Masculinity, War, And Whatever Else Comes To Mind

There seems to be a consensus amongst the members of humanity that men are supposed to be simple and primitive. They’re supposed to be big, burly, and exhibit only basic intelligence, which in some cases may certainly be the case. But most of all, a man is never supposed to show fear. It’s just not supposed to happen. Regardless of the reason, be it thousands of years of conditioning, the pressures of society, or the distinct possibility that guys just really aren’t all that bright, men have accepted this opinion as fact, and most use it as the basis for their existence. This worldwide stereotype pushes many to act without reason, to do things they’d never do if they took the time to think about it. The sad truth of this situation cannot be made any clearer than it is in The Things They Carried.

Quite simply put, the entire concept of war is more than a little idiotic. Yes, I accpet that there are situations where war is deemed necessary by the bulk of the population, but just look at it this way for a moment. You always have at least two factions of people led by individuals who happen to have a dispute. When these individuals decide that they can’t tolerate the existence of one another, they send off their soldiers to kill each other. These young men, and now young women as well, head out to battle to kill people they’ve never met. Arguably, if they weren’t born in different countries many of these people would probably get along perfectly well. But they weren’t, so instead they’re just supposed to wipe each other out. And why? Because they were told to do so. They were given a gun, and they were told that the enemy had to die. Does this make sense? No. But then why do people do it? Why leave your home to kill a stranger? Why head to a foreign land so that a stranger can kill you? Whether or not you can answer these questions is a matter of personal opinion. But to the men in The Things They Carried, openly contemplating such ideas equated to social suicide; it was one of those things you just don’t do.

In the theater of war, there seems to be only one rule: be a man. Don’t ask questions. Don’t complain. Just try to survive, and if you’re not good at that then it’s your own fault. These statements summarize the essence of Tim O’Brien’s pseudo-fictional comrades, shedding more light on the reasoning behind their actions. O’Brien, like tens of thousands of other young men at the time, finds himself in Vietnam because he was unable to go against the will of society. If he had followed his inner voice, O’Brien would have found himself safely in Canada, safe from the physical and mental scaring of war. But O’Brien was a young man, and when Congress calls up the youth of America to go to war, you’re expected to go. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, your only other alternative is to declare yourself a coward and flee. The fact that you’re a human being, the notion that you have your own consciousness, simply does not matter. Essentially, O’Brien and so many other youth were caught in the rip currents of society, forced against their will to fight for ideals that were not their own.

And how did these young men feel? Were they content with simply bending to will of the masses? Maybe some were, but most certainly not all of them felt this way. O’Brien himself had massive personal doubts about the war. He wasn’t born to be a soldier, certainly didn’t fancy himself a killer, and harbored a very strong urge to flee to Canada and escape the hellish land he was about to be thrown into. And yet he still found the pressure of society too great; he ran the risk of losing too much by following his heart. Unfortunately, he isn’t content with his decision. In his own words, “I was a coward. I went to war” (O’Brien 61). O’Brien isn’t happy with his choice; in fact he really seems to look down on himself for it. In the instant that he chooses not to go to Canada, he submits himself to the aforementioned war machine. O’Brien stops believing in himself, stops standing up for his own ideas, and becomes another cog in the world machine. He can no longer afford to show fear, because doing so would be another violation of society’s standards, and since he’s chosen to uphold the ideals of others, he has no choice but to uphold all of them. The soldiers who unwillingly went to Vietnam had to act like “men” because it was just another step in submitting to society. They had gone to war because their people expected it of them. Then they had to act like supermen because that was expected of them as well. And the cycle goes on and on, a series of concessions in which the individual gives up pieces of themselves in exchange for stereotypes. We see it throughout The Things They Carried in the lives of every soldier O’Brien knew or invented (a whole other argument I’d like to avoid). None of them wanted to be there, but they were there all the same. In acting like automatons, they were simply continuing along the road society had paved for them.

A man is a “man” because that’s what society wants him to be. Likewise, in times of war, soldiers are expected to be super-human figures, mere pawns with no concept of self and an indifference to death. Is it fair? No. But it’s a part of the world that society has built. These injustices to the self are just a part of the social fabric of the world, complex patterns that all are expected to follow. Sadly, the men in The Things They Carried simply became another stitch in society, assuming the roles that were expected of them because they had no where else to go.