While O’Brien depicts the nature of war as chaotic, he never denies the individual responsibly that each soldiers had for the evils they committed while at war. Sorcerer comments that “this was not madness, this was sin.” By differentiating between “sin” and “madness” O’Brien shows the immorality of the soldier’s actions, rather than simply blaming the evils they committed on the Vietnam landscape. While “madness” suggests a lack of control and that the soldiers were unable to make moral decisions, “sin” is associated with a conscious decision to commit evils and thus an understanding of one’s immoral actions. The fact that in between the savage killing and sexual perversion of the Thuan Yen massacre solders were able to take smoke breaks suggests that the soldiers knew of the “pure wrongness” of their actions and yet never made the moral
While O’Brien depicts the nature of war as chaotic, he never denies the individual responsibly that each soldiers had for the evils they committed while at war. Sorcerer comments that “this was not madness, this was sin.” By differentiating between “sin” and “madness” O’Brien shows the immorality of the soldier’s actions, rather than simply blaming the evils they committed on the Vietnam landscape. While “madness” suggests a lack of control and that the soldiers were unable to make moral decisions, “sin” is associated with a conscious decision to commit evils and thus an understanding of one’s immoral actions. The fact that in between the savage killing and sexual perversion of the Thuan Yen massacre solders were able to take smoke breaks suggests that the soldiers knew of the “pure wrongness” of their actions and yet never made the moral