Alienation
The war against the Taurans is paralleled with the war in Vietnam during the 1960’s. A defining divergence of that war from previous ones were that the American veterans returned to was different from the one they left and often seemed even more so. The constant connection between homefront and battlefront had broken down as a result of loss of support for the effort as a unifying factor among the American population. This parallel is drawn particularly strongly:
“And in the past, people whose country was at war were constantly in contact with the war. The newspapers would be full of reports, veterans would return from the front…The enemy was a tangible thing, a propagandist’s monster whom you could understand, whom you could hate.”
Love is
What is love? Who knows for sure, but anyone looking for an answer to what was love was need look no further than this novel. Everything it outlined…in metaphor, of course:
“love was a fragile blossom; love was a delicate crystal; love was an unstable reaction with a half-life of about eight months.”
The narrator isn’t buying it, however, as he rejects this poetic interpretation by comparing—also in metaphor—to bovine fecal matter.
Why War?
Why does earth go to war against the Taurans? This is a question that lies unanswered for most of the story. Only in the end, after more than 1100 years of constant battling, does the murky origins of the conflict rise to crystal clarity. The revelation is distinctly anti-climactic:
“The fact was, Earth’s economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It gave a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unify humanity rather than dividing it.”
Character Description
Metaphorical imagery is not just use for the broader implications of theme. It is also manufactured to efficient use for gold old-fashioned character description:
“He had a moustache-and-beard combination that looked like a skinny white caterpillar taking a lap around his mouth.”
War is
Love is not the only concept which is subjected to philosophical contemplation through metaphorical imagery. War is given the once-over, only in this case, the contemplation is not just through metaphor, but reference to what others have had to say on the subject, specifically one Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian.
“War is the province of danger and therefore courage above all things is the first quality of a warrior”
“War is the province of friction”
