How does the character of Lan depict the character of Kien in The Sorrow of War?
We can clearly see that Bao Ninh's work, The Sorrow of War is not only about the Vietnam War alone. It is also about dealing with life after the war has ended. The text conveys not just the immediate horrors of war, but also the psychological traumas it brings and the dislocation of lives it causes. People who have experienced the war are not able to move one; everything around them deteriorated because they were stuck in the past. We thought the main theme of The Sorrow of War was that no matter dead or alive after the war, it is impossible to gain freedom from the great emotional damage that war has done to one. Although it may not be true, people say that one of the reasons that ghosts do not move on to the afterlife is because they died so suddenly and violently that they do not realise that they are dead, or simply because they refuse to accept it. In this book, Bao Ninh says that Kien ‘even turned some of them into ghosts, sorrowfully making them appear here and there, in the jungles, in the dark corner, in dreams and nightmares.’
Lan is one of the many characters that appears in the text. Although she is mentioned in the story only briefly, she is a very significant character because she can be seen as a character that mirrors Kien himself. She has been affected by the war greatly; she has lost her loved ones and was left alone in the world. Just as a ghost cannot leave its place, Lan is reluctant to abandon her village where she had glorious days. It is evidently shown in her dialogue when she talks to Kien:‘A few years ago I decided to leave here…. But I changed my mind. I couldn’t leave my mother and my son lying over there. I just wait and wait, without knowing what I’m waiting for. Or for whom”. Even after all the deterioration and damage caused by the war, the soul of Lan is unable to forget the fountain of sentiments from the youth – those unforgettable days when love, friendship and human bonds existed. Through the character Lan, we clearly see how the effect of the war has caused her to lose her capacity of love. Although Lan is suffering from immense loneliness, she is unable to love anyone due to the destructive emotional damages the war has engendered. Through Lan’s dialogue: “I wish I could have had your child, Kien, but it’s impossible. That doesn’t depress me”, we realise the war’s capacity to taint love and its lasting and sorrowful effect. Love before the war is pure and fresh. One cannot imagine any scenario under which it might deteriorate and every incident or word is deeply felt and heavy with sentiment. ‘Ordinary love’, as Kien refers to it, is rapt with nonsense and petty elations. With a sense of nostalgia, Kien remembers how, before the war, ‘Those were the days when all of us were young, very pure and very sincere.’ However, after the war has ravaged the soul’s ability to be so naively hopeful and sincere, all interplay between the sexes becomes a desperate attempt to recreate this. In its absence, love is reduced to blind hopefulness which eventually deteriorates into lust.
The Sorrow of War presents the atrocities and sadistic destructions hat comes and follow after war; destruction not only physical, but also mental and spiritual. And therefore I think it is fair to say that… War makes ghosts of us all.
Link to Power Point
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