Theme

In The Things They Carried, I find that the main thing these soldiers carried was shame. Whether or not they carried constant shame or simply the overhanging goal of preventing it, a theme throughout the novel is most certainly shame.

"The embarrassment must've turned a screw in his head... He switched on a flashlight, woke up the young captain, and told him he had a monster toothache... The dentist couldn't find any problem, but Lemon kept insisting, so the man...yanked out a perfectly good tooth (pg 88)."

When a man has a professional tear out a healthy tooth to save his pride, someone has gone overboard. While this is true, this story is one of dozens in this novel depicting men doing things most would not do for the sole purpose of protecting their ego. O'Brien says many times that he went to war to protect his family from embarrassment, putting his pride before his very life. The main question I am persistently asking myself throughout the course of this novel is, "Would I do the same?", but all I seem to be coming up with is no. I believe this is majorly attributed to the fact that women and men seem to be from completely different planets (not to bring back the old adage). Is the need to protect one's pride strictly a male attribute or is innately human?