Presents a first person narrative describing the author's travels through Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam with his father, a Vietnam War veteran, as they reflect on the changes the city has faced since the conflict.…
The book A Vietcong Memoir by Truong Nhu Tang gives a first person account of the Vietnam War through the eyes of a Vietnamese revolutionary. Tang tells of how he was a pharmaceutics student in Paris and was inspired to join the nationalist movement when he met Ho Chi Minh. This newfound pride in his country led Tang to become the Minister of Justice for the Vietcong. His story revolves around the themes of nationalism and sacrifice.…
Life for many Vietnamese families during the Vietnam War and the fall of Saigon were very traumatic and very difficult to capture. Há, a 10 year old girl, must flee her home with her family to escape the horrors of the war reaching her home. In the novel “Inside Out and Back Again” by Thanhha Lai, Lai describes Há’s grief for the markets, traditions, friends, and papaya going to be left behind using much imagery and amazing word choice.…
The first of three themes is how the Vietnam Veteran father’s PTSD contributes to their marital problems. Secondly, the sons interpret the effects of PTSD on their fathers as contributing to their father’s comradeship. Finally, the girlfriend…
To that extent, while history reduces the Vietnam story into a bare recitation of events, names and dates, Thuy attempts to restore these neglected heroes and give a voice to inaudible patriotic women who played a huge role during war time. With that in mind, she uncovers the overlooked history within History, with a lot of aphorism, insight and in such an appealing lyrical way.…
It has been known that the Vietnam War affected many American soldiers who were involved in the war physically and psychologically. The Vietnam War was one of the most memorable wars in history. Many Americans' lives lost for no objective at all. Chapter 10 informed us about how the Vietnam War started and what really happened during that time. It also gave us background information about Vietnam Veterans and nurses who were involved in the war and what they went through during the war. I had the opportunity to interview a Vietnam Veteran also.…
Throughout the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and the documentary “Dear America: Letters Home to Vietnam” the central feelings of fear and trepidation were prominent. As a reader, or viewer, I was able to take the feelings of the soldiers during the Vietnam War and translate it in a way to relate it to my own life.…
The Vietnam war was a war that was fought without a reason. With 58,200 Americans killed in the war and 300,000 wounded, many people were affected and changed after seeing their friends die right before their eyes. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a narrative about the Vietnam war and the people who fought for their lives. The main character, being the author, is Tim O’Brien and the short stories in the novel are from before, during, and after the war. These first hand accounts describe what many characters introduced into war experience as they are forced to fight and watch the people around them die.In the novel, The Things They Carried, imagery clearly displays the effects of conflict in both individuals and communities and the…
There are many characteristics that help define a true war story. In The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, O’Brien explores these different characteristics to put together a strong collection of stories. In this collection of stories, the author shares stories from the points of view of many different soldiers in the Vietnam War. He shares different stories of life before, during, and after the war that change who these characters are as people. O’brien uses short stories with common themes of what makes a true war story to describe what a true war story is.…
Contrary to the protagonist “O’Brien’s” experiential insulation from Vietnamese culture, which is a kind of “uncivilized other” according to the terms of U.S. rhetoric that largely defined the war, Mary Anne Bell is a character who deliberately strove for cultural immersion. For “O’Brien,” the landscape and the Vietnamese occupying that landscape, such as the elderly Vietnamese men who watch him revisit the spot where Kiowa perished, are mostly incidental. Mary Anne actively sought out the ways of the Vietnamese, not just to observe from a distance, but…
Cited: Ninh, Bao. The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam. Trans. Frank Palmos. New York:…
This novel portrays the hardships, struggles and "suffering" that a Vietnamese family endures through the years of approaching communism.…
Using powerful imagery and an interesting way of storytelling, Paradise of the Blind describes the Vietnamese people's idealistic hope of Communism and how that hope was betrayed. The novel is well-written in many ways, simultaneously questioning the faults of life in modern-day Vietnam in a stubborn manner and telling a tragic tale of family conflict. The descriptions of everyday life are plentiful and illustrative in ways that help move the story along. Author Duong Thu Huong has framed the story well by presenting much of it as flashbacks within flashbacks, enabling her to movingly expose the intricate weaving of events entwined with Vietnam's troubled history as all of this affects the present. While the book discusses the political aspects of Vietnamese life, it is not merely composed of observations on communism; Huong comments much more on family loyalty and the collision between traditional customs and the fast-evolving modern world.…
The Vietnam War was considered a true fight during 1945 through 1975, which was about 30 years of bloodshed and was considered the longest war that the United States has ever fought. This war was one of the first wars to be broadcasted on television in people’s homes. People then started to pay more attention to this war, than the previous ones. The public couldn’t swallow the realities of war, such as dying children, U.S. citizens being drifted one at a time, murders, and other horrors! Around the Vietnam era, many people started to react to this, and truly began to think about the war. The poem called Norman Morrison, by Adrian Mitchell, and the excerpt “The Man I Killed” in the novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’ Brien both show the breakdown of individuals under the stresses of the modern world – which in this case would be the Vietnam War.…
I understand there to be copious amounts of influential events which triggered trends in Vietnamese culture. The Chinese influence in Vietnam may have likely led to its communist political system. Vietnamese nationalism may have contributed to the difficulties the French faced during its colonization of Vietnam. However, I believe that the most relevant contribution to contemporary Vietnamese culture is the religious diversity and how it contributes to Vietnam's closed-door economic and political philosophies.…