War Years By Viet Thanh Nguyen Summary

War Years: Nipples and Breasts
As a kid at the age of thirteen, the narrator of “War Years” by Viet Thanh Nguyen remarkably pays attention a lot on noticing and describing breasts and nipples of women in the story. It can be inferred that in the age of adolescence, which means he is curious about the opposite sex and especially genitals, his behavior sounds sensible. At the same time, the narrator’s insertion helps explain physical appearances of women characters in the story, which seems significantly related to their family backgrounds as well.
The mother’s breasts are described in a very detailed. Dark areolas, thick nipples, and sagging breasts create the picture of a woman who did not take care of herself much and maybe had married and/or with children whom she fed with her own milk. Also, the size of the breasts is usually thought as the bigger, the better. To illustrate, some people understand that big breasts tend to produce more milk than small breasts. Although in scientific facts, this concept is fault, many people still adhere to the concept. Moreover, the ability in feeding babies in a way involves with the ability in reproduction. Big breastfeeding mothers are usually given to
Hoa and the girl who is the narrator’s classmate, Emmy Tsuchida, are described as having small breasts, at the same size (p.67). A flat chest girl, Tsuchida, can be viewed as normal, but Mrs. Hoa is a mother of a son, she is supposed to possess, at least, the curvier breasts than Tsuchida. Certainly, although this sounds stereotyping, it is a sort of basic thought which pop up in many people’s mind. The size of her breasts can be linked to the condition of her family life that she has lost both her spouse and her child, because she lacks of the “mark of abundance.” To summarize, no matter how the concept about the appearance of the breasts sounds logically inappropriate, these basic beliefs can be used to analyze the story appropriately and affectively in a