Jimmy Cross Never Go Away Analysis
1. Of all of the burdens that the men have to carry to war, I find the most evocative to be the weights of memory and one another. They had lives before the war, and some will not live to the end of the conflict. Memories are a true burden. They’re the remainders of a tangible reality, a reality that the soldiers view as unattainable. The guys are young men who lust, love, party, and play, but they are stuck in a completely unwelcoming environment in which they must kill to survive. War isn’t pretty, but the soldiers need to carry the weight of what they remember in order to stay grounded in themselves. The weight of one another also keeps the soldiers in touch with reality and with each other. They all share fear, longing, and responsibility.
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Jimmy Cross never forgave himself for Ted’s death. His guilt was “something that would never go away” (page 26). His guilt transcends onto everyone who died, but his testimony of immense guilt stems from his mistake of being distracted by Martha. Readers can sense the pain that Cross carried.
6. Jimmy got a new picture of Martha playing volleyball (he burned the first copy in Vietnam) after he ran into her at a college reunion. After walking her to the dormitory, reminiscent of their earlier date, she explicitly relayed to him that she did not love him back. He accepted this fact when she handed him the photo the next morning. I think that this is a very solemn episode for Cross because he had to relive the rejection once again.
7. When Tim tells Jimmy that he’d like to write a story of the events, Jimmy asks Tim to depict him as a good guy, “brave and handsome…best platoon leader ever” (page 29). He is very critical of himself, but this request may have a playful and joking tone to it. The ending is ambiguous, though. Tim cuts Jimmy off before the sentence ends, so readers don’t exactly know what Cross’s long-kept secret is. I sense that it is his guilt of Lavender’s death because he has lived with it for so …show more content…
Not all of the stories of war were grim and unhappy The young boy who asked Azar for a chocolate bar shows the innocence of childhood against a backdrop of violence. Azar giving him the chocolate was sweet also! Ted Lavender’s indifference when he was high on tranquilizers was very mellow and added serenity to his constant worries. The soldier who went AWOL but then rejoined his unit to break up the peace adds a bit of humor when he said “it felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back” (page 34). Scenes of beauty and serenity often involve nature- Norman Bowker laying down to watch the stars, Kiowa’s rain dance demonstration, and the elephant grass bowing under the wind from the helicopter blades. The peace did not involve killing or suffering.
13. The book’s structure is comprised of sections that refer and overlap with each other. He jumps from the past to the present between chapters. The short sections are his insight in the present context. He repeatedly flashes back to include short anecdotes and stories, but he reflects on his current situation. This creates an emotional response from the reader, as we are able to relate to the path of memory. O’Brien doesn’t follow a linear chronological order, and uses the shorter sections to break up the longer
Jimmy Cross never forgave himself for Ted’s death. His guilt was “something that would never go away” (page 26). His guilt transcends onto everyone who died, but his testimony of immense guilt stems from his mistake of being distracted by Martha. Readers can sense the pain that Cross carried.
6. Jimmy got a new picture of Martha playing volleyball (he burned the first copy in Vietnam) after he ran into her at a college reunion. After walking her to the dormitory, reminiscent of their earlier date, she explicitly relayed to him that she did not love him back. He accepted this fact when she handed him the photo the next morning. I think that this is a very solemn episode for Cross because he had to relive the rejection once again.
7. When Tim tells Jimmy that he’d like to write a story of the events, Jimmy asks Tim to depict him as a good guy, “brave and handsome…best platoon leader ever” (page 29). He is very critical of himself, but this request may have a playful and joking tone to it. The ending is ambiguous, though. Tim cuts Jimmy off before the sentence ends, so readers don’t exactly know what Cross’s long-kept secret is. I sense that it is his guilt of Lavender’s death because he has lived with it for so …show more content…
Not all of the stories of war were grim and unhappy The young boy who asked Azar for a chocolate bar shows the innocence of childhood against a backdrop of violence. Azar giving him the chocolate was sweet also! Ted Lavender’s indifference when he was high on tranquilizers was very mellow and added serenity to his constant worries. The soldier who went AWOL but then rejoined his unit to break up the peace adds a bit of humor when he said “it felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back” (page 34). Scenes of beauty and serenity often involve nature- Norman Bowker laying down to watch the stars, Kiowa’s rain dance demonstration, and the elephant grass bowing under the wind from the helicopter blades. The peace did not involve killing or suffering.
13. The book’s structure is comprised of sections that refer and overlap with each other. He jumps from the past to the present between chapters. The short sections are his insight in the present context. He repeatedly flashes back to include short anecdotes and stories, but he reflects on his current situation. This creates an emotional response from the reader, as we are able to relate to the path of memory. O’Brien doesn’t follow a linear chronological order, and uses the shorter sections to break up the longer