#3 Symbol

The Things They Carried is full of symbols. We come to find out all that they carried: lives, knives, can openers, candy, cigarettes, diseases, infections, land, sky and much more. But, the one item that stands out in my mind the most was Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters. When the author began talking of the "love letters", I began to wonder what he could be meaning. In the first chapter, we come to know that Jimmy Cross has a hard time missing Martha, the girl he is in love with. We learn that "she signed the letters Love, but it wasn't love." He kept all the letters she wrote. He also held tight to a picture she gave him and a pebble. These items were very dear to him. To me, these items were symbols that reminded him of the life he lead when he was home. They were symbols of the things he missed and treasured. War is a scary thing; people change when they are away from home. By keeping items that symbolize their life before war, a person can maintain positivity and understanding. They continue to hope that when it is all over those items will not only be symbols of what they used to have, but become reality again.