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Pages 228-233
Themes and Colors
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
The Sorrow of War explores how trauma can impact memory, suggesting that disturbing recollections of violence and destruction can reorder how a person thinks. For Kien, a former soldier for North Vietnam, traumatic memories of the Vietnam War cause him to constantly relive the worst days of his life, as he frequently loses himself in vivid scenes from his past—scenes that make it impossible for him to find peace and contentment in his postwar…
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Love in Times of Hardship
Although The Sorrow of War focuses on the horrors of violent conflict, the novel is also a love story—though not necessarily a happy one. The first half of the novel mainly spotlights Kien’s terrifying and traumatic time in the Vietnam War, but the narrative also gradually reveals that his entire wartime experience is wrapped up in matters of the heart. In fact, he even faces his first taste of true violence and destruction with…
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Coping Through Writing
As a novel about a former soldier who deals with his postwar trauma by writing a novel of his own, The Sorrow of War explores the act of writing and its potential to be cathartic or therapeutic. Returning to Hanoi after fighting for the winning side of the Vietnam War, Kien has trouble putting the violence and horror of combat behind him, so he turns to writing. Of course, composing a novel about war isn’t…
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