Herr
In "Illumination Rounds" by Michael Herr, Herr discusses the effect on his being and the emotions of others in the Vietnam war. Several different characters are introduced throughout the essay, each with his own take on the war and the emotional damage it is causing them, to whatever degree. But it's not all about emotions and feelings, it has manly things too, like dead people. Yummy!
There are a million great things in the story I could talk in great depth about, like how he hints at things (like that they are in Vietnam, which he does by naming Asian sounding cities) but only directly telling the reader after the reader should have already had an idea of what he was talking about. I could also discuss the language he used, staying true to the way people spoke at the time even though it seems like he wrote it years later recalling what happened. I am more interested, however, in the depth of his characters. The character I found the most interesting was Davies. There is something so real about him that he cannot be the product of the author's imagination, but is so odd a being that you wonder how someone that different could ever exist. The way he acts after he finds out the priest lied to him about his legs is such a display of his odd character that you know just by reading that sentence that he's going to be a wild one. He has adapted to life at war, already marrying where he is stationed and creating the interesting mural on his wall. The attention to detail had to have taken him forever and the symbolism is just incredible. I love how he has the picture of the woman that "began at the bottom with shiny leather boots and rouged knees and ascended in a micro skirt, bare breasts, graceful shoulders and a long neck, topped by the burned, blackened face of a dead Vietnamese woman" (Herr 334). That picture describes how he feels about the war better than any beautifully written essay he could come up with.
The part that really hits the nail on the head in regards to how terrible the war was and the emotional effect it had on the men who fought it was at the very end. The major says, in reply to the dreams that the author is having, "'After the first tour, I'd have the goddamndest nightmares. You know, the works. Bloody stuff, bad fights, guys dying, me dying... I thought they were the worst,' he said. "But I sort of miss them now'" (Herr 341). [A side note- that was a tricky citation.] In that short sentence, to me, he says that nothing, not even those terrible nightmares could compare to the bloody battles of the war.
Another side note- I hate Vietnam stories.
Question- At the beginning of the essay, he says that he is a writer. However, near the end of the essay I get the idea that he is a soldier participating in the war. What role is he actually playing in this war, the role of a reporter or the role of a soldier?
There are a million great things in the story I could talk in great depth about, like how he hints at things (like that they are in Vietnam, which he does by naming Asian sounding cities) but only directly telling the reader after the reader should have already had an idea of what he was talking about. I could also discuss the language he used, staying true to the way people spoke at the time even though it seems like he wrote it years later recalling what happened. I am more interested, however, in the depth of his characters. The character I found the most interesting was Davies. There is something so real about him that he cannot be the product of the author's imagination, but is so odd a being that you wonder how someone that different could ever exist. The way he acts after he finds out the priest lied to him about his legs is such a display of his odd character that you know just by reading that sentence that he's going to be a wild one. He has adapted to life at war, already marrying where he is stationed and creating the interesting mural on his wall. The attention to detail had to have taken him forever and the symbolism is just incredible. I love how he has the picture of the woman that "began at the bottom with shiny leather boots and rouged knees and ascended in a micro skirt, bare breasts, graceful shoulders and a long neck, topped by the burned, blackened face of a dead Vietnamese woman" (Herr 334). That picture describes how he feels about the war better than any beautifully written essay he could come up with.
The part that really hits the nail on the head in regards to how terrible the war was and the emotional effect it had on the men who fought it was at the very end. The major says, in reply to the dreams that the author is having, "'After the first tour, I'd have the goddamndest nightmares. You know, the works. Bloody stuff, bad fights, guys dying, me dying... I thought they were the worst,' he said. "But I sort of miss them now'" (Herr 341). [A side note- that was a tricky citation.] In that short sentence, to me, he says that nothing, not even those terrible nightmares could compare to the bloody battles of the war.
Another side note- I hate Vietnam stories.
Question- At the beginning of the essay, he says that he is a writer. However, near the end of the essay I get the idea that he is a soldier participating in the war. What role is he actually playing in this war, the role of a reporter or the role of a soldier?
posted by Lesley at 8:04 AM
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