Analyse af Michael Herrs 'Dispatches'

We all know that people die every day, fighting for their country, but is dying the only damage connected to war? What about the people who fought and survived? There is a reason for every war, but sometimes it is fair to wonder if the reason is good enough, when so many people are hurt or dead as a result of war. You can get wounded physically and even die, but what about the mental wounds? What is it like to experience death and destruction at such close range? All of this is what Michael Herr refers to in his book Dispatches. The book is written in 1977 and is about Michael Herr’s experience, as a participant in the Vietnam War. Dispatches is written in the past tense, and it is Michael Herr’s own thoughts that are represented in the text. He uses a lot of figurative language like: “It had the look of a city at night approached from a great distance.” (p. 1 l. 4) this gives the reader an understanding of how Michael Herr experienced the war. Even though the language is very figurative and detailed like: “If you watched from a great distance the steam would seem to dry up between bursts, vanishing slowly from air to ground like a comet tail, the sound of the guns disappearing too, a few seconds later.”(s. 2 l. 18-21) Michael Herr still dissociate himself from feelings, in the way he writes about his experiences in the war. This shows that Michael Herr is not out for pity, but he is just trying to tell the story through his eyes. This distance is not only shown in his use of language, but is a general theme in the text: “coming at you, as you flew at night in a helicopter, how slow and graceful, arching up easily, a dream, so remote from anything that could harm you. It could make you feel a total serenity, an elevation that put you above death” (p. 1-2 l. 25-1). This sentence says something about escaping from reality, and going into a dreamy state of mind, where you do not have to worry about death, because it cannot reach you. We all know that dreams are fiction, and fiction is the opposite of reality. Things that happens/(are happening?) in dreams are not real, and can therefore not do us any harm. This is what Herr is referring to in this sentence. As a soldier you cannot go around fearing death all the time, instead you put yourself in a trancelike state of mind, a dream, where reality cannot touch you and you do not have to be afraid. Death cannot touch you if reality is replaced by a dream. Some parts of the language in the text can be really hard to understand, because of the use of words that only people with weapons experience can relate to. But Herr compares the hardly understandable sentences with something that the reader can relate to, though he or she hasn’t got any experience with weapons at all: “Mike-Mikes that could fire out 300 rounds per second, Gatling style, ‘a round in every square inch of a football field in less than a minute’” (p. 2 l. 13-14). Herr uses some of the things that people are familiar with, things that are a part of most people’s everyday life, and this is not a coincidence. Everyday life plays a great role in the text. Michael Herr writes in his text: “And at night it was beautiful. Even the incoming was beautiful, beautiful and deeply dreadful.” (p. 1 l. 20-22). Herr sees the night as something beautiful. This is because he is no longer just a participant in the war. The war has become a part of his everyday life, and by that a part of him. Death and destruction is something he sees, and has to deal with, every day. So at some point he has learned to find the beautiful things, where people without his experiences would not be able to see them. Being so close to death and yet still alive, is beautiful. As we saw before, Michael Herr talks a lot about the nights. In the middle of the text he says: “Night was when you really had the least to fear and feared the most.” (p. 2 l. 28-29). In this sentence he talks about the fear that he experiences mostly at night. The reason why they were most afraid at night is because, it was at night, when everything was quiet that the soldiers had time to think and maybe regret. If the war has become, not only a part of your life, but also a part of you, you fear the time when the war is over, the time you lose a part of what have become you. During the day the soldiers has not got the time to think about reality and the consequences, but at night when everything is quiet they have the time to think and understand, how great a danger they are putting themselves through, and that makes them fear. A feeling they are trying to avoid. Herr also talks about awareness in contrast to somnambulists: “often you became heedless of it in the way the somnambulists are heedless.” (p. 3 l. 32-33) and: “It was the feeling you’d had when you were much, much younger and undressing a girl for the first time.” (p. 4 l. 16-17). These two sentences together show another important topic of the text: Adrenalin. When Michael Herr was in the field, the adrenalin drifted him, and he became heedless in his actions. That is the same feeling you have when you undress a girl for the first time. You are excited, and the adrenalin is making you unaware of the situation. The adrenalin makes you feel alive in the moment, even though you maybe cannot recall all of your actions the next day. Again, we are talking about a trancelike state of mind. A conclusion to all of this must be that, there are a lot of bad consequences connected to war. Not only for the physically wounded, but also for those soldiers who survived like Michael Herr. Your mentality changes, when you are a participant in war. What was a normal day before you went to war is totally changed after, and that can be really hard to understand. Death and destruction has become a part of the daily routine for a soldier, and to change that idea of normality is difficult. When you come home, you will be walking around fearing, because a part of you needs the many firefights and wounds, and what is even more disturbing; death. Those things are normality for soldiers, and they have become a part of them and their life. Without those things they cannot recognize themselves. No doubt that Michael Herr has experienced some rough things in the war, but he was able to handle them, because he was able to hide his fear. He stopped focusing on his fear and started appreciating the small beautiful things, hidden under the awful experiences in the war. That is what every soldier has to do, in order to survive the rough environment, finding a balance between fearing and being heedless.