Burden of The Hump

Now after watching Mr. Dominguez's video it reminds me of my oh so lovely junior year of high school, but on to other subjects Main themes that run throughout the stories I have read within this book will be discussed. As going through the novel it seems to become slower more of a very dragged read that you have to literally push yourself to read the next word. It seems to be less stories more of O’ Brien’s voice dominating the things the men in Vietnam faced seem to wear the reader down to almost stop from reading the tortures they faced and what they became, this will lead us to a main theme of the novel. Truth of the stories told seems to be a very major theme in the novel as O’Brien takes a very postmodern view of it. He devotes a whole story to just that purpose on how to tell a war story, being it either true or not the whole point for him is rather to, convey a specific feeling that would associate with the wild Vietnam. “The truths are contradictory” pg 77 and O‘Brien adds “his frustration at not quite getting the details right, not quite pinning down the final and definitive truth” . Another theme that runs through the book is the culture jump and the nature of the Vietnam war itself. Being inside a very rural country something United States itself had never faced they are in something that isn’t quite clear, the enemies/ allies are not clear but muddled together. O’ Brien brings up a strange contrast on the war and its effects he says “ Nobody listens. Nobody hears nothing’. Like that fat ass colonel. The politicians, all the civilian types. Your girlfriend. My girlfriend. Everybody’s sweet little virgin girlfriend. What they need is to gout on LP.” In the chapter “Sweet heart of the Song Tra Bong” a soldier’s girlfriend comes to Vietnam and adverse things happen to her she begins to engage in the war too much the adrenaline of Vietnam gotten to her and she joined the dreaded Green Beret’s that are seen as the sneaky soldiers that are not quite enemies and not quite allies. She turns into this inhumane beastly person who eventually gets swept up into the Vietnamese jungle. Well there is so much more but that should be enough to talk about!