A large bird started into the air as if it had been thrown, then stopped, spread its wings, and glided in a great arc to the west." (17.29) There was a thick cloud cover, heavy and threatening above us. Sometimes, normal settings feel dangerous, just to reflect how anxious the narrator is: For Perry, Vietnam is a place of rats, bugs, water, and mud.įor Perry and the others, elements of the country that might otherwise be beautiful, like the trees and rice paddies, are seen as either obstacles or places to take cover. The elements we hear about, again and again, are the rain, the mugginess, and the discomfort. Perry's an outsider-a young man in an unfamiliar climate, trying to survive-so seeing the world through his eyes means seeing the base conditions of the soldiers. Because a soldier is the narrator, we don't get a window into the rich culture or complex politics of Vietnam, the way we might if the story was told from a Vietnamese point of view. You could say the setting is more the War itself, rather than Vietnam as a country.
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