English 015 - Americans Abroad
Impersonal War
Impersonal War
Category: 08B: Going After Cacciato | Bryan Ciborowski
Interestingly, the settings comment on one another by showing the distinction between a war fought impersonally and personally. This idea of impersonality can be clearly seen in the episode with Li Van Hgoc. Here we see how a soldier, Paul Berlin, acts towards his enemy after interacting with him face to face in contrast to on the fighting line. It is easy for soldiers to fire into a faceless area where the enemy is, but when you introduce a connection between two opposing soldiers, it becomes much harder for them to kill one another as we can see in the trembling of Paul’s hands, “The lieutenant kept studying his [Paul] hands. The fingers trembled” (pg. 97).
The road to Paris is depicted as the personal war in contrast with the Vietnam battle scenes, which are impersonal. It does to occur to any of the members of the third squad (Oscar,Stink,Doc Peret,Berlin,Lazutti,Murphy) that their enemies are encountering the same type of brutality in the war as they are. The opening pages of the novel inform the reader of some of the deaths that have happened in the war. O’Brien goes into the description of a few of the casualties and injuries. This sets up a blanket that seems to be draped over the main characters in the novel not allowing them to see the war from the enemy’s side. Squad three does not realize the harsh brutalities of the war that are occurring on both sides and that what happens to Berlin, getting his arm stitched up by Doc (pg. 69), was happening to the VC.
Posted by on December 02, 2003 at 01:54 PM