Critical Analysis of "Sorrow of War" by Bao Ninh,

by aadharshd (student)

International Baccalaureate World Literature

Critical Analysis of Sorrow of War

By: Aadharsh. D 11-B

In this novel by Bao Ninh, Ninh gives an honest narration of the reality of the Vietnam War. The protagonist is Kien, a North Vietnamese soldier, experiences war and all of its horrid effects. Kien endures the loss of fellow soldiers, stress of injury and trauma and also the effect the war has on his relationships with his loved ones. The author captures the raw realities of fighting and as well as how the people were affected by it.

Ninh helps the reader to perceive and understand war as being all conquering by comparing it to love. In addition to this, Ninh shows war’s ability to taint love and in this way, defeat the human capacity for love. We see Kien stumble through various relationships in his life, both pre-war and post-war. The most significant relationship being with Phuong, his first childhood love.

Ninh’s depiction of love during the war is powerfully moving. However in the frequent references to the past and its portrayal, he is able to show the readers that love and the importance of the past acts as a sort of asylum in times of despair such as this war. If Kien had lived a normal life, Kien might have been able to forget Phuong and move on, dismissing her as a childhood lover. Unfortunately, the war and his harsh life destroyed this possibility symbolizing her beauty as ‘lost opportunities’. However Kien’s love for Phuong still lives on, in his past. In this way, contrastingly, Ninh shows how love might perhaps be able to triumph over war after all.

Throughout the novel, Kien and the Vietnamese people are constantly displaced from their normal lives and are forced into settings that are both familiar and alien. Although young people during that time had aspirations of raising families, going to college and other dreams pertaining to a normal life. However, Ninh illustrates that such dreams and desires are unattainable during Vietnam War as the everyday fighting between the North and South had altered the everyday lives of the Vietnamese people.

The Vietnam War forces Kien down a completely different path so much that he finds it impossible to return to the person he was before the war. The war not only affects the solider but also the citizen as well. Phuong’s brutal rape by the people who were supposed to be on her side pushed her into a life filled with regret, pain, sorrow and shaped by the lack of love. In addition to her current hardships, she becomes distant from Kien and finds herself incapable of returning to the relationship that they once had.

We are also shown ...

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We are also shown a world that is dearth of true feelings and real relationships. The relationship between Kien and Phuong is regarded as odd and almost treasonous to the other members of their community. From youth, they were indoctrinated by their communist government that love, friendship and meaningful relationships are detrimental to the society and country during wartime.

The war leaves the soldiers lacking a direction in their lives. Even as the war is ending, they continue to show their aggressive behavior. Similar to how Kien treats Phuong after the rape, soldiers lose respect for women. One such instance was at the airport where a soldier disrespects a dead naked corpse of a woman. He gets up, kicks her and screams at her. The corpse is clearly defenseless and innocent, but the soldier used it as mean to vent his guilt-fueled anger towards her.

The war changed the men and their values. The soldiers were thought to act cruel and violent towards one other. Ultimately, the only way they know how to live is by asserting their authority and masculinity over helpless people. In their minds, their sense of purpose and masculinity is gone if they cannot assert their power over someone. When the war ends and soldiers are brought back into a world of peace with no fighting, they find themselves not being able to adjust to a life without violence or cruelty. To them, they cannot actually be men. This shows us a world without real men.

The characters in this novel are particularly interesting because they are dynamic due to the transformations they endure throughout the novel. At the end of the war when Kien returns to Hanoi, there were no ceremonies, drums or whatever to welcome back the victorious soldiers. Kien has a sense of bitterness however he believes every bit of their sacrifice is worth it. Ultimately, Kien changes from a innocent young teen full of ideals to a man who has lived the horrors of war and felt the grief which causes him to reminisce. Despite all this, Kien grasped strongly to reality and accepted the fate of being a victim of the war. It made him stronger mentally but at the same time took away the things that prevented a human being from turning into a ruthless cold-blooded man hardened by his experiences.

Ninh represents Phuong as the Vietnamese women of the time. Her suffering depicts the suffering of women and the decaying of the country’s values. War was not easy on men but neither was it for women. Countless women suffered Phuong’s fate and were mistreated and suppressed, even after death. Phuong’s experience with war and rape caused her not to heal. Her romantic ideals and beliefs are taken away from her as she is raped. Her view on the world after this was violent and unfair. Eventually the damage led her into a life of prostitution and promiscuity.

In my opinion, I believe that Bao Ninh is effectively able to portray his own experiences and paint a realistic picture of the war’s impact upon the individual soldier. It is a well-known fact that a veteran will experience post-traumatic stress and this is shown through quite effectively through Kien’s post-war years. He finds himself damaged from the experience of war, unable to get back into society as a normal person. Hence, he exiles himself into his room, working on his manuscript in a cathartic process in which he is able to purge all his emotions and feelings into. Writing was the only way for Kien to escape from his internal war between the traumatic memories and his present seclusion from the world. In reality, out of the 10 soldiers from the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade, 6 committed suicide due to the difficulty of leading a normal life. This is comparable to the times when Kien wanted nothing but to die as he felt he could no longer live in his current predicament. Ninh is not only able to show how a soldier might be affected, but also how a normal every day citizen might be affected. This is shown through the various supporting characters in the novel which Kien encounters.

As a student learning about the Vietnam War, I found this book particularly intriguing. Prior to reading this book, my views on the Vietnam War were mainly based on war movies that portrayed the war through the American point of view. Such media glorified the death and sacrifice of countless soldiers and influenced how an entire generation viewed the Vietnam War. The Sorrow of War is the first work that I have read that shows the reality of the war through the point of view of someone on the other side. The novel is much more than just about war, it is a book about writing, about lost youth and also includes a beautiful but agonizing love story. It changed the way I thought of North Vietnam and the war.

Due to Ninh’s strikingly honest portrayal of the Vietnam War, the book caused major controversy within his country when he first published his book. Painting an accurate picture with a non-heroic tone, Ninh described the cruel effects and the aftermath of war. It was as controversial as Robert S. McNamara’s war confessional, “In Retrospect” is in the United States today. The Sorrow of War forced the Vietnamese people to confront a side of the war that they rarely discuss. Although the book passed through the government’s censors, it faced much criticism from both the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and veterans of the war. Ninh has not published since. It is also comparable to the German confessional on the World War 1, “All Quiet on the Western Front”, as both portray the hardships faced by the many faceless soldiers fighting for their country.

This is a hauntingly powerful Vietnam War novel. Ninh is able to portray the story as both a war novel and anti-war novel at the same time. There had been much rape, bombing, killing and horrific destruction. But it is not only an account on the horrors of war, but also touches upon the topics of uncertainty, search for one owns identity and self-respect. It is the author’s statement about honesty and the journey towards self-realization through love and post-traumatic shock. Love is lost, regained and then lost again. However, overall there is an honesty and truth that one’s soul will always survive despite the cruelty and barbarism of men towards each other in war.