"O’Brien illustrates the ambiguity and complexity of Vietnam by alternating explicit references to beauty and gore. The butterfly and the tiny blue flowers he mentions show the mystery and suddenness of death in the face of pristine natural phenomena. O’Brien’s observations of his victim lying on the side of the road—his jaw in his throat and his upper lip gone—emphasize the unnaturalness of war amid nature. The contrast of images is an incredibly ironic one that suggests the tragedy of death amid so much beauty. However, the presence of the butterfly and the tiny blue flowers also suggests that life goes on even despite such unspeakable tragedy. After O’Brien killed the Vietnamese soldier, the flowers didn’t shrivel up, and the butterfly didn’t fly away. They stayed and found their home around the tragedy. In this way, like the STORY
of Curt Lemon’s death, “The Man I Killed” is a story about the beauty of life rather than the gruesomeness of death."Find contrasting images of beauty and gore in the chapter. Do you agree with this analysis?
Where else in the novel do you find images of the beauty of life contrasted with the gruesomeness of death?
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HMWK: Read "Speaking of Courage" and "Notes" to pg. 162
In the very first paragraph of this section, the mutilated corpse of a dead soldier is described in the way one would describe a beautiful woman. It contrasts beauty with gore by going from describing his gruesome body to what he was like before the war and how he wanted it to end.
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily agree with the analysis since I don't think that gore and beauty go hand in hand. Death can certainly be beautiful, but someone with all of their intestines hanging out and their head barely resembling a face? Nah, that's not beautiful, that's gross.
During the entire scene where Rat is shooting the water buffalo to near death, it's certainly described in a somewhat whimsical manner in contrast to the brutality of the action actually being done. It's incredibly blunt in some places and descriptive in others.
This story shows a contrast of beauty and gore because it shows the character's sympathy for the victim. Instead of shooting the guy and going about his day, he actually cares."He liked books. He wanted someday to be a teacher of mathematics." He takes the time to evaluate the man and how his future would have gone if he wasn't killed. He thinks about what the man might have been like and what his true aspirations were. Not only does he think about the man's morals and future, but he also observes the man's features. He says that after what he had done, the man was completely dismantled. "His Jaw in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone..." The fact that the victims whole face was destroyed and the story behind the victim is what made beauty and gore join together.
ReplyDeleteBeauty and gore is shown throughout the story as the author wanted the reader to connect with the soldiers. He wants the reader to understand the struggles and thoughts that is in the other side of the beautifully painted career. It is not easy being a soldier, yet there are many experiences that you get out of it. An image was when Rat was shooting the buffalo. They saw it as something beautiful, yet we think it is weird and a disturbing scene to see a man shooting a creature for no reason. The narrator tries to find a reasoning for Rat doing it, so the audience connects with him and understand the situation by having empathy. Another example was when the man dies that he described him as having sharp, grey eyes which were beautiful. He described his death of having beauty, which did not resemble. The difference between beauty and gore throughout the story is that the narrator pictures it to the reader by describing it with beauty and opposite of what the situation is really like. Death to the narrator and soldiers was beautiful, yet for us it is not. Shooting a buffalo many times was beautiful to them, yet in reality, the way we see it, it is not.
ReplyDeleteThe contrast of beauty and gore to describe the death of the Vietnamese boy shows that Tim immediately felt guilty and was thinking of what the boys life was like or could've been. He describes what the boy's body looks like and the star star-shaped hole in the place of his eye. That's the gore part until h describes the nature surrounding the body such as the flowers to show the beauty of his surroundings even though someone was just shot. I agree with the analysis above when it says that the description is showing that life goes on even though one person just died. The repetition of what the body looked like shows that the character, Tim, can't believe that he just took a life and despite Kiowa's insistence on letting it go, he continues to sit there and stare at the body.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the book, O'Brien shows the beauty and the gore of war. In this chapter, the gore is O'Brien killing the man but he find the beauty in it. He looks over the guy's body and describes it in a beautiful way, like he's awed by it. Another example is the water buffalo scene. Although it's suppose to be horrible, it's like O'Brien was glorying it and detailing the actions in a beautiful way.
ReplyDeleteThe contrast and beauty are blurred such is the idea of reality and fiction. Though we are described to a corpse there are no signs of disgust or unmorality to it, it is what it is and the book at face value holds no regard to the death of other; however, it contrast that innate impression by the description of the body.
ReplyDeleteO'Brien shows how the war in Vietnam was juxtaposing. The forests of Vietnam are full of beauty like the butterflies and the flowers and how they continued to grow amid the chaos of war. War of course also though is horrible. People were murdered in horrible ways and in many cases they were no longer identifiable. I think though when O'Brien is describing the dead body in a "beautiful" way it is not only due to him appreciating what flourishes around him but it's also because he's become numb to it. To a degree something that should not go together, the beauty of nature and the horrors of death, are normal and to help him deal with him constantly seeing all this death he tries to focus in on any aspect of it that he can define as beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the war, the contrast of beauty shows that life continues to go on regardless. I don't know if I could quite agree with this analysis but I can see where it stems from. When he see's the dead body this is not anything new to him. War is constantly throwing horrible scenarios at these soldiers. Therefore, as a solider why wouldn't you chose to see the beauty of it all rather than the destruction. The narrator doesn't separate beauty and gore which have very different connotations. Instead he paints a picture of them together, something I have not seen done before which made for a very interesting read.
ReplyDeleteThis is Emani.
DeleteThis chapter contrasts beauty with gore because as the chapter starts out describing the dead man's body. As if the sight were beautiful. He actually cared about this man that he killed, he describes the life he would have lived, the life he lived. He sees the beauty in his life rather than focusing on the bad parts first.
ReplyDeleteThis story does a good job at displaying how beautiful something is even when it is quite gruesome. The story of the water buffalo is a good example of this. When Rat Kiley was slowly killing the buffalo the watchers were explaining how beautiful it was and didn't even bat an eye at how cruel Rat's actions were.
ReplyDeleteThe beauty and gore is contrasted with the dead Vietnamese kid. O'Brien discusses the gore in detail (mentioning his eye getting shot out, etc.) and contrasts it immediately with the flower bed around him, describing the combination of beauty and the gore.
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ReplyDeleteBeauty and gore are both very well represented in the chapter. The dead body in the story is described very vividly. “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, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman’s….” The dead body is a wonderful example of beauty and gore. The beauty being how he describes the dead man’s features as those of a woman, and the gore being the dead man itself. He also mentions the beauty of the environment around him.
Beauty and gore are contrasted in this story. O'Brien seen the war as a beauty and also as a gore event. The death of the soldiers and the injured was far from beauty. The beauty was what the soldiers were surrounded by such as the landscapes and views of nature. O'Brien describes the deaths in a way that the readers can put an image in their head and see how bad the war was.
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