The Things They Carried

In the novel “The Things They Carried” the stories highlight acts of cowardice, not acts of courage. Men went into the war for all the wrong reasons. They went because they feared ridicule, they joined because their friends joined, they did it to not dishonour their country, their people, their families, they were afraid to lose the respect of everyone around them.
In the chapter “The Things They Carried” O’Brien explains about an inner softness that all the soldiers carried. “They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness… and because they called it by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself… They carried the common secrets of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide… They carried the soldiers greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed and died because they were embarrassed not to… They died so as not to die of embarrassment.” The soldiers were afraid to show their true emotions,...