week 12 assigned post

There are many important literary elements found in the novel In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason that are important to the novel’s theme. In my opinion, the major theme is escaping reality. Throughout the entire book, all characters are always drinking alcohol, watching TV, smoking cigarettes or marijuana, consuming branded products, or in the case of Emmett, ignoring his pimples. All of these actions are means of escaping reality. Emmett ignores completely his pimples and his heartburns completely saying that they are normal and have nothing to do with Agent Orange (27, 30-31). But his niece Sam knows better, and keeps insisting that those are side effects of the Agent Orange that was sprayed during the Vietnam War…even though Emmett says that they were told to go inside when the Agent Orange was being sprayed outside. At the same time, he also escapes his own life by watching TV, specially the hit show M*A*S*H, which is about the Vietnam War. Emmett has no job or anything, and he keeps dodging that reality ball of having to put his life together, by being drunk or high all the time. Sam also keeps escaping her own reality of having to choose in what university to go by also drinking, watching TV and smoking with her uncle. And throughout the entire novel, they are lost in this brand consumer society trying to shift their thoughts of real life into something else.