One thing that distinctly
struck home for me in the chapter "On the Rainy River" was the
indecisive "battle," for say, that O'Brien was mentally having with
himself. He had a "moral split" where "[he] couldn't make up
[his] mind" about whether to go to war or to rather run away to Canada.
When he ventured out into the wilderness and stayed at the Tip Top Lodge,
O'Brien was experiencing immense amounts of emotional turmoil. Between not
wanting to disappoint family, friends, and his country, and simply not wanting
to go to war, O'Brien was forced to consider the pros and cons of following
through with his draft notice. To me, this chapter is on a very relatable
level to almost anyone. Personally though, this parallels the pressure put on us
high school students to go to an acceptable college to major in an acceptable
subject.
Another element of
this section that I'd like to discuss is the blurred line between allies and
enemies. The fight between Jensen and Strunk parallels the war in Vietnam
(Where it is quite unclear which Vietnamese people are enemies and
which are civilians). In actuality the two soldiers in this situation are
allies, but emotional stress causes the men to turn on each other in the
chapter "Enemies." The concept of "enemies
everywhere" creates distrust throughout their team (Which is ironic simply
because their fellow soldiers should be their most trusted allies.)
Almost instantaneously after the fight, however, in the chapter
"Friends" the bond between the men is repaired. The extreme and
sudden contrast in emotional states exemplifies the fact that the young
soldiers in Vietnam were incredibly unstable on a emotional level and felt the
need to release that stress in some way.
Emotional tyranny is shown yet again in this section on page 79
where Rat takes a great deal of time shooting the baby buffalo “not to kill; to
hurt.” In this case the buffalo is vulnerable and helpless possibly paralleling
how Rat feels in his situation in the war. Do Rat and his fellow soldiers feel
like they’re being “blown to pieces” bit by bit as Rat is doing to this animal?
Or possibly, has Rat become emotionally and morally numb by the immense killing
he and his fellow soldiers are ordered to do and therefore feels no regret in
torturing the buffalo? Lastly, maybe killing the baby buffalo was Rat’s way of
symbolically killing off the enemy, ceasing the war all together.
The final example of psychological decay within this section is
Mary Anne. To summarize, she arrived at the American’s base camp in Vietnam as “over
clean” with “bubbly personality and happy smile” basically any positive and
optimistic characteristic a person could think of, but because of the intensity
of the war, she left “dirty” and “never the same.” So dramatically different that she wore a “necklace
of human tongues.” This incredible shift in personality emphasizes the terrible
intensity of the Vietnam War, and extent of stress it places on those people
that experienced it.
Example after example of mental and moral distress is shown
throughout this section and, after a while, it seems almost poetic in nature. In
each incident, the soldiers are symbolically releasing stress created by the
chaotic scrambled emotions about their morals and relationships. As we can clearly
see “the terrible things” that the young American soldiers are put through are
hard to cope with, causing spontaneous outbreaks of destruction and recklessness.
No comments:
Post a Comment