Table of contentsThe imposing masculine rules that left no room for emotionThe code of conduct expressed throughout the bookConclusionsMost, if not all, have were written reluctantly. They were asked to leave their families and homes, their daughters or children, and told to die and kill for unclear reasons. These soldiers marched through swamps and villages with mutilated children and, even after the first time they killed someone or their best friends died, they were told not to cry. That's what Tim O'Brien tells us in The Things They Carried, a tale of how the beast of war that surrounded his men demanded an indomitable front. If they exposed their weakness, they exposed it to each other, and such exposure reminded them that none of them were as strong as they were supposed to be. So they turn to other coping methods, some of which blur the line between good and evil. The soldiers' crude language and behavior demonstrate that the forced masculinity imposed on them as men and warriors only compounds their trauma. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get the original essay Imposing male rules that leave no room for emotions Soldiers' foul language dismays Tim O'Brien at first: the apparently apathetic treatment of a child dead in a ditch, the things they would say when a friend was shot in the head. They wouldn't say dead, or killed: they would be as far from being poetic as possible, saying greased or zapped while zipping. He finally understands and soon begins to adopt the mentality of “harsh vocabulary to contain the terrible gentleness (19)”. The juxtaposition of the words "terrible gentleness" suggests that the harsh things the soldiers say and do, while alarming and appalling to those not in their place, are nothing compared to the emotional vulnerability to which the soldiers would have been. confronted differently. This unhealthy way of dealing with tragedy is put to the test in the chapter "The Man I Killed", when Tim O'Brien finds himself faced with the bloody corpse of the young soldier he had just killed. He presents this dead character by bluntly giving the reader an unforgiving portrait of the physical and inescapable details of the corpse. He suddenly finds that he cannot shake this death, that he cannot bring himself to make any kind of joke or any offhand euphemism that would diminish the reality of what he has just done. “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone,” says Tim O'Brien, “his one eye was closed, his other was a star-shaped hole” (118). Through these parallel sentences, the reader becomes obsessed with the gruesome countenance of the dead human being, just like Tim O'Brien. Not only do we understand his thinking, but we infer that this fixation vividly reminds him of the humanity of this enemy, which he and his soldiers had so easily shaken off and objectified before. He therefore does not know how to manage his emotions or his thoughts, and finds himself given over to obsession, his hesitant thoughts going in circles. Predictably, the only advice he is given is to “stop looking” (122). The soldiers soon realize that if they cannot control themselves, their emotions or their destiny, they must control others instead. This is what they turn to as a coping mechanism when faced with intense emotions. When Curt Lemon dies, Rat Kiley brutally murders ainnocent baby buffalo. He takes his automatic rifle and shoots the animal, to cope with his heavy grief. Everyone “stood there watching, feeling all sorts of things, but there wasn't much pity for the baby buffalo” (75). This is the kind of response that people, especially men, turn to when they are unable to express their "soft" emotions in a healthy way. They instead turn to control and violence, just as the entire platoon burned down a village after Ted Lavender was shot. This is not the result of men's natural inclinations, but of the forced and damaging rules of masculinity that they all feel obligated to follow. The code of conduct expressed throughout the bookMore disturbing, perhaps, than the gruesome but expected details of blood and death are when Tim O'Brien makes it clear that "[the platoon] carried the greatest fear of 'a soldier, who was afraid to blush. » More than the tragedy of a grenade, more than the horror of a prisoner of war camp, more than death itself, a soldier apparently fears humiliation above all else. Even if it allows you to return home, even if it saves an innocent life, even if it's the difference between crying in the barracks and hanging yourself in your parents' basement, the embarrassment of showing your misery and sadness is far from the worst thing. you can experience a war. This is not, as it might seem, a testimony to human strength and will, but to the ridiculous and unreasonable damage that this inhumane "masculinity" causes to the psyche of a soldier. Having fears, phobias and apprehensions just as human as courage and will, but soldiers abandon this consideration on the battlefield. When a dentist comes to treat the soldiers' teeth, Curt Lemon goes into a near panic attack because of his stunted growth. to deal with his anxiety and fears about the dentist, only to eventually pass out before the dentist can even touch him. The embarrassment of this expected display of fear and anxiety goes well beyond simply giving rise to a funny war story later. In fact, this humiliation “[turns] a screw in his head” (84) and causes Curt Lemon to have a psychosomatic and distressing toothache. His teeth were beautiful, but his mind could only translate the embarrassment of his display of weakness into a persistent, "deadly" toothache, into real pain, which seemed to give him another chance to show off his strength and abilities. . He snuck into the dentist that evening and insisted that the dentist do something. Although the dentist found nothing wrong, he proceeded to pull the tooth on Curt Lemon's orders. It was a perfectly healthy tooth, but Curt Lemon gave it up so he could metaphorically reclaim his masculinity. The effects of this unhealthy way of thinking are long-lasting and linger in these soldiers long after the war ends. The patriarchal male code leaves these soldiers emotionally disabled, and the trauma that inevitably follows them home is never properly addressed. An example of this is Norman Bowker, who hanged himself a few years after returning home. In “Speaking of Courage,” he imagines a conversation with his father and other residents of his sleepy little town, in which he recounts how he “nearly won the Silver Star” (135), a medal for bravery outside the common. . He was apparently responsible for the death of the Kiowa soldier, who drowned in a field of mud (full of human waste) during a night attack, and thus lost the Silver Star. The repetition of mention of the Silver Star reveals a fixation on disappointed expectations and an inability to cope with the.