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Pages 116-146
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sorrow of War, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory, Trauma, and Moving On
Love in Times of Hardship
Coping Through Writing
Patriotism, Sacrifice, and Skepticism
Summary
Analysis
When he’s not writing, Kien wanders Hanoi, often visiting a coffeehouse in the evenings. One night while he was still with Phuong, he went to the coffeehouse and encountered several dangerous men. One of them insulted the owner of the coffeehouse, so Kien stood up for him, which led to a fight. The ruffian was a former soldier, too, and he challenged Kien to come back the next day for a fight. But Kien threw hot coffee in his face and told him he was willing to fight that instant. In response, the ruffian insulted Phuong—he mocked Kien for thinking Phuong was his girlfriend, telling him that she had sustained herself through sex work while he was at war. Nearly everyone had been with her, he claimed, including the ruffian himself. Kien flew into a rage and brutally beat the man until the police arrived.
The narrative now confirms that Phuong did indeed support herself as a sex worker while Kien was off at war. The way Kien responds to this information is in keeping with his inability to fully move on from the war, as he flies into a violent rage in the same way that he might become violent when provoked in battle. It’s clear, then, that he has trouble moving on from his wartime impulses, even though beating up this man in the coffeehouse won’t do anything to change the fact that other men have slept with the love of his life.
Themes
Kien thinks back to the very first days of his wartime experience. He joined the army in 1965 and underwent three months of training, after which his unit—the 36th Battalion—was called to the frontlines. On the way, their train passed through Hanoi. Since there were so many soldiers from Hanoi, the commander allowed them to take three hours to visit their loved ones before boarding the train again and making their way south for the frontlines. Anyone who was even just one minute late would be left behind and considered a deserter, which was punishable by death.
It's worth noting that the novel has already stated that Kien was part of the 27th Battalion. Now, however, it says that his first unit was the 36th Battalion, thus inviting readers to wonder what must have happened to his first unit—a question that highlights just how quickly things can change in wartime, when nothing is dependable or predictable.
Themes
Kien rushed away from the train station and returned to his apartment building, but he found it mostly empty, since people were evacuating the city and seeking shelter. However, there was still one resident there, and he told Kien that he’d seen Phuong headed to the train station, so Kien raced back to find her. He found her just about to board a moving train. A young man already on the train was yelling at her to hurry up, but she didn’t move because she had seen Kien. The young man was incredulous, shouting at her to get onboard as the train pulled away, but she ignored him. Kien couldn’t help but notice how much the young man seemed to care about Phuong, but he pushed the matter to the back of his mind when the train disappeared and Phuong embraced him with pure delight.
This happy reunion between Kien and Phuong is something of a precursor to their reunion after the war, when Kien is ecstatic to see Phuong but then realizes that she’s with another man who seems to care deeply about her. In this moment, though, he’s able to ignore the implication that Phuong has already developed a relationship with somebody else in his absence, but it is perhaps partially because of this first episode that he flies into such a rage years later when he realizes that she has been living with another man.
Themes
Overjoyed to see Kien, Phuong insisted that they should go back to their apartment building and have dinner together. When Kien told her that he was headed to the front, he felt the reality of that statement for the first time: he was truly leaving Phuong. But Phuong didn’t want to dwell on the matter, convincing him to rush back to the apartment with her. They paid a bicycle taxi to take them there as fast as possible, but an air-raid siren went off as soon as they arrived. The taxi driver immediately ran off to seek shelter, but Phuong didn’t want to spend her and Kien’s last precious moments in a bomb shelter. She insisted to him that he should spend the night, since the train would surely be gone by the time the air-raid was over.
Phuong understands the fleeting and precious nature of her final hours with Kien. This understanding suggests that she’s capable of recognizing just how long and terrible the war will be—she seems to know that there’s a high likelihood that she’ll never see Kien again or that, if she does, it could be a very, very long time. With this knowledge, she doesn’t hesitate to make the most of the time they have left of their prewar relationship.
Themes
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Kien was too afraid to stay the night with Phuong, terrified by the prospect of being labeled a deserter. Instead of staying at the old apartment building, then, he and Phuong commandeered the taxi driver’s bicycle and rode back to the station, laughing and enjoying the thrill of careening through the empty streets during an air raid. But by the time they reached the station, Kien’s train had already left, so Phuong insisted that they hitchhike to the next train station, where he could meet up once again with his unit.
Even though the surrounding circumstances are grim and even a bit terrifying, Kien and Phuong manage to have a good time together as they careen through the abandoned streets of Hanoi—during an air raid, no less. Their excitement and glee in this moment underlines the idea that romantic happiness can flourish even in the face of hardship and adversity.
Themes
What Kien didn’t know at the time is that, while he and Phuong were trying to catch up with the train, American B-52 planes were targeting his Battalion. The war, in other words, had really begun, but he was still with Phuong. Hardly anyone in the 36th Battalion survived these opening attacks.
It now becomes clear why Kien ends up entering the war with the 27th Battalion instead of the 36th. Out of sheer luck, he avoids death by accidentally missing his train. And though this is simply coincidental, it’s arguable that love is what saves him from dying on this first day of his life as a true soldier, since he wouldn’t have missed the train if he hadn’t sought out Phuong.
Themes
Phuong and Kien managed to hitch a ride from a brusque soldier who only stopped because Phuong stood on the side of the road while Kien stayed back. Enchanted by a beautiful woman in such an unlikely place, the soldier screeched to a halt and started flirting with her, and though he was clearly disappointed when he saw Kien, he didn’t refuse them a ride—nor did he stop speaking suggestively to Phuong, who expertly indulged his attention. When they finally reached the next train station, the driver told Phuong to wait there; he would be circling back and returning to Hanoi, and he’d be glad to pick her up on the way back.
In this scene, Phuong demonstrates her ability to leverage her good looks in ways that make it possible for her (and, in this case, Kien) to survive otherwise dangerous circumstances. She’s obviously not interested in the brusque soldier who gives her and Kien a ride, but she indulges him to ensure that he won’t give her and Kien trouble as they try to make their way to the next station. It is this survival skill that later enables her to support herself as a sex worker in the difficult context of wartime Hanoi.
Themes
After leaving the driver, Phuong and Kien learned that the train they’d seen from the car (which they’d thought was Kien’s train) was actually a cargo train. The one they wanted was still ahead, but the cargo train was following it, so they hopped onto one of the cars, stowing away in the darkness. As soon as they did so, they realized they were surrounded by other people lurking in the dark, most of them soldiers. Kien and Phuong found a place to lie down, but Kien insisted that Phuong should leave—it wasn’t safe there, since the train was careening toward violence. Plus, there was the constant threat of American bomber planes, but Phuong refused to leave, having decided to accompany Kien as far as possible.
Phuong’s devotion to Kien is on display in this scene, as she puts herself in harm’s way simply to be with him for as long as possible. She wants to squeeze every last minute out of their youthful relationship, clearly understanding that things will never be the same once Kien enters the war.
Themes
As the train rolled south, Kien and Phuong lay next to each other. They were charged with the excitement of love, lust, and fear, but Kien still hesitated to have sex with Phuong. She tried once more to convince him, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Years later, Kien would think about these moments. After the war, he would stand in the hallway of the apartment building and look at the lamplight shining through Phuong’s door. It shone even after she left the building for good, occasionally making him forget she was gone.
Once more, Kien can’t bring himself to have sex with Phuong, feeling as if he’s not ready to do so. In turn, it becomes clear once again that he's still quite inexperienced and young—and yet, he’s also hurtling toward the violence and gore of war. The fact that he isn’t ready to have sex but will soon be expected to kill people underscores the absurdity of sending such young people into battle.
Themes
Phuong tried again to convince Kien to have sex, asking if he was afraid. Before he could answer, though, somebody screamed, “Planes! Bombers!” Everyone in the cargo train started moving about the dark car as jets flew close overhead. The train started braking, and people started jumping out of the car before it had even stopped. The planes started firing rounds all over the place, and in the commotion, Kien lost track of Phuong. He heard her calling his name but couldn’t locate her. Then, in a bright flare of light from a nearby blast, he saw her lying on the floor of the cargo car with a muscular man on top of her. She was trying to fight him off, but he was too strong. Another explosion hit, and the shock of it sent Kien flying across the car.
In the chaos and commotion of the bombing, Kien suddenly realizes that the Americans overhead aren’t the only antagonistic forces he has to watch out for: there are also the other North Vietnamese men in the cargo train, some of whom are apparently eager to take advantage of the confusion and use it as an opportunity to attack and rape Phuong. Kien’s first real experience in the war is thus quite complicated, as he’s put in a position in which it’s necessary to fight off his own compatriots.
Themes
After the blast, Kien didn’t know where he was. Disoriented, he searched desperately for Phuong, but he couldn’t find her. After some time passed, he remembered what he’d seen, the image of Phuong getting raped burning in his mind’s eye. Later, he would look back on this moment as his first true taste of the brutal, horrific violence of war.
Kien’s first brush with violence is much messier and more complicated than anything he ever could have prepared for. In the abstract, fighting in a war seems like a straightforward battle between two opposing sides. Now, though, Kien realizes that this isn’t necessarily the case: war creates all sorts of tension, violence, and antagonism—all things that can play out between people who are ostensibly on the same side.
Themes
Kien pauses this recollection of his fateful first night of war to rehash an experience he had later on. He remembers the most grueling escape he made throughout the war. It was in 1968, when he and his fellow soldiers were trying desperately to make their way toward the Cambodian border, where they might find some safety. As they made their way through the jungle, they crossed paths with a group of wounded soldiers who were also trying to get to the Cambodian border, so they joined forces and started traveling together. Both groups followed a woman named Hoa who, although she was acting as a guide, didn’t actually know the area very well. She promised to take them to the Sa Thay River, but she ended up leading them to Crocodile Lake—a potentially deadly mistake.
Hoa has already come up several times throughout the novel, so it’s evident that she’s someone who made a lasting impression on Kien. It’s not clear, however, what happened to her. By suddenly shifting from the suspenseful train scene to this story about Hoa, the narrative once again mimics the fragmentary, discombobulated way that trauma impacts memory. Instead of telling the story linearly, Kien hops from one memory to the next, letting his lingering, traumatic recollections guide his storytelling. The novel thus has its own kind of internal logic—a logic that only makes sense through a lens of extreme grief.
Themes
Enemy troops were spread throughout the jungle, so it was incredibly unsafe for Kien and his men to find themselves locked in against Crocodile Lake. He almost shot Hoa for making this mistake, but he instead gave her one last chance to redeem herself by allowing her to retrace their footsteps in the hopes of finding the correct path toward the Sa Thay River and, eventually, the Cambodian border. But he didn’t trust her to do it herself, so he accompanied her. Eventually, she found a rock shaped like a face, which was a marker she had overlooked before. She then found the river, at which point she and Kien took a small break.
The novel suggests in this scene that one of the difficult parts of war is having to rely on others. Kien doesn’t trust Hoa after she leads him and his men to a location where they’re vulnerable to enemy attacks, but he has no choice but to continue to depend on her knowledge of the area. With no alternatives, he gives Hoa another chance, essentially putting his unit’s chance of survival in the hands of somebody he has no reason to trust.
Themes
Hoa shared cigarettes with Kien, who was no longer suspicious of her. As they smoked, he learned that she was only 19 and that she’d already been fighting for almost two years. She spoke frankly about her fear and, in doing so, endeared herself to Kien. As they smoked, though, they heard a helicopter overhead and then some gunfire, so they got up and started making their way back to the group by Crocodile Lake, who—because so many of them were wounded—were essentially sitting ducks. As they made their way back, Kien couldn’t believe he had been so angry that he had considered murdering an innocent 19-year-old for making a mistake.
The fact that Kien was ready to kill Hoa simply because she made a mistake is a good illustration of just how intensely the war has refigured the way he moves through the world. His first impulse when things go wrong is now to lash out in a violent rage, and though this is clearly a problematic and unproductive way to live, the tricky thing about war is that it justifies this kind of behavior, as evidenced by the fact that Kien’s friend Oanh later dies because he shows compassion instead of demonstrating a soldierly sense of ruthlessness.
Themes
Suddenly, Kien saw a large group of American soldiers walking through the jungle. He immediately ducked and pulled Hoa down behind him, hiding as the Americans progressed on the path with a large hunting dog. It was clear that the Americans were on their way toward the group stranded at Crocodile Lake. But then a gunshot rang out behind Kien, and all of the American soldiers ducked for cover. Another shot sounded, and it became clear to Kien that Hoa had stood up and fired shots at the hunting dog, killing it before sprinting in the other direction. The Americans sprinted after her, headed away from Crocodile Lake, and though Kien wanted to help her, all he had was a grenade.
Hoa ends up saving not just Kien’s life, but the lives of everyone in his unit. She perhaps makes this sacrifice because she feels guilty for accidentally leading the unit into such a vulnerable position. It’s also possible that she sacrifices herself simply because she realizes that if she doesn’t, many people will die—that is, it’s possible that she simply sees this sacrifice as part of her soldierly duty. Either way, the memory of this sacrifice will stay with Kien for the rest of his life.
Themes
The Americans eventually caught Hoa and started brutally raping her. Horrified, Kien realized that Hoa had sacrificed her own life to save the vulnerable soldiers stranded by Crocodile Lake. She had also sacrificed herself for Kien, so it would be senseless for him to rush toward the Americans with a single grenade. Realizing that Hoa would die in vain if he did anything else, he made his way back to Crocodile Lake and led the others to safety.
If Kien were to rush to Hoa’s aid, he would essentially render her great act of bravery futile, since he would certainly fail to save both her and himself. He’s thus faced with the difficult task of simply accepting her extreme kindness by turning his back on her—something that is very hard to do and will haunt him for years to come.
Themes
When Kien returned to Crocodile Lake with the Remains-Gathering Team years later, he couldn’t find the area where Hoa had been raped and murdered. The entire memory had already seemed like a distant nightmare, and his inability to find the spot where she had died made it seem even more like it had never happened. In a way, then, not being able to find the area again allowed him a certain kind of “escape” from the memory itself. The only thing that remained of the experience, it seemed, was the “sorrow of having survived.”
Kien’s experience retracing his steps to find where Hoa died provides some valuable insight into his broader emotional struggles. Although he managed to live through the war, the fact of the matter is that surviving doesn’t always feel like such a stroke of luck. In fact, there’s a certain “sorrow” to “having survived,” since staying alive after such a disaster means having to grapple with the horrific memories of the war—like, for instance, the memory of watching Hoa get raped and killed.
Themes
