In The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, Stories focus on the struggles of soldiers during Vietnam. Three different characters have different reasons they are cowards, but each character has one thing in common; each character struggles with their cowardice alone. O’Brien uses each character’s struggle with cowardice to link back to how society expects a man to keep his fears to themselves. The characters who struggle with fear in this story are Tim O’Brien, Norman Bowker, and Jimmy Cross. Tim O’Brien struggles with cowardice because he went to war instead of running from the draft and going to Canada. In his opinion, it was more difficult to leave his family, country, and his future, than going to war. Tim also did not want to
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He does not open up because he believes people will not understand or they will not care. Norman also fears that there is nothing left for him in his world; his best friend is dead, all his other friends are gone, and the woman he loved married someone else. There was nothing left for him in the only place he had ever known, and there was nobody to talk to or nobody that Norman believed would understand. “There’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It’s like I got killed over in Nam” (156). This quote explains that after Vietnam Norman had nothing. Norman had to deal with this problem on his own and without cowardice, like all the other men who struggle with cowardice in …show more content…
Jimmy was in charge of a group of soldiers and instead of leading his men through war, Jimmy would have daydreams thinking of Martha. Jimmy was a coward because he was too afraid of the war, so he blocked out all of his responsibilities. “He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead,” (16). This quote explains how Jimmy was a bad leader and a coward and he let his love for Martha get his men killed. Jimmy was afraid that he would never return home to the woman of his daydreams. Jimmy cannot express his feelings because he is supposed to command the respect of men. In our society men who keep, feelings aside maintain respect not men who wear their hearts on their sleeves, and commanders who fear war get no respect from their
He does not open up because he believes people will not understand or they will not care. Norman also fears that there is nothing left for him in his world; his best friend is dead, all his other friends are gone, and the woman he loved married someone else. There was nothing left for him in the only place he had ever known, and there was nobody to talk to or nobody that Norman believed would understand. “There’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It’s like I got killed over in Nam” (156). This quote explains that after Vietnam Norman had nothing. Norman had to deal with this problem on his own and without cowardice, like all the other men who struggle with cowardice in …show more content…
Jimmy was in charge of a group of soldiers and instead of leading his men through war, Jimmy would have daydreams thinking of Martha. Jimmy was a coward because he was too afraid of the war, so he blocked out all of his responsibilities. “He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead,” (16). This quote explains how Jimmy was a bad leader and a coward and he let his love for Martha get his men killed. Jimmy was afraid that he would never return home to the woman of his daydreams. Jimmy cannot express his feelings because he is supposed to command the respect of men. In our society men who keep, feelings aside maintain respect not men who wear their hearts on their sleeves, and commanders who fear war get no respect from their