Twins! (not really but kind of)

Page 165: "She won't send another one. She's not even my girl anymore, she won't... Man I got to find it."
When I read page 165, I was instantly reminded of Cross at the very beginning of the story. The young soldier had lost this picture of the girl he was most likely still in love with. He was caring more about losing this picture than Kiowa, who had been killed. Cross was the same to me. In the beginning, he carried around letters, pictures, and gifts from Martha. She did not love him, but he loved her, just like the young soldier and his once girl. When Lavendar died, he had been thinking of Martha, just like the soldier had been thinking of the girl in his picture. Either way, the two of them were focusing on something that should have been in the back of their minds. When they were at war, I think they needed to think of their fellow men because they were the ones who had each others back.

Literary Term #2

Dramatic Irony
In Chapter 1, there is an instance of dramatic irony. I do not want to summarize but after Ted Lavender died Kiowa said that "the man does care" (page 17) when talking about Jimmy Cross. This is irony because we the reader knows that the page before we find out that Cross thinks to himself that "he loved Martha more than his own men" (page 16). This shows that Cross did not fully have his mind or thoughts on his men. Rather, he was directing all of his care and affection towards Martha, a woman who did not even love him! This irony shows us how well Cross has hid from his men how he really is. They think he just is all for them, when in reality he does not want to lead them. He would rather have Martha loving him. The purpose of this irony for the story is to give the reader a better understanding of Cross and the perception of him to his soldiers. It also gives us knowledge of why Cross feels guilt for Lavender's death.

The Start of Second Book Blogs

I finished reading "The Things They Carried" recently, and this is what my next twenty blogs will cover! I am going to again start with literary terms and then discuss certain scenes or phrases that caught my attention while reading. Sooo let's get started!
Literary Term #1
Paradox

• page 7: "Where things came together but also separated."

This is clearly a paradox. In a letter to Jimmy Cross, Martha brings up this contradictory statement. An ocean's shoreline brings things together from the ocean to the land. It also takes things away, making them separate. In addition, it brings two very different things together that might usually not. I think that this is somewhat mean of Martha to say to Jimmy because this is just adding to his false thinking of her loving him. He might take this as that the two of them are together but separated by the ocean or war. He may also think that the pebble is a way of keeping them together since it was at the shoreline. This is just how I took this paradox. Lastly, this paradox may serve as a way to tell the situation that the soldiers are in. They are in an unknown place. They are together as one, but the war has separated them from family and loved ones. The ocean is the new unknown area they have been taken to. The land was what they knew. I am not sure if this is true, but it was another way I interpreted this.