Genre
Memoir / Biography
Setting and Context
Set in Da Nang, Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
Narrator and Point of View
First-person narration from the point of view of Philip Caputo.
Tone and Mood
Haunting, Powerless, Morose
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: Philip Caputo Antagonist: The Viet Cong and the horrors and disillusionment of war.
Major Conflict
Caputo is deployed in the Vietnam War as a young infantryman but the war is not what they expected. He is assigned to more gruesome duties that end up disillusioning him akin to other young soldiers.
Climax
The climax occurs after the troops under Caputo’s command miscarry their orders but Caputo assumes accountability for the incident. As such he is tried at the court-martial and though the charges were dropped he is dismissed from service.
Foreshadowing
Caputo foreshadows the disenchantment and corruption that his fellow combatants in the war would experience once they entered the long-drawn-out conflict.
Understatement
Caputo, akin to most young combatants, underestimated the magnitude of the Vietnam War in its initial stages. The idealism that drove the young generation to fight is replaced by sheer disillusionment.
Allusions
The title alludes to a scriptural verse that says “And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars” to express the nature of the Vietnam War where the American society was oblivious of its realities.
Imagery
“They marched along, my platoon of crippled corpses, hopping along on the stumps of their legs, swinging the stumps of their arms, keeping perfect time while I counted cadence.”
Paradox
N/A
Parallelism
Caputo draws parallels between the American soldiers and the Viet Cong regarding their war strategies, discipline, and hostility.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
In that war, soldier’s slang for death was “wasted.”
Personification
Throughout the memoir, Caputo personifies war as an entity or freak of nature that is alive and devours.
