She was forced to turn to desperate measures in order to survive she had to turn to prostitution many other women living in Vietnam suffered the same fate as her. To earn enough cash to eat these women had to become sexual objects that the men desired. Kien saves her from being raped and in return she offers him the only thing she has her body. “... she added stepping out of her skirt slowly. She continued to undress for him ending by pulling her blouse slightly over her head” (72). Bao Ninh uses this specific female character to demonstrate that women were not seen as human beings with feelings. To the soldiers the women were simply objects that were there to fulfill their desires. Bao Ninh uses the mute girl in the attic to denote the silence of war. After such a devastating war it is often virtually impossible to express the horrors that one experiences. Very few stories have been written from the North Vietnamese perspective about the war. This is because they were silenced by the regime and their own guilt of surviving the war. Those who did manage to speak out and express their opinions were often penalized and looked down as apostates to their nation. The mute girl is the one to preserve the manuscript. It is thanks to the mute girl that Kien managed to finish his novel. She gave him the strength to keep writing by listening to him even though he was drunk whenever he came to see her. “And there were many more visits. He came when he was drunk...” (112). She was also the one who stopped Kien from burning his manuscript. Bao Ninh also utilizes the character Hoa to demonstrate the sacrifices that are made during war. Hoa was a twenty year old Laotian guide who was in charge of leading the way for Kien and the wounded soldiers. Hoa sacrifices herself to save Kien and the injured soldiers by sneaking away from him when he was not looking. She circumvents the soldiers and aims the gun that Kien gave her at the canine and shoots only the canine “…arm outstretched firing at the dog, and the dog only” (190). After she had shot the hound she …show more content…
The Green Coffee Cup Girl demonstrated that women were seen as objects of desire rather than human being with feelings. The mute girl in the attic was a representation of the silence of war. Hoa was a symbol of the sacrifices that are made in war. The main female character Phuong in the novel The Sorrow of War demonstrates the tragedies that occur in war. At this point of the essay you should have a better idea of what the women in the novel symbolized. Does it change your perspective on the novel? Do you now have a better understanding of the events that take place throughout the novel? If you were to read the novel again would you interpret it in a different