First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is in love with Martha in the sense that he has convinced himself that she loves him and twists the words in her letters to him to imply romantic feelings, however this is evidently only out of politeness; he knows this but chooses to accept his own reality. He relies on Martha's presence in his mind only because he is scared out of his wits in this foreign place and put in charge of other human beings' lives. This creates an intense mental stress that Jimmy Cross deals with by holding on to a piece of home by clinging to these letters and their imaginative meanings. It almost is used to prove that a civil life still exists. After Ted Lavender is shot dead on front of everyone, Jimmy Cross is suddenly reevaluating his "relationship" with Martha and her letters and at the end of this first chapter, he takes a brave step mentally, and burns them in a foxhole he's dug. This act and the following declaration of being a better officer to his troops and implementing stricter SOPs is just a coping mechanism he's using to deal with the fact that his "day-dreaming" has cost another his life. From this point on I feel that he's only going to cover up his emotion, because feelings of being weak in a time of war are looked at to be embarrassing, and this will eventually turn into either anger or insanity. He's lost his hope of home and gained a sense of real emotion and reality.
The idea of listing items a solider would carry at this time and the weight of it manifests a tactile feeling. I imagined actually holding all of these things collectively and having to walk around with it all. It connected real things to words. It's effect on me as a reader is one of awe for the fact that I know I would not be physically capable of supporting that weight. The weight's also illustrate a factual and concise image of "the things they carried."
