Tracing A Theme - Essay Example

Sorrow as a Theme Sorrow can manifest itself in numerous ways and thus instantly transpose a person’s life from one of normality and contentment to one of absurdity and anguish. Sorrow reveals a person’s inner being and impels them to contemplate and stock of their life with candor. This essay will consider the ways in which sorrow plays a central theme in the lives of three characters, Jerry Cross in ‘The things they carried’ (O’Brien), Alexander the Great in ‘Wine’ (Carver), and Vivian Bearing in ‘Wit’ (Edison), and how each contends with their grief.

Sorrow for Alexander the Great was crafted by his own errant behavior. He was a man who thrived on fighting and drinking, of which he apparently did both to excess. His preponderance for wine became central to his being and everything else in his life submerged into the peripheries. While sodden in his drunken stupors he lost touch with reality and acted on impulse without thinking or contemplating the results. After one particular night of drinking, and suffused with wine he reduced the city of Perepolis to ashes.

His remorse for the horrific feat he had accomplished lasted no longer than a day whilst gaining sobriety; as soon as daylight faded he was drinking again, on this occasion with his friend Cletus. Again in his wine induced state he acted without thinking and in a fit of rage killed Cletus with a spear through the heart. Alexander’s sorrow was more intense over the death of his friend and he severed himself from life wallowing in his guilt and vowing to stop drinking; his remorse lasted three days in this instance, until which time he had to bury his friend.

To ease the burden of his shame and in an attempt to rid himself of the guilt he was enduring he provided for the finest possible funeral for Cletus. At the funeral however, Alexander yielded to the allure of wine once again and thus his sorrow was dissolved. For Jimmy Cross, on the other hand, a twenty two year old American soldier in the Vietnam War, sorrow for him was initiated by war. He was compelled to a life of brutality and adversity, one in which he was separated from the girl he loved and he hated everything about it.

He knew the love affair with Martha was a one sided romance but distance and suffering induced him to deal with his sorrow by indulging in fantasy and thus hiding from the realities of war and from his responsibilities as a First Lieutenant. When Ted Lavender, a friend and soldier under his command was killed Jimmy, like Alexander, wallowed in self guilt and remorse, but unlike Alexander however, he was not content with a quick fix. Instead he spent many days contemplating and searching deep within himself, realizing that in reality the war was not to blame for Ted’s death or for his feelings of guilt and sorrow.

He became conscious of his own inadequacies and how he had ignored his liabilities in preference for a life of make-believe, deceit and dishonesty. Jimmy dealt with his sorrow head on and decided to throw away the memorabilia of Martha he carried around, and with which he hid from responsibilities and escaped the realities of war. While he knew that he could do nothing for Ted Lavender, he knew he had to take care of the rest of his men; he also knew he had to take control of himself before he could take control of his men.

So with a new found strength he set forth to meet his men and he was ready to deal with any blame that may be laid on him. Jimmy’s sorrow was not dissipated in a bottle of wine but instead was carried with him into the war but this time he ‘he would be a man about it’ and ‘determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence’ (O’Brien). Turning to Vivian Bearing, we find a sorrow not generated by man, either self or in war, but by illness. Vivian, a doctor of literature, more specifically induced by the words and poetry of Donne, was terminally ill with ovarian cancer, and undergoing very invasive and debilitating treatment.

Her sorrow was induced by her battle with death and loss of life as she knew it, wherein she was absorbed in her world of poetry, captivated by words and immersed in her feelings of importance and grandeur. Instead of being the one in control and all knowing, as she considered herself to be with her students, she found herself subordinate to a former student Jason Posner, one of her doctors, who was more concerned with research than patients, treating them and Vivian as test tubes and specimens.

She also found herself in the care and therefore reliable on a nurse named Susie Monahan, who she considered as not very smart in terms of literature but very kind and caring. Vivian, like Jimmy Cross, searches within to find means of dealing with her sorrow and pain. She recollects how she was aloof, unbending and at times cruel to her students and she appreciates how similar she is to Jason in terms of placing importance on professionalism and prosperity instead of on people. Vivian does not have the opportunity to go on in her life, like Jimmy Cross and Alexander, but before she dies she too like Jimmy, recognizes her own shortcomings that in themselves have caused others sorrow.

Sorrow revealed itself in differing ways for Alexander the Great, Jimmy Cross and Vivian Bearing, and each dealt with their grief in their own way - Alexander, with a bottle of wine, Jimmy Cross by accepting his responsibilities, and Vivian Bearing by acknowledging her shortcomings.