In Country may be a war novel but it can also be viewed as a book about family, about knowledge, and about discovering who you are. It can be viewed as a book about family since Sam constantly seems to be at odds with her mother who moved to be with her new husband in Lexington and because she is constantly struggling to learn about her father and to help Emmett heal physically and mentally because she cares for him. It is also a book about family since the lives of family members are rarely looked into after a war has occurred. Instead, most writers focus on the soldiers themselves. This book provides insight into how a war can change a family dynamic's entirely through Sam's unusual living arrangement
In Country is also a book about knowledge and discovering your identity because Sam feels that Vietnam has defined her life through the death of her father and through her uncle Emmett that she lives with. Throughout the book Sam is constantly pushing people for more information to help her understand the war and what the veterans went through as a way of defining her own identity. Eventually Sam realizes that Vietnam has greatly affected her life but has not defined it when she reads her fathers journal and speaks to Emmett about his experiences in Vietnam. These instances show her that she will never be able to comprehend the Vietnam War in its entirety.
In Country is set in the middle of Kentucky in the summer of 1984. This setting and time period makes it significant because it allows the novel to depict how the veteran's cope with the war years after they have returned home and how it still affects the lives of the veterans and many others throughout the country. It is also important because it shows a small town that has fallen behind the times and is still very ignorant to the after effects of the Vietnam War. The residents of this town are far enough behind the times that it is difficult for all of them, even those who are related to veterans, to comprehend why the veterans are so different from everyone else.
Popular culture also plays a role in this book because it is one way for Sam and Emmett to form a bond with one another. The two bond over the television show MASH since Emmett can relate to the characters experiences and it allows Sam to grasp an idea of what war may have been like. Popular culture is also important because it shows how patriotism is on the rise through the use of singers like Bruce Springsteen.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Although Bobbie Any Mason's novel In Country may be a war novel, it can also be seen in many other ways. In Country can also be seen as a novel about relationships, about knowledge, and about growing up and discovering who you are. In the novel, the story follows the main character, Sam Hughes, a 17 year old girl, as she struggles to find her place in the Vietnam War.
ReplyDeleteIn Country is a novel about relationships because it deals with Sam's relationships with her mother, Irene, her Uncle, Emmett, her boyfriend, Lonnie, and many others and how they affect her ability to grow up. Sam's relationship with her mother is a rocky one. Before the novel begins, Irene had moved to Lexington with her new husband and baby, leaving Sam behind in Hopewell and causing her to feel very uncared about. This relationship is part of what inspires Sam to act differently when she realizes she does not want to spend the rest of her life in Hopewell. Sam refuses to just up and leave like her mother did, but will instead find closure there before moving on.
Sam's relationship with Emmett is a unique one, he is supposed to act as a father figure but instead acts more like a friend, providing her with alcohol and cigarettes and letting her do what she pleases. Emmett represents one example of a failed father figure in the novel, something he openly admits towards the end of the novel. As a father figure, he is supposed to care for Sam and provide her with guidance. Instead, because he is struggling to get through each day, Sam ends up caring for him, being unable to rely on him and searching for her life path completely on her own since Emmett lost his during the war. Lonnie and Sam's relationship is one that allows Sam to branch out and slowly find her own path. Lonnie has thoughts of staying in Hopewell, working a dead-end job and being with her forever. Sam on the other hand wants to get out of Hopewell and see the world rather than being tied down to one place, like Lonnie will be. When she tells Lonnie this, he calls her "weird". Eventually the two break up and Sam has the freedom to make her own decisions about her life and to create a vision for herself, something she does by comparing her life to Irene's.
During the novel, Sam is going through the process of growing up and finding her own identity. We can see this in the line "They are at a crossroads...she's in limbo, stationed right in the center of this enormous amount of energy." (Mason 17) In this line we can see that Sam is at a crossroads in her life as she struggles to cross it and become an adult. In the beginning of the novel we see how childish and young Sam still is through her descriptions and thoughts of Mamaw. In describing Mamaw, Sam comes off as a teenager because at that age looks and appearances are very important. "Mamaw has barrel hips and rolls of fat around her waist. She is wearing peach-colored pants and a flowered blouse, with white socks and blue tennis shoes." (Mason 4)
ReplyDeleteSam grows up slowly throughout the book, using her slowly increasing knowledge of her father and of the war to do so. Sam continues to grow up through her relationships with Dawn, Tom, and Lonnie as well, as she realizes that small town life is not what she wants. As Sam finds out more and more about her father, and about her parents relationship she begins to understand that their versions of the war are not the same as hers. As she realizes this, she begins her journey into the real world where nothing is what you thought it was as a kid. "Sam had wanted to care about her father, but she didn't know enough about him...Sam had wanted to believe there was something between them [Irene and Dwayne] that had created her and validated their love...Making a baby had nothing to do with love, or anything mystical, or what they said in church. It was just fucking."
In Country takes place in the middle of Kentucky in 1984. The significance of the setting of the novel is that Hopewell is a small southern town which happens to be where many soldiers in the Vietnam War were drafted from. The town is basically in it's own world, not paying attention to what's going on in terms of wars or politics but instead focusing on their own individual lives. This has an effect on the book because it prevents the characters from knowing a lot about the war and from understanding the long term effects of the war. The time in this novel is also relevant because it has an impact on Emmett's condition and on how he is treated within the town. In 1984 the government was refusing to acknowledge that Agent Orange caused problems in those exposed and that PTSD was in fact a very serious problem for many veterans.
ReplyDeletePop culture plays a huge role in this novel because it becomes the filter for how the characters understand the world. Sam uses the hit series M*A*S*H* to try and understand the war better, even though it is essentially a comedy series and very different from the Vietnam War. M*A*S*H* is also Sam and Emmetts way of bonding since Emmett is, for the most part, unable to live a normal life thanks to PTSD.
TV in general is also important because it is the characters main point of reference, it is what is alive for them and what matters to them. For Sam, Emmett and others, the world is transformed into TV visuals. One of the ways this happens is through MTV. In the 1980's, MTV is what many youths lives revolved around because it changed their generation by adding an entirely new aspect- a visual aspect- which was very different from just hearing it.
Bruce Springsteen is also an important aspect of pop culture throughout the novel, which is first evidenced through the epigraph of the novel. Bruce Springsteen was young during the Vietnam War but to Sam, he is a voice against war and imperialism, and a voice for the dignity and freedom of every man. He is her fantasy because he understands the war, oppression and indignity and expresses all of this through his songs and music videos. Pop culture is all throughout this novel, from the musicians, to the television shows, to how the characters dress. It is even evident in where they stop for food, places like McDonald's and Burger Boy where they can get fast food which symbolizes America and its race to get from one thing to the next as fast as possible.