined and confusing. Similarly Cross is distracted with his profound liking of Martha. He keeps wondering if Martha is a virgin. Now ever since Ted Lavender died, he blames himself for what happened as if somehow it would be his fault.

Archetypes that relate to this book would be the situational archetype of The Initiation. The situation that leads me to use the ignition archetype is when Jimmy Cross discovered that he needed to be an actual leader. On page 25-26 it says “Jimmy cross reminded himself that his obligation was not to be loved but to lead.” Cross figured that if Lavenders death was his fault that he needed to step his game up and he needed to be a little more cautious in this war because it was a death trap.

K Byee.