Types of Fear

In Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried there were a few prominent themes throughout his stories. Fear was a major theme that took many different forms. In “The Dentist”, Curt Lemon was afraid of letting his fear show to anyone who was around him. After he fainted in the dentist’s office he was distraught, “When he came to, there was a funny new look on his face, almost sheepish as if he’d been caught committing some terrible crime” (O’Brien 84). This is one type of fear that is noticeable in a lot of Tim O’Brien’s short stories. The men were afraid to be in Vietnam but more afraid of letting it be known to others. Its almost as if that if the soldiers outwardly accept the fear then they would have no small corner to deny its reality.

Another type of fear that is evident in his short stories is the fear of being isolated from society. In “How to Tell a True War Story” Rat writes a letter to his best friends sister explaining how much he loved her brother in an earnest hope to receive a response. “He’s nineteen years old- it’s too much for him- so he looks at you with those big sad gentle killer eyes and says cooze, because his friend is dead, and because it’s so incredibly sad and true: she never wrote back”(O’Brien 66). Rat was reaching out looking for any type of response that acknowledged his love for a man dead. He wanted someone to share in his grief from somewhere other than Vietnam.