I have never been to Kentucky and to be honest am not sure why I would go. Kentucky makes me think of Whiskey and well to be honest not much else. I decided to broaden my Kentucky knowledge and find out who some famous Kentuckians are. Muhammed Ali the famous boxer tops the lists, which is equally matched by Robert Penn Warren and president Abraham Lincoln. So maybe I am mistaken and Kentucky does in fact have a lot to offer. Kentucky however, is a major element in my eyes to understanding In Country. I feel Kentucky as a whole enables the reader to get a stronger insight into many American towns and suffering war veterans around the country that live in small towns and are often forgotten. An Underlying theme in In Country is the suffering of war veterans once back in America; we see a prime example of this in Emmett who fought in Vietnam. The town people of Hopewell look at Emmett as crazy and separated themselves from Emmet and his family once he flew the Vietcong flag with his hippy friends. Across America, soldiers are returning to their states and towns in particular with fresh views on society and the feeling of an outsider. I felt that Bobbie Ann Mason does a great job in portraying to the reader what many war veterans go through when returning “home”. I have noticed that the majority of books only dwell on soldiers at war or leaving for war, but many do not indulge into the war vet’s life after war and the effects it has on the families around them. Kentucky in my eyes was important to understanding ‘In Country” as it enabled the reader to remember that across America soldiers are returning from war and feeling this sense of distance from there past. One of my favorite moments is when Sam is talking to Lonnie and states her view on the war and gives the insight from a war veteran’s family member. “You might ask my opinion first. The ones who don’t get killed come back with their lives messed up, and then they make everybody miserable.” (71) I enjoyed In Country as it was thoroughly honest and put many thoughts that people have into words.
3 comments:
I hadn't noticed that about books being about soldiers at war or leaving war...but not about their life after war. I think that it is important for the reader to know about a solider's life after war, to understant what happened during war.
I love Kentucky, visit it at least twice a year and think it one of the most beautiful places in the world, with some of the kindest and most gracious people. And it does have good whiskey, produces excellent writers and maintains a lot of its natural spaces, which I always appreciate.
That said, it also has a complicated history, particularly relative to the Civil War, in which it was a border state. Border state identities are conflicted, reflective of ambivalence, demonstrative of deep divisions -- I think the idea of the characteristics of the border state identity are important aspects of the setting relative to themes in the book....
I really like how you did the post over the state that they lived in and how living in kentucky and the setting they were in affeceted the people differently if they would have been from somewhere else
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