Reputation In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

Society is highly dependent on the concept of reputation; it is people’s way of forming a premature opinion before having a formal introduction to the subject at hand. Due to this fact, people emphasize the importance of one upholding a respectable reputation, One of the central themes in The Things They Carried, is that fear of ruining one’s reputation served as motivation to the soldiers during the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien conveys this theme using anecdotes about Curt Lemon, Rat Kiley, and himself as examples. Curt Lemon’s experience with the dentist during the war shows that his fear of losing his honorable reputation motivated him to take a risk that he normally would not take. Throughout his time as a soldier, Curt Lemon upheld a “macho man” reputation. To maintain this reputation, Curt Lemon obediently goes to have his teeth checked, despite his fear of dentists. Even after he faints, Curt tries to make up for his flaw by forcing the dentist to pull out a perfectly normal tooth. Curt’s motivation to face his fear of dentists and
Curt Lemon displayed this theme by facing his fear of dentists in order to uphold his appearance as a “macho man,” while Rat Kiley’s experience revealed how the soldiers truly felt, but concealed in order to maintain their reputation as brave fighters. The author, also, was motivated to join the war in order to save his family from the embarrassment and ruined reputation they would have faced had he escaped to Canada. Through the stories Tim O’Brien relays in this novel, the readers can see how the realities of war have affected soldiers and their changed perception in life. However, despite all the mental changes those soldiers faced, they retained the same value for reputation, using it as motivation to hide their fears and weaknesses and to continue fighting in the Vietnam