English Commentary :: English Literature

English CommentaryThe following is a commentary on dissever in P.G 211 a 212 in theSorrow of War..The paragraph from varlet 211 to 212 has a very important significanceto the story as a whole. It has a lot of metaphors and similes thatadd to the sorrowful mood of the story. In the beginning, theparagraph is very poetic, juxtaposing past images of life to futureand present images of death and destruction. In specific it juxtaposesthe eternal beauty of his girlfriend Phuong to the tragic finalityof war. The paragraph is written in the simple past strive, the perfectpast tense which means the past before the past and the hypotheticalwould in roam to emphasize Kiens deep longings to relive the past.It also shows us how Kien lost his bosom of fighting, and gave uphope. This is spiritual loss, and it is what most soldiers wereexperiencing. There is basically no more than hope, no more life, justdeath. Overall, the paragraph reflects images of the sorrows of war.The sorrows and effects of war ar clearly shown when the bank clerkreverses traditional symbols. The first very evident standard ofreversing traditional symbols is the narrators use of the concept ofmiracle and dream not to talk near a future goal but about thepast. Thus reverting to the past and senseing it unchanged becomes amiracle and a dream. We unremarkably dream of the future and hope fora miracle that would change our lives. However the miracle thatKien awaits is to find that the past still exists untouched anduntainted. Of course that miracle is impossible and accordinglythe paragraph has a deep nostalgic sadness. Like Kien, we can palpatethe painful irony of the impossibility of this miracle to happen. Other images function in the equal way to show Kiens despair and lossof hope. He saw a river stretching before him. He saw himselffloating towards his death. here the narrator compares the river to apath that ends life. However, we usually associate rivers with freedomand on-going life. The narrator also says fate waited to take him fromthe terrible present to the ingenious days of the past. The narrator isshowing us how much he longs to relive the past and how he dreads thepresent, and views his future as a dreadful period of time.In the beginning of the paragraph, the narrator creates a beautiful knowledge domain untouched by war through many poetic images. The narrator saysshe would have been untainted by war. This shows us how war has