Each chapter we read presented some interesting new revelations. First of all, I was right about the rain having a more metaphorical meaning, rather than it just being rain. It turns out that O’Brien believes the “rain [is] the war and you [have] to fight it” in “In the Field” (O’Brien 163). Sometimes the rain comes down at the men hard and unrelentless, whereas other times it lets up and allows them to breath. This is what the rain throughout the novel really means. War, like rain, is something you have to fight even when it seems never ending and when it makes everything so much more trying. It makes things difficult and takes people, but you have the power to make it through the rain and war. I believe that this is one of the points that
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The field of waste is a representation of Vietnam as a whole. Vietnam sucks you in, just as the field did. As hard as the men push back at the Vietnam War, it only pushes back at them with more force. This is solidified when they try to retrieve Kiowa’s body; each time they pull on his corpse, it seems to sink further into the mud. Jimmy Cross comes to the realization in the field that “when a man [dies[, there [has] to be blame” (O’Brien 177). Here is a feeling that many of the men really struggle with in the book. They are always trying to find someone, like themselves or the enemy or the people back home, to blame, or something that might help take the blame off of their shoulders. The nameless soldier blames himself wrongly for Kiowa’s death because he thinks that someone has to be blamed. Jimmy Cross does the same thing. I think that O’Brien disagrees. I feel that O’Brien believes that when something bad happens it’s because one runs out of luck or it may just be a random act of misfortune. He seems to hint at this when he talks about the men and them running out of luck, and how it could happen at any time. Finally, the final chapter of the assignment conveys the fact that many of the youth today can never understand Vietnam and what it
The field of waste is a representation of Vietnam as a whole. Vietnam sucks you in, just as the field did. As hard as the men push back at the Vietnam War, it only pushes back at them with more force. This is solidified when they try to retrieve Kiowa’s body; each time they pull on his corpse, it seems to sink further into the mud. Jimmy Cross comes to the realization in the field that “when a man [dies[, there [has] to be blame” (O’Brien 177). Here is a feeling that many of the men really struggle with in the book. They are always trying to find someone, like themselves or the enemy or the people back home, to blame, or something that might help take the blame off of their shoulders. The nameless soldier blames himself wrongly for Kiowa’s death because he thinks that someone has to be blamed. Jimmy Cross does the same thing. I think that O’Brien disagrees. I feel that O’Brien believes that when something bad happens it’s because one runs out of luck or it may just be a random act of misfortune. He seems to hint at this when he talks about the men and them running out of luck, and how it could happen at any time. Finally, the final chapter of the assignment conveys the fact that many of the youth today can never understand Vietnam and what it