Blog 10 JKK

In Bobbie Ann Mason’s, In Country, the main character Samantha sees the effects of the Vietnam War from living with her Uncle and Grandma. The story is not told from the battle fields of the Vietnam War, but from the home of a veteran who is suffering from PTSD. Throughout the book Samantha struggles to find herself and live a normal life because of all the emotions left over from the war that surrounds her. The war affected her family and her everyday life very much. The story focuses on the emotional destruction the war left behind and how it continued to do so for so long.

Samantha’s father died in the war, leaving her mother widowed and Samantha personally affected by the war. Her mother remarried and left Samantha to live with her Uncle and Grandma, which shows just how powerful the affects of war are. Samantha’s family was torn apart because of the Vietnam War and the lasting affects it has.

The story takes place in 1984, 10 years after the Vietnam War. This shows that the PTSD Samantha’s uncle experiences is very serious and shows the horrible hold the war had on him. The time also shows that the emotions and memories from the Vietnam War stayed with her uncle so much that they affected her 10 years after the war as well. The people in her family still struggle to live a normal life even after being away from war for so long.

Pop culture plays a role in this story because Samantha is part of a generation that thrives on it. The generation of her uncle and father had a pop culture that was all about the war and nothing else. Samantha tries to understand their popular culture by watching MASH and trying to live in their shoes. Bruce Springsteen’s song “Born in the USA” play a large role in the story to show the divide in the generations. The title of the song and the repetitive lyrics show the influence of Samantha’s generation because they focus on “Born in the USA”. Some of the lyrics in the song are “I had a buddy in Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong They’re still there, he’s all gone…” This portion of the song shows how Samantha’s uncle felt about the war and how the generations were radically split.