Death by Embarassment: Tim O'Brien's Clan of Manliness
The issues of forced masculinity in Tim O'Brien's
The Things They Carried are extremely overt. A multitude of insights and accounts in the short story refer to the idea that the soldiers are compelled to maintain a
macho façade in order to maintain the acceptance of their peers. They are required to erect this front because of their society's view of the soldier as a stoic, fearless warrior. A close reading of the story, however, begs the question: why is it so important to these men to remain within the social construction of masculinity that allows them to stay in the brotherhood circle of their fellow soldiers? Tina Chen's essay, "'Unraveling the Deeper Meaning': Exile and the Embodied Poetics of Displacement in Tim O'Brien's
The Things They Carried," indirectly helps to shed light on this topic. Chen suggests that, feeling the physical isolation from their literal home of the United States, the soldiers in O'Brien's story begin to look for subjective, psychological senses of "home" in order to maintain their sanity. While Chen's ideas on the soldiers' replacement homes are insightful, I argue that these men find their most important surrogate home in the form of their brotherhood with their fellow soldiers. The fear of isolation from this last bastion of "home" is the driving force that keeps the soldiers fighting to maintain their heavily gendered idea of manhood.
(Guest)