There are many instances of isolation throughout The Things They Carried, a great example of this is Norman Bowker. We learn that after the war Bowker came home and felt like there was nobody he could talk to. His dad was there sometimes, but his best friend had drowned in a lake, and his sweetheart was married. Everybody else that he knew was from the war. All of these things added up to a very intense feeling of isolation. He tried to connect with other people, but all he can think about are the medals he didn’t win. “Nobody in town wanted to know about the terrible stink. They wanted good intentions and good deeds.” (O’Brien 95). This all lead to his eventual suicide and caused us to wonder if there was anything we could have done for him.
