Courage In Tim O 'Brien's The Things They Carried'

The Things They Carried Essay
By Moriel Peng In The Things They Carried, courage is found in everyone. Tim O’Brien explains how courage is not always an active act or heroism, how courage was sometimes just continuing on. There isn’t just one way to define courage. Courage manifests itself differently in all people. The definition of courage constantly changes throughout the book. Tim’s experience showed how the war brought out the courage in himself and those around him. Courage is a character that expresses itself through endurance and perseverance, guilt and death, and truth. Courage is perseverance. Tim’s stories tell about long, uncomfortable nights and the ever present waiting. In those moments, courage is about perseverance. Tim says, “Sometimes the bravest thing on earth was to sit through the night and feel the cold in your bones. Courage was not always a matter of yes or no” (141). When the circumstance demanded patience, this would be bravery and courage. In that moment, the bravest thing possible was to wait. Being able to continue without complaint was courage. It takes a strong person to see things through to the end, to push through the fatigue. Tim felt that courage was endurance. The men were able
Death is an ever present thing in a war. People are killed in wars. Tim once killed a man and he still dwells upon his death and the blame and guilt. He comes to terms with his death by saying, “Here is the story-truth…I killed him. What stories can do, I guess, is make things present. I can look at things I never looked at. I can attach faces to grief and love and pity and God. I can be brave. I can make myself feel again.”(172). Tim has finally accepted his role in the man’s death. It was courageous of him to reconcile with himself. Courage is facing opposition and overcoming it. It takes courage to accept the hard truth that someone you know has died or that you were the cause of someone else’s