Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in "In Country" by Bobbi Ann Mason
Many Vietnam veterans suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder. Typically, such individuals have flashbacks, dreams, and are constantly haunted by their war memories. The mental stress can lead to further complications, even physically injuring or paralyzing the human body. The book In Country by Bobbi Ann Mason portrays a prime example of such a victim. The difference? The subject is a seventeen-year-old girl in the early nineteen-eighties who never saw the war.
Posttraumatic stress disorder affects an estimated 30.9% of male Vietnam veterans and 26.9% of female Vietnam veterans, according to a survey by the National Center for PTSD (National Center for PTSD Online). Of these, most have marital and social problems, high arrest rates, alcoholic dependencies, and in many cases drug addictions. These issues are brought on by the terrors, stress, and moral headaches caused by the acts, such as killing, that they were ordered to commit during their service. While others are only mildly affected and manage to lead semi normal lives, others are rendered useless, unable to hold jobs, start families, or participate as active members of society as they are constantly obsessing, whether consciously or not, about the war. In Mason’s book, there are prime examples of each.
Emmett, the thirty something uncle of Sam, the main character, is the second type of victim. After moving back home to Hopewell after the war, he spent a few years causing mischief with his wild hippy friends. Eventually, they left, and with the ruckus, amusement, and gossip caused by their stunts, Emmett’s spirit also died, pushing him into an ever deepening low. He is unab...
... middle of paper ...
...r, Department of Veteran Affairs. Updated 1 Sept. 2003. Accessed 12 April 2004. http://www.ncptsd.org/facts/general/fs_epidemioloical.html?printable=yes
Krasteva, Yonka. “The South and the West in Bobbie Ann Mason’s In Country.” Rev. of In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason. Southern Literary Journal Spring 1994:26:2:77.
Mason, Bobbie Ann. In Country. New York: Harper Collins 1985.
Morrissey, Thomas J. “Mason’s In Country.” Rev. of In Country, by Bobbie Ann Mason. Explicator Fall 1991:50:62.
O’Brien, Timothy D. “Oppositions in In Country.” Rev. of In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason. Critique: Winter 2000:47:2:175.
Stewart, Matthew C. “Realism, Verisimilitude, and the Depiction of the Vietnam Veterans in In Country. Rev. of In Country, by Bobbie Ann Mason. Fourteen Landing Zones: Approaches to Vietnam War Literature. Ed. Jason, Philip K. p. 166
The reality that shapes individuals as they fight in war can lead to the resentment they have with the world and the tragedies that they had experienced in the past. Veterans are often times overwhelmed with their fears and sensations of their past that commonly disables them to transgress and live beyond the emotions and apprehensions they witness in posttraumatic experiences. This is also seen in everyday lives of people as they too experience traumatic events such as September 11th and the fall of the World Trade Center or simply by regrets of decisions that is made. Ones fears, emotions and disturbances that are embraced through the past are the only result of the unconscious reality of ones future.
Jehlen, Myra. "The Family Militant: Domesticity Versus Politics in Uncle Tom's Cabin." Criticism 31 (Fall 1989): 383-400.
In this investigation, the personal side of the soldiers who fought in the Vietnam war will be examined- particularly the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that were most common in veterans, and the different experiences in the war or after returning home that could have caused them. The types of warfare, deaths, and differences from methods used in the Vietnam War will be discussed. Technological advancements and mindsets of the different times of the wars will be taken into account. The definition of PTSD and descriptions of different general causes will be mentioned, as well. Different accounts from veterans and reports on PTSD Vietnam War veteran victims will be analyzed for individual cases and examples. Sources used will include Wounds of War by Herbert Hendin and Ann Pollinger Haas and information on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the National Institute of Mental Health’s website.
Imagine living in despair after coming back home, dismayed from a war that got no appreciation. Robert Kroger once said in his quote, “The brave men and women, who serve their country and as a result, live constantly with the war inside them, exist in a world of chaos. But the turmoil they experience isn’t who they are, the PTSD invades their minds and bodies.” Eleven percent of Vietnam Veterans still suffer with symptoms of the terrifying disorder of PTSD (Handwerk). Vietnam Veterans struggle with the physiological effects of PTSD after war, which leads to despair and many deaths.
“War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead,” (80). In the fiction novel The Things They Carried, the author Tim O’Brien reminisces fighting in the Vietnam War and the aftermath of the war with his platoon mates through short stories and memories. He goes in depth about the emotional trauma and physical battles they face, what they carry, and how Vietnam and war has changed them forever. O’Brien’s stories describe the harsh nature of the Vietnam War, and how it causes soldiers to lose their innocence, to become guilt-ridden and regretful, and to transform into a paranoid shell of who they were before the war.
Fighting the Vietnam War dramatically changed the lives of everyone even remotely involved, especially the brave individuals actually fighting amidst the terror. One of the first things concerned when reading these war stories was the detail given in each case. Quotes and other specific pieces of information are given in each occurrence yet these stories were collected in 1981, over ten years following the brutal war. This definitely shows the magnitude of the war’s impact on these servicemen. These men, along with every other individual involved, went through a dramatic experience that will forever haunt their lives. Their minds are filled with scenes of exploding buildings, rape, cold-blooded killing, and bodies that resemble Swiss cheese.
War is no child 's play, but unfortunately, we have had times in our past when the youth of our great nation had to defend it. Combat is not an easy for anyone; watching death, the constant ring of gunfire, the homesickness, fearing for your life, and witnessing bloodshed daily, this will begin to take its toll. The minds threshold for brutality can only handle so much and eventually will become sickened by these events. This sickness is called Post-traumatic stress disorder. As shown through the characters of The Things They Carried, soldiers of war may begin to show PTSD symptoms before the war is over, and may continue to fight the disorder after the war has ended.
The Vietnam War was a controversial conflict that plagued the United States for many years. The loss of life caused by the war was devastating. For those who came back alive, their lives were profoundly changed. The impact the war had on servicemen would affect them for the rest of their lives; each soldier may have only played one small part in the war, but the war played a huge part in their lives. They went in feeling one way, and came home feeling completely different. In the book Vietnam Perkasie, W.D. Ehrhart describes his change from a proud young American Marine to a man filled with immense confusion, anger, and guilt over the atrocities he witnessed and participated in during the war.
War has been a constant part of human history. It has greatly affected the lives of people around the world. These effects, however, are extremely detrimental. Soldiers must shoulder extreme stress on the battlefield. Those that cannot mentally overcome these challenges may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sadly, some resort to suicide to escape their insecurities. Soldiers, however, are not the only ones affected by wars; family members also experience mental hardships when their loved ones are sent to war. Timothy Findley accurately portrays the detrimental effects wars have on individuals in his masterpiece The Wars.
O’Conner, Flannery. “Good Country People.” Literature An Introduction To Fiction, Poetry, And Drama. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia 3rd ed. New York Longman, 2003. 247-261
A Vietnam veteran looks back in 1985' involves a narrator who was a 19-year-old boy in 1969, a member of Indian Company 3d Battalion 5th Marine. He questions himself a ‘why America came to Vietnam’ after an ambush attack by the North Vietnam Army. He elaborates that there must be another way of peace and freedom to the universe other than terrible wars like in Vietnam. In 1985, he realized that the American government together with the India Company fought to change Vietnam, but the result was minute, more people were injured, died, and left homeless. Wrong, Rambo, dead wrong because the Americans put the soldiers in the unwinnable war because it was entirely immoral and young men died for the Old’s pride. He finalizes that America has a significant role in the world; therefore it should be a moral force, a source of hope for hunger, terrorism, and poverty rather than defiance of morality through brutal
It can be hard to fully comprehend the effects the Vietnam War had on not just the veterans, but the nation as a whole. The violent battles and acts of war became all too common during the long years of the conflict. The war warped the soldiers and civilians characters and desensitized their mentalities to the cruelty seen on the battlefield. Bao Ninh and Tim O’Brien, both veterans of the war, narrate their experiences of the war and use the loss of love as a metaphor for the detrimental effects of the years of fighting. Bao Ninh’s novel
O'Connor, Flannery. Good Country People. Literature an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, And Drama. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Longman. 2002. (247-261)
As a first hand observer of the Civil War, the great American Poet, Walt Whitman once said,"The real war [of the mind] will never get in the books."Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a horrible mental ailment that afflicts thousands of soldiers every year. Besides the fact that it is emotionally draining for the soldier, it also deeply alters their family and their family dynamics. Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier's Home” illustrates how this happens. Harold Krebs returns home from World War I. He has to deal with becoming reaccustomed to civilian life along with relearning social norms. He must also learn about his family and their habits. The ramifications of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have a ripple effect on the lives of not only the victim, but also the friends and family they relate to.
As we got further and further into the Vietnam War, few lives were untouched by grief, anger and fear. The Vietnamese suffered the worst hardship; children lay dead in the street, villages remained nothing but charred ashes, and bombs destroyed thousands of innocent civilians. Soldiers were scarred emotionally as well as physically, as