IndexThe imposing masculine rules that left no room for emotionsThe code of conduct expressed throughout the bookConclusionsMost, if not all, were drawn up against their will. They were asked to leave their families and homes, their girlfriends or their sons, and were 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 about it. This is what Tim O'Brien tells us in The Things They Carried, a tale of how the beast of war that surrounded his men required an indomitable front. If they exposed weakness in themselves, they also exposed it to others, and this exposure was a reminder that none of them were as strong as they should be. So they turn to other management methods, some of which blur the lines between right and wrong. The soldiers' cruel language and behavior demonstrate that the forced masculinity imposed on them as men and as warriors only serves to increase their trauma. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The imposing masculine rules that leave no room for emotion The soldiers' crude language at first shocks Tim O'Brien: the seemingly apathetic treatment of a dead child in a ditch, the things they would say when a fellow soldier is shot in the head. They wouldn't say dead, or killed: they would be the furthest from being poetic, they would say greased or zapped while speeding. He finally understands, and soon begins to adopt the “hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness (19)” mentality. The juxtaposition of the words “terrible softness” suggests that the harsh things soldiers say and do, while alarming and frightening to those not in their position, are nothing compared to the emotional vulnerability soldiers would otherwise face. 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 staring at the bloody corpse of the young soldier he had just killed. He introduces this dead character by bluntly offering the reader an unsparing portrait of the physical and inescapable details of the corpse. He finds, suddenly, that he can't shake off this death, that he can't make any kind of joke or any kind of offhand euphemism that would diminish the reality of what he had just done. “His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone,” says Tim O'Brien, “his one eye was closed, the other was a star-shaped hole” (118). Through these parallel sentences, the reader becomes fixated on the gruesome physicality of the dead human being, just as Tim O'Brien was. We not only understand his thought process, but we infer that this fixation strongly reminds him of the humanity of this enemy, who he and his soldiers had previously shrugged off and objectified so easily. He is therefore not aware of how to deal with his emotions, or his thoughts, and is left alone to obsess, with his uncertain thoughts going in circles. Predictably, the only advice he is given is to “stop staring” (122). The soldiers quickly realize that if they cannot control themselves, their emotions, or their destiny, they must control others instead. This is what they come to as a coping mechanism when faced with intense emotions. When Curt Lemon dies, Rat Kiley brutally kills an innocent buffalo.He takes his automatic rifle and shoots the animal, as a way to deal with its heavy pain. They all “stood there and watched, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn't much mercy for the buffalo” (75). This is the type of reaction that people, especially men, turn to when they are unable to express their "softer" 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 killed. This is the result not of men's natural inclinations, but of the forced and harmful rules of masculinity that everyone feels obligated to follow. The code of conduct expressed throughout the book More disturbing, perhaps, than the gruesome but expected details of blood and death are when Tim O'Brien clearly says that "[the platoon] had a soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blush". More than the tragedy of a grenade, more than the horror of a prison camp, more than death itself, a soldier seems to fear humiliation more than anything else. Even if it allows you to go home, even if it saves an innocent life, even if it makes the difference between crying in the barracks or hanging yourself in your parents' cellar, the embarrassment of showing your misery and sadness is by far the worst thing you can experience in a war. This is not, as it might seem, a testimony to human strength and willpower, but to the ridiculous and unreasonable damage that this inhuman “masculinity” does to a soldier's psyche. Having fears, phobias and apprehensions as human as courage and willpower, but soldiers abandon this consideration on the battlefield. When a dentist comes to treat the soldiers' teeth, Curt Lemon nearly has a panic attack due to his stunted ability. to deal with his anxiety and fears about the dentist, ultimately passing out before the dentist can even touch him. The embarrassment of this spectacle of fear and anxiety, expected by anyone, goes beyond simply making for an entertaining war story afterwards. Indeed, this humiliation "[turns] a screw in his head" (84) and causes Curt Lemon to experience a psychosomatic, agonizing toothache. His teeth were fine, but his mind could only translate the embarrassment at his display of weakness into a persistent, "killer" toothache, into actual pain, which seemed to give him another chance to show the his strength and ability. That night he crashed the dentist visit and insisted that the dentist do something about it. Even though the dentist found nothing wrong, he continued to pull the tooth at Curt Lemon's command. It was a perfectly intact tooth, but Curt Lemon gave it up so he could metaphorically regain his masculinity. The effects of this unhealthy way of thinking are long-lasting and remain with these soldiers long after the war is over. The patriarchal male code leaves these soldiers emotionally handicapped, and the trauma that inevitably follows them home is never properly addressed. Norman Bowker, who hanged himself a few years after returning home, is an example. In “Speaking of Courage,” he imagines a conversation with his father and other people in his sleepy town, in which he tells the story of how he “almost won the Silver Star” (135), a medal for uncommon courage. He had apparently been responsible for the death of the Kiowa soldier, who drowned in a manure field (filled with human excrement) during a night attack, and thus lost the Silver Star. The repeated mention of the Silver Star reveals a fixation on shattered expectations and an inability to deal with the heavy weight of guilt, grief and depression he faces.