Bruce Weigl illustrates a soldier ‘s horrifying experience at war and the result of an event he experienced in “ Song of Napalm. ” The chief character, a soldier who participated in the Vietnam War, is faced with a tragic event that hinders his ability to take a normal life. The incident of watching an guiltless miss burn alive has left him emotionally scarred. Using the supporter ‘s feelings and ideas, Weigl moves the reader to understand the durable hurting war bestows on soldiers. Incapable of exceling such a atrocious event, the soldier is stuck in a struggle of dividing his past memories from world. In “ Song of Napalm, ” Weigl skilfully uses the character of the soldier, symbolism in the scene, and graphic imagination to exemplify one adult male ‘s battle to get the better of his memories as a societal disapprobation of the horrors of war. A great focal point and a good debut. Well done.
Having experienced a atrocious event of the miss ‘s decease, the soldier, moving as the talker, explains why he can non travel on with his life. The adult male is forced to take a life of struggle both physically and mentally. Deeply imprinted by the event, the writer uses the chief character to expose the thought that the soldier is non able to populate a normal life. He has to seek difficult to separate the difference between world and a figment of the yesteryear. In fact, the writer uses the soldier ‘s feelings of confusion to demo how profoundly troubled the adult male has become. Every clip “ I turned my dorsum on the old expletives. I believed / They swung eventually off from me ” ( 19-20 ) , and the adult male has to acknowledge, “ But the prevarication swings back once more ” ( 34 ) . When the haunting reaches a point of world, there is no turning back to the clip he was happy because nil, non even his married woman ‘s love or the green and peaceableness of his scene can assist him now. He will ne’er populate in peace once more, since his life ended the minute the miss died. Well done. Good analysis.
In hurting and combustion indoors, the soldier can non assist but retrieve the yesteryear, and is left with symbols of the horror that he finds in his milieus. Good subject sentence. Well focused. Weigl uses these symbols to demo how deeply the soldier ‘s psyche is cut and the weakness he feels. His life is so affected by this event that he feels a storm brewing inside him, and nil can halt the boom and rain, symbols of his hurting. Surrounded by Equus caballuss that “ Walk off lazily across the grazing land ‘s hill ” ( 3 ) , the soldier states that “ The grass was ne’er more bluish in that visible radiation, ” can grass be blue? Is that normal? ( 10 ) but even these marks of normality can non wipe out the images in his head since he can non bask the peace these idyllic milieus should give. All he sees are the “ cut- out Equus caballuss ” ( 8 ) , “ the subdivisions are wire/ And the boom is the thumping howitzer ” ( 21- 22 ) from his clip at war. His life is now based on his yesteryear, non on the present. Good.
Trying to ease his hurting, the soldier has failed many times to alter the vivid images and realizes he will experience the burn of the napalm forever. Another good subject sentence. The fact the miss “ aˆ¦reach [ erectile dysfunction ] for the no one/ Who waits in moving ridges of heat before her ” ( 26- 27 ) at the clip of her decease makes him experience guilty that she had no 1 in her life like he does soon. Therefore, he tries to paint a mental image of a better stoping by conceive ofing the miss as an angel with wings “ aˆ¦ris [ ing ] / Above the stinking jungle ” ( 31- 32 ) where the universe would non be able to harm her. In his imaginativeness, she will be free of the universe, its wars and the hurting wars bring. However, “ the prevarication works merely every bit long as it takes to talk ” ( 31 ) . The image of her winging off slices and “ nil can alter that: she is burned behind [ his ] eyes ” ( 42 ) . Apologizing to his married woman for non being able to hold a normal relationship together is besides one of the soldier ‘s efforts to do the ghastly images better. “ And non ( her ) good love and non the rain- swept air/ And non the jungle green/ Pasture flowering before ( them ) can deny ” ( 43- 45 ) that the miss ‘s life is now burned and his along with it. Nicely done.
Proving Weigl ‘s subject of the horrors of war, the soldier ‘s dramatic depictures shows that no good can of all time come from war. It marks the beginning of subjective and personal struggles that guiltless people must bear. War causes a spread in the saneness and normalcy of the manner life is lived. As war terminates, it leaves an unfortunate heritage by conveying about the terminal of the humanity in the thick of homo ‘s Black Marias.
