represents the battlefield. “Offstage a cast of thousands weeping”. This quotation
describes the terrible sorrow and pain experienced by the loved ones of those
who were killed by the American soldiers. Then the poet concentrates on a single
character of the poem. “a whole body, on which a splash of napalm is working.
Enter the bride. She has one breast, one eye; half of her scalp is bald. She hobbles
towards centre front.” The poet gives the reader a description of a victim of war.
We are told of the heavy physical damage caused by a splash of napalm such as
the loss of a breast, an eye and the ‘hobbling’ implies the damage caused to the
rest of the body. Then the poet goes on to describe the reactions of a bridegroom
who sees her. “a young soldier, thin, but without visible wounds. He sees her.
Slowly at first, then faster and faster, he begins to shudder, to shudder, to ripple
with shudders.” The bridegroom in the poem probably represents the American
soldier. The poet has described the mental suffering, which is undergone by the
soldier. The reader can understand that the sight of the damage caused by the war
horrifies the soldier. His terrible guilt makes him shudder uncontrollably. Based
on the structure of the poem it is understood that it is the soldier who is suffering
more compared to the physically injured bride.
By describing the pain, sorrow and guilt, when developing the character of
the bride and the soldier, Denise Levertov tries to make the people who are
responsible for all the destruction and carnage see the devastation caused by their
decisions. The poet has used structure as a literary technique to efficiently
convey her message to the reader.
“The Things They Carried” written by Tim O’Brien conveys a message
which is similar to the message conveyed by the poem “Scenario” written by
Denise Levertov. In the chapter, “The Man I Killed”, we told how disturbed Tim
was when he killed a man. He stares at the corpse for a long time and thinks
about what the victim would have done in life if he did not die in the war. ‘He
wanted someday to be a teacher of mathematics’. We are given the description of
the corpse repeatedly. ‘His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were
gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole.’ The author has
repeated the images in Tim’s mind like constant memory flashes, which creates a
sense of guilt.
The ambitions of the victim is unknown in reality. Only imagination tells
Tim that he would have been a mathematic teacher if he had not been enrolled in
the war. However Tim’s trance-like behaviour after the kill makes the reader
understand the guilt, which was consuming him. The violent imagery used by the
author has a strong impact upon conveying the message.
Both Tim O’Brien and Denise Levertov uses character development to
convey the guilt felt by the killers. Denise Levertov develops the bride and the
soldier to show the terrible guilt felt by the soldier. Tim O’Brien develops his
own character to make the reader understand the weight of the guilt felt after
killing the young man.
