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   mstultz72 Teacher
   High School - 12th Grade

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   Jimmy Cross takes on much of the collective guilt and suffering of the platoon and, as such, is a kind of Christ-figure (notice the initials "J. C.").  Ted Lavender's death in chapter one hangs over the novel like the ghost of Hamlet Sr.--no one, the reader or Cross, can forget it.

   Lavender's death is an absurd one; he is shot on his way back from peeing.  While Cross focuses his attention on Strunk, who is checking a tunnel for V.C., he dreams of Martha.  Just as Strunk emerges from the tunnel, Lavender is shot.  It would seem Cross would have only felt guilt for Strunk (if he would have died), since he was sent by Cross into the tunnel, and not Lavender, who went to pee on his own.  But the individual/collective dynamic is a major theme for O'Brien: even though Lavender's individual death was absurd and Cross was not directly responsible for it, his the death looms on the unit collectively.  Lavender's death is repeatedly addressed in other stories to give weight to the soldiers' individual and collective guilt.  Lavender becomes a ghost that each soldier carries with him.

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   Posted by mstultz72 on Thursday September 10, 2009 at 5:44 AM