Bobbie Ann Mason’s In Country is not only a novel written about war, but a novel of understanding and the search for information about her father and the war he was involved in. Sam is looking for answers and also going through the process of self-discovery. Sam longs to know what life would be like if her father were alive and she keeps a picture of him that was taken when he was in the war, “The soldier boy in the picture never changed. In a way that made him dependable,” (66). She craved a father in her life, so she carried his picture around, and she wondered had her father lived if he would have been dependable.
The most tumultuous relationship in the novel is that between Sam and Emmett, her uncle. He served in Vietnam and suffers from PTSD. Mason uses Emmett to represent any soldier who returned back to the United States from Vietnam. He explains to Sam, “There’s something wrong with me. I’m damaged. It’s like something in the center of my heart is gone and I can’t get it back. You know when you cut down a tree sometimes and it’s diseased in the middle?” (225). The Vietnam War clearly shattered his personality and liveliness he once had before the war. The war also shattered his personal relationships. When Sam asks him whether or not he wants children, he responds, “I want to be a father. But I can’t,” (225). Emmett wants a normal life, but is deprived of one because of the affects of his PTSD.
The significance of the setting and time of the novel is a key element in Mason’s book. It is set in the small town of Hopewell, Kentucky in the 1980s. This is important because it is around the time when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall was built in 1982, which is a huge part of the novel. Also, the fact that they live in such a small town negatively affects Emmett, who feels out of place upon his return from Vietnam. The role of popular culture is also very important to this book because pop culture was very much affected by the Vietnam War. The television show M*A*S*H, which Sam watches frequently, is about the Korean War, but sparks her curiosity for knowledge about the Vietnam War. Also, the other cultural references in this book deal with the Vietnam War in a negative light. Sam listens to The Beatles frequently throughout the novel, who sang many anti-war songs about the United States’ occupation in Vietnam.
This novel was interesting because it took the perspective of a young adult learning about a war she originally knew nothing about, but was unknowingly very invested in.
Bobbie Ann Mason’s In Country is not only a novel about war; it is a coming of age story about a seventeen year old girl named Sam Hughes. Sam’s father died in Vietnam shortly before she was born, and she tries to understand his life and what happened to him in Vietnam. The title, In Country, is ironically used to describe Sam fighting her own battles long after the war. The organization of this novel shows Sam’s incremental understanding of her life and her maturation into adulthood.
ReplyDeleteSam and her uncle Emmett, who is also a war veteran, live the small town of Hopewell, Kentucky. This is significant to the novel because it depicts the small town attitude towards the war. When Emmett and his friends flew a Vietcong flag from the courthouse tower, Emmett stated that “nobody had even recognized that it was a Vietcong flag” (24). This shows the ignorance of the citizens of Hopewell, and can be universalized to all small towns in America. The time period of the novel is the 1980s, which is significant to the novel because unlike other Vietnam War novels, it is not a firsthand account. It is a novel written about a girl removed from the war, but still very much invested in it. This shows that the effects of the war are long lasting, even after many years.
Popular culture plays a prominent role in this novel. As a typical teenager, Sam is consumed with popular cultural icons. Sam receives her information through these different popular culture outlets. MTV is a symbolization of the generation gap between Sam and Emmett; MTV didn’t exist in Vietnam Veterans time. MTV was the new concept of visual music, which Emmett was never exposed to. Sam listens to a lot of anti-war songs; she had an infatuation with Bruce Springsteen and he sung ‘Born in the USA’, in which the lyrics explains the negative effects of the war. Sam also listens to The Beatles, which preach love, peace and happiness in their songs, all of which are anti-war related. The most notable popular culture reference in the novel is M*A*S*H. Sam and Emmett watch the show religiously, and even though it is set during the Korean War, it is still the closest thing to the Vietnam War Sam has ever visually seen. Emmett reveals the most about his experiences during the war while watching the show with Sam. He doesn’t like to talk about the war but when watching M*A*S*H he told Sam that the character “Frank Burns was just like his commander in the army” (102). Emmett watches M*A*S*H to reinvent what happened to him during the Vietnam War. He wished that his experiences in Vietnam were as simple and humorous as they were on the show, and he watches the show because he doesn’t want to admit his reality of Vietnam.
The novel closes with Sam and Emmett at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. Sam finds her father’s name, but also finds the name Sam A. Hughes. The fact that Sam saw her name on the wall represents how everyone was affected by the war. Sam sees her reflection not only in the memorial wall, but in her father’s name and her own name on the wall; this draws her into the war in a way she wasn’t able to before, and she realizes that she is there with the rest of the country.