Athletes
December 4, 2013
History 287 The Vietnam War
Romance Of War
In the book, “Novel Without a Name,” by Duong Thu Huong, the novel is told from the North Vietnamese viewpoint in the Vietnam War. There are many themes that are shown throughout the novel. However, the three main themes are the effects of the war to its soldiers, the relationships and the love between each soldier, and the symbolism of nature throughout the novel. I will explain how the war has an effect on these three main themes and I will also contrast this novel with the novel, “Rumor of War,” by
Phillip Caputo.
The parallels between the novel, “Rumor of War ” and “Novel Without A Name,” are the familiarities that are experienced from the American and Vietnamese soldiers on both sides of the war. Both sides underwent brutally effects of the war such as trauma, psychological disorders, and physical weaknesses. Both sides witnessed deaths of friends and innocent civilians. The war caused a widespread affliction of Post Traumatic Stress
Syndrome on both sides. The main characters in both books are very much alike. In
“Rumor of War,” Caputo enters the war with notions of being a hero with thoughts of ending the war in a couple weeks or a few months and returning home to a parade.
Caputo finds out it is completely opposite and he is rudely awakened to the realities of war. Likely, in “Novel Without A Name,” the narrator Quan also loses his motivations for joining the war as he journeys across a country ravaged by war. Quan describes,
Roque
“How proud were we of our youth! Ten years ago the day we left for the front, I had never imagined this. All we had wanted was to be able to sing songs of glory. Who cared about mortars, machine guns, mines, bayonets, daggers? Anything was good for killing as long as it brought us glory. We pulled the trigger, we shot, we hacked away intoxicated with hatred, we demanded equality with our own hatred” (Huong72). This quote explains
the
History 287 The Vietnam War
Romance Of War
In the book, “Novel Without a Name,” by Duong Thu Huong, the novel is told from the North Vietnamese viewpoint in the Vietnam War. There are many themes that are shown throughout the novel. However, the three main themes are the effects of the war to its soldiers, the relationships and the love between each soldier, and the symbolism of nature throughout the novel. I will explain how the war has an effect on these three main themes and I will also contrast this novel with the novel, “Rumor of War,” by
Phillip Caputo.
The parallels between the novel, “Rumor of War ” and “Novel Without A Name,” are the familiarities that are experienced from the American and Vietnamese soldiers on both sides of the war. Both sides underwent brutally effects of the war such as trauma, psychological disorders, and physical weaknesses. Both sides witnessed deaths of friends and innocent civilians. The war caused a widespread affliction of Post Traumatic Stress
Syndrome on both sides. The main characters in both books are very much alike. In
“Rumor of War,” Caputo enters the war with notions of being a hero with thoughts of ending the war in a couple weeks or a few months and returning home to a parade.
Caputo finds out it is completely opposite and he is rudely awakened to the realities of war. Likely, in “Novel Without A Name,” the narrator Quan also loses his motivations for joining the war as he journeys across a country ravaged by war. Quan describes,
Roque
“How proud were we of our youth! Ten years ago the day we left for the front, I had never imagined this. All we had wanted was to be able to sing songs of glory. Who cared about mortars, machine guns, mines, bayonets, daggers? Anything was good for killing as long as it brought us glory. We pulled the trigger, we shot, we hacked away intoxicated with hatred, we demanded equality with our own hatred” (Huong72). This quote explains
the