How does the perspective of the narrator change the story? What do you think the author is trying to convey with this?
Tim O'Brien's perspective as a soldier in the war has a great effect on how the story is conveyed to us. It gives us a personal insight into the experience of soldiers in Vietnam, and all that they went through. Also, O'Brien's position as someone not really supportive of the war casts a different light on the events. Nothing so far has been glorified or romanticized in any way. The vast majority of all scenes in the book explore some negative consequence the war has on them, or explain how they cope with it.
An example of O'Brien showing us what the war could be like is in this quote: "[T]he war was nakedly and aggressively boring. But it was a strange boredom. It was boredom with a twist, the kind of boredom that caused stomach disorders. You'd uncurl your fists and let your thoughts go. Well, you'd think, this isn't so bad. And right then you'd hear gunfire behind you and your nuts would fly up into your throat and you'd be squealing pig squeals. That kind of boredom" (O'Brien 32-33). I think that that description gives a good insight into the daily life of a soldier in Vietnam.
A soldier's life is never really calm. The boredom O'Brien is referring too is ironic because it is impossible for a soldier to be bored because if they are not in a fire fight, they are on the look out or doing necessary tasks. He said that the soldiers could only relax for a second. That proves that they had no time to be bored.
ReplyDelete-Brice Lucas