A Moral SplitBy yen nguyen
We will always find ourselves in “moral split” situations. We struggle to make the right decision and hoping that what we decide would be the correct choice. Sometimes our decisions are strictly depended on the notion of self-filling prophecy while others are for the sake of philanthropy. We are selfish if the chosen actions turn out to be a negative impact on the majority of people; however, the negativity is unforeseeable. If we know ahead of time that our decisions are going to be harmful to others then more likely than not we would have tried to avoid that complication. Then again, life is unpredictable. It is unpredictable just like the Vietnam War. Americans went into the war with culture relativism. They thought the decision to assist in the fighting against communism was the ultimate must. They sent young men blindly into a foreign land and were so positive that it was going to be an ideal outcome. If the Northern Vietnamese was defeated, then it might be a different story; however, the consequences they must face. On the other hand, the Vietnamese had two different perspectives of the war. The Southern Vietnamese believed that the Americans were angels sent from above to rescue them from the communists. The Northern Vietnamese thought that the Americans should mind their own business. We cannot say either views were right or wrong, rather, they were picked from the same moral standards but in different circumstances. The South, America and the North yenned for victory. They made decisions that each one truly believed to be the preeminent; therefore, no sides should be unnecessarily criticized. Similarly to us, they were making the right decisions based on personal valuations of morality. What is right for you is not necessary right for me; therefore, respect is a must.
During the Vietnam War, different people fought for different reasons. The Americans at front wanted to show the world that communism must be contained; however, citizens at home thought differently. The Southern Vietnamese didn’t want to be governed by such leadership. The Northern Vietnamese wanted imperialism because they believed their way of ruling was superlative and superior. These different perspectives are intensively analyzed in many well-written novels and powerful films concerning the Vietnam War throughout the world. With this in mind, the fascinating book that glimpsed at the Vietnam War through a domestic eye is In Country written by Bobbie Ann Mason while the film, Deer Hunter, directed by Michael Cimino provides visual understanding. This domestic eye is from strictly the ones that reside in America; however, we cannot forget the Asian view of this war. With this in mind, The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh, “A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain” by Robert Olen Butler, and the two movies; The Scent of Green Papaya directed by Tran Anh Hung and Three Seasons directed by Tony Bui are the best sources that allow us to understand the other view of war. However, regardless of the different views, there is always the questioning of morality. As discussed previously, morality is a choice that is based on individual valuations; therefore, no one should be criticized for his or her decision. With this in mind, ethics are deeply embedded in “The Madagascar Plum” written by Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc, The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien, Crossing Over written by Richard Currey, and the movies; Full Metal Jacket directed by Stanley Kubrick as well as Apocalypse Now Redux directed by Francis Ford Coppola. These novels and films provide a broader image and more complete picture of the Vietnam War.
Unlike many books and movies that are made about the Vietnam War, In Country and The Deer Hunter provides the point of view of the people that were at home during the war. We think that these people are the least effected and that they have nothing to complain about; however, they, if any, are the most effected. Maybe not physically effected but psychologically they are damaged as well. The worse scenario is seeing the people you care for coming home from war feeling lost and distant. Being at home, we feel even more lost and distant wondering what could make the other person so torn apart and devastated. “The ones who don’t get killed come back with their lives messed up, and then they make everybody miserable” (Mason 71). “Nobody else could ever know what [the soldiers] went through except guys who have been there” (Mason 78).We want to share their pain but it is impossible to experience the events that we are not physically part of. “The books didn’t say what it was like to be at war over there. The books didn’t even have pictures” ( Mason 48). We can read all the books ever written about the Vietnam War, but we will never be able to personally relate to the event. The protagonist of In Country feels the same because “Sam had a picture of Vietnam in her mind from Emmett’s stories—a pleasant countryside, something like Florida, with beaches and palm trees and watery fields of rice and green mountains” (Mason 51).
Emmett, Sam’s Vietnam vet uncle, is the closes living source that she has of the event and through his stories she tries to obtain a complete puzzle. “Hey, Emmett. Tell me what you remember most about Vietnam. Besides that bird” (Mason 54). “What was there to like over there….she wondered” and “wished he would tell her about Quang Ngai” (Mason 78). She urges Emmett to at least tell her about the machine guns, the dead bodies, the places, and the actual fighting that occurred. She goes beyond the stories and “ wants to see where Emmett flew that Vietcong flag that time” (Mason 92). She wants to be part of the action hoping to develop a more personal understanding so desperately that “she felt like flying a Viet-cong flag herself” (Mason 89).She feels like not taking a bath because “in the jungle, they were nasty and couldn’t take a bath” (Mason 206). “They didn’t have any ham and mother-fuckers, so she took pork and beans. G.I.s lived out of cans” (Mason 207). “She wouldn’t sleep. She’d stay on watch. The G.I.s stayed awake in the frightening night” (Mason 214). She is desperate to experience the event so that she can understand the causes to Emmett and the other vets’ post war syndrome, which cause her to have “post-Vietnam stress syndrome” (Mason 229). Sam is extremely naïve about the war and wonders about the country and the soldiers that were over there, especially, her father.
Sam’s father died in the war and she has no memory of him. “Inside the dictionary was her only picture of her father” (Mason 58) “with an M-16, in a tropical jungle, firing at hidden faces in the banana leaves” (Mason 89). She tries to obtain information about her father and the war from her family and anyone she interacts with by “everybody acts like it’s a big secret” (Mason 78). She wants to know if “[her] daddy kill people” (Mason 171). People tell her, “Sam, you might as well just stop asking questions about the war. Nobody gives a shit” (Mason 79). Also, “the trouble with Sam is [the she] reads all those war books and… watch all that television” (Mason 187).With these negative feedbacks, Sam is left with only wonders and continue wishing to know someday because “it’s so hard to find out anything…want to know about that bird Emmett’s looking for….want to know all this stuff about Agent Orange. It’s so frustrating…want to know what it was like over there…can’t really imagine it” (Mason 94). Imagining may alleviate some of that craving for facts and stories but it will never be the same as experiencing the real event and “it upset her to be reminded of the war, but the reality of it didn’t register on Sam…” (Mason 51). She is upset due to her disconnection with her father at an extremely young age. “She had wanted to care about her father, but she didn’t know enough about him” (Mason 191). She feels that “the dead took their secrets with them. She wondered how far to go in honoring the dead if the dead offer you nothing except a little mindless protection, by keeping their secrets from you” (Mason 182). This experience of Sam allows us to imagine the stress from a domestic view and in order to enhance the imagination, The Deer Hunter, is necessary.
Watching The Deer Hunter we are able to see and witness the emotions of the ones at home. The images leave a longer impression on us than the words would probably do. Similary to Sam, the people of the small town are curious of the war. Stan remained at home while his three friends went to war and wonders “how does it feel to be shot” (Deer). Michael is one of the three that is drafted and wonders too. “You have to think about one shot. One shot is what it's all about. The deer has to be taken with one shot. I try to tell people that - they don't listen. Do you ever think about Vietnam” (Deer). He thinks that the war is like deer hunting. Nick also believes that the war would be an exciting experience, something different than his normal life in the small community. “I don't know. I guess I'm thinkin' about the deer, goin' to 'Nam. I like the trees, you know? I like the way the trees are on the mountains, all different. The way the trees are” (Deer). Michael, Nicky, and Steve is anticipating the war, but they are also hesitating:
Michael: Everything's going so fast. Hey Nick, do you think we'll ever come back?
Nick: From 'Nam?
Michael: Yeah.
Nick: You know somethin'? The whole thing - it's right here. I love this f--kin' place. (Michael laughs) I know that that sounds crazy. If anything happens Mike, you don't - don't leave me over there. You got, you gotta...Just don't leave me. You gotta promise me that, Mike.
Michael: Hey!
Nick: No man, you got, you gotta, you gotta promise definitely.
Michael: Hey Nicky...You got it, pal. (Deer)
On one hand Nicky is excited about the trees, but on the other he is terrified of the possible outcome. The people that are not going to war wonder "what is there to be afraid of in this war? The war is a joke, a silly thing” (Deer). It is silly because they are clueless of the reason for this war. "Oh, I'm so glad you're alive. I'm so happy. I really don't know what I feel," (Deer) says Linda seeing Michael. Of course she doesn’t know what she feels because the experience is not practical. As we can see, these domestic views are quite different from the views of the ones at front because these people at home lack the physical involvement; however, they are psychologically impacted somehow because they can’t figure out why the ones that come back change so drastically and negatively. This perspective is strictly from an American view and we cannot ignore the view of the Asian because it is as powerful.
As it may appear in the history of the Vietnam War, the Northern Vietnamese is the ultimate enemy and that they aren’t human. However, they are people just like the Americans and the Southern Vietnamese. They have feelings and feel the pain and sorrow just like everyone. Although it is a civil war, the North and South Vietnamese are people of one country, one hope, and one life. “Each of us carried in his heart a separate war which in many ways was totally different, despite our common cause” (Ninh 232). Each individual may have a different reason to fight, they both have the same view of the war. “A Hoa Hao Buddhist…believe in harmony among all living things, especially the members of a Vietnamese family” (Butler 239). The Asian view is tilted more on the level of spiritual, superstitious, and notion of harmony, however.
In The Sorrow of War and “A Good Scent From A Stranger Mountain,” we read the spiritual words and the yearning for survival from the eyes of the Vietnamese. The soldiers view the war as a game but not a game of winner or loser. Some positive views of superstition believe that “if we leave this game unfinished Heaven will grant favors, keeping us alive to return and finish the game. So, slow down and we’ll survive this battle and continue the game later” (Ninh 10).However, others feel that “Heaven’s not stupid. You can’t cheat Him. If you play only half the game The Man Up There will send for all four of us and we’ll torment each other” (Ninh 10). Both parties depend on the notion of superstition to help comfort this horrific experience. They also pray for the sake of a miracle:
Suffering in life, pain in death
The Common fate of us soldiers.
We pray the scared souls will bless us,
That we may overcome enemy fire
And avenge our lost comrades. (Ninh 14)
They feel that if they die in this war then the souls are not going to be at peace. “This is the Jungle of Screaming Souls. It looks empty and innocent, but in fact it’s crowded. There are so many ghosts and devils all over this battleground” (Ninh 41) and the Lonely spirits reappeared from the Jungle of Screaming Souls, sighing and moaning” (Ninh 70). The souls are roaming in agony because they have died unreasonably. On the other hand, if they die with proper burial then death is not such a terrible thing. Asians see death as an escape to the hardship of reality and an untroubled dead person goes on to another life, more or less utopia.
“People in hell don’t give a damn about wars. They don’t remember the killing. Killing is a career for the living, not the dead” (Butler 42) and that “there are times when he feels that only death will give him a real rest” (Ninh 116). The soldiers actually anticipated death as one of the positive outcome of the war. Like death, sleep is another escape to harmony. “And I wished then to sleep, I wished to fall asleep and let go of life somewhere in my dreams and seek my village square” ( Butler 247). Hearing about the political killing from members of his family, Dao wishes he would fall deep into his sleep to get out of the terribly reality of humanity.
Once again, with the films, Scent of Green Papaya and Three Seasons directed by Vietnamese producers provide us with the visual image of the Asian perspective of the war. In both movies, we see the impact of society as well as the people of Vietnam after the war. More or less, the people changes as the society progress with Western influence and the traditional Vietnam becomes the “shadow” (Three) of outside invasion. Lan, the prostitute, from Three Seasons clearly states that as the hotels grow bigger, the shadow of the people of Vietnam also gets bigger. In other words, Vietnam tradition and culture will gradually diminish as an outcome of war. In the Scent of Green Papaya, the people adjust and adapt to the Western modernization as well; however, they should maintain the Vietnamese culture like Mui, the protagonist, and not like Mui’s secret crush’s fiancée. The fiancée is the true product of war because she totally from head to toe transforms into a western-image with her French twist hairdo and modern outfits. Although her surrounding changes, she remains a true Vietnamese. Similar to Mui, Lan wants to go back to her innocent living as a school girl; however, her circumstance is inevitable. We can see that she still has the tradition in her because she used the method of spiritual healing to get rid of her illness. The people that change along with Western influence do not exactly want to lead Western lives but life would be difficult if they do not keep up with the progress and would be picking white lotuses instead of selling the easily manufactured plastic ones. Besides Domestic and Asian perspective is the important concept of morality. Although the novels and films that contain the domestic and Asian views are embedded with the idea of ethics as well, the novels, The Things They Carried, Crossing Over, “The Madagascar Plum” along with the two films, Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now Redux portray a handful of thought provoking situations where morality is at hand.
All these people, at front and at home, are faced with the notion of morality. The heavier burden; however, is more on the young men that are going to fight. The soldiers wish they could have a say but “the draft board did not let you choose your war” (O’Brien 44). Deep down they wish they haven’t opened the letters because they “ did not want to die” (O’Brien 44). They didn’t want to go to war because “it is impossible to do a good job at war and expect to stay alive” (Currey 39). It is seriously a severe case of a “moral split” ( O’Brien 44). Even worse the character Tim in The Things They Carried experience “a moral freeze: I couldn’t decide, I couldn’t act, I couldn’t comport myself with even a pretense of modest human dignity” (O’Brien 57). He doesn’t know what is right or wrong because in this dilemma he is on his own to decide the right action. While suppressing his true morals “ try to explain some of [his] feelings, but there aren’t enough words, and so [he] just say that it’s a thing that has to be done” (O’Brien 55). “I was ashamed of my conscience, ashamed of to be doing the right thing” (O’Brien 52). He went not because he feels it is right in his heart but he thinks that it would be a more acceptable action by society. He says, “my conscience told me to run, but some irrational and powerful force was resisting, like a weight pushing e toward the war” (O’Brien 51). He clearly goes against his conscience because the impact of society weighted more heavily. Like Tim, the character in Crossing Over feels that same and entering the war, morality gets even more blurry such that “He has no idea why he is still here but has no desire to leave” (Currey 53). Along with these two stories, is the short story, “The Madagascar Plum,” that truly makes us uncertain about the moral values of humanity.
In this short story, we clearly see the inhuman actions that mankind can exert to each other, even worse, to a “small child.” Morality in this story has gone out the window and lost. “Captain, help the small child, Captain. She doesn’t know how to answer. Perhaps the bombs and grenades made her deaf, so that she can’t hear” (Nguyen 4) pleaded the old man with a clear conscience. He is also drafted to become part of the war but he hasn’t lost his ethical values like the others. “Suppose the child is supplying the enemy with our provisions. Suppose the child poisons our troops. Bring her before me” (Nguyen 4). The kind of questions that are coming from the Captain regarding the “small child” make us wonder if he has any logic. However, in war as we know it, common sense tends to slowly diminish. Deep down the Captain does have heart because “the moment [he] saw her round, gentle face, [he] changed my mind” (Nguyen 5) but war has altered his conscience. “Speak up, Kid. If you don’t, I promise you’ll die and not in one piece. You couldn’t have killed my two men by yourself” (Nguyen 6). How could a grown man have such a hostile attitude towards a little girl? He hesitates and wonders if she killed them. The situation that raises the bar is when “[Tan] pushed a bundle of explosives under the cord wrapped around the small child’s belly and then tied a long string to the explosives” (Nguyen 7). This is where morality is totally burned down. At this point it seems the Vietnamese has misplaced the moral code; however, “the American nodded as if to say that Tan’s conduct had been the most impressive” (Nguyen 7).Regardless of the differences in ethnic group, they all share the same moral code as human beings but violate the code due to the insanity of war. This short story portrays a very vivid image of the evilness that humans are capable of and the films add to that spectrum.
In Full Metal Jacket, the greatest ethical dilemma is when Joker, the protagonist, has to choose between mercy and murder. In the beginning he wonders “how can you shoot women and children” (Full) and at in the end he ends up shooting a woman, the sniper. He pauses for a long while and contemplates whether it would be the right choice to shoot her. He sees her pain and plea for death; therefore, he shoots her due to mercy. It seems odd that killing a person can be ethical correct. It is correct because the victim is asking for it; however, it would be morally wrong to kill otherwise such as “these people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to the world, we’re gonna miss not having anyone around that’s worth shooting” (Full). This comment is horrendous because as human beings it seems that one does not cherish the lives of others, which is disturbing. Soldiers, in generally, have to suppress their sense of right and wrong because in war, there is no right and wrong. Willard, the protagonist, of Apocalypse Now Redux goes through a moral split as well while searching to assassin a fellow American “with extreme prejudice” (Apocalypse).
In Apocalypse Now Redux, morality stands in the way like most situations in war. “When I was here, I wanted to be there, when I was there all I could think of was getting back into the jungle,” (Apocalypse) says Willard. He knows that he should be back in America with his wife living a mainstream life; however, once he is involved in the war he is trapped to its nostalgia. “How many people had I already killed? There was those six that I know about for sure. Close enough to blow their last breath in my face. But this time it was an American and an officer. That wasn’t supposed to make any difference to me, but it did. Shit...charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500. I took the mission. What the hell else was I gonna do” (Apocalypse). Willard has lost his conscience to the point that he doesn’t even realize the amount of people he has killed. However, he hasn’t lost his sense in which he knows that his mission is ridiculous but he is unable to control himself in doing what he feels is correct. On the other hand, Kurtz, the one Willard is searching for, has not misplace his moral code. It is ironic because Kurtz is considered insane and out of control but he seems to have the most common sense. “What do you call assassins who accuse assassins,” Kurtz asks Willard because killing someone is considered as a crazy killer is morally wrong without a doubt. The same action is intended; therefore, it only enhances the concept that is considered as inappropriate. “We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won’t allow them to write “fuck” on their airplanes because it’s obscene” (Apocalypse). It is clearly nonsense because writing “fuck” would be considered a better ethical choice than killing.
Whether the soldiers feel that participating in the Vietnam War is morally correct or not, the decision and action are made and done. It is sad to know that these young men, some suppressed their consciences, risk their lives “fighting for the biggest nothing in history” (Apocalypse). It would be a better choice to be like “the Hoa Hao [who] believes that the maintenance of our spirits is very simple, and the mystery of joy is simple, too” (242). However, a political crazed world creates a complicated life. Although “[the soldiers] chose [the] path…so that there might be harmony” (246), the result is the complete opposite because killing does not solve any problems. More likely than not, the ones involve in the fighting will never “understand everything [and] would be incomplete forever” (249). The only understanding that these people are left with is the pondering of the possible outcome if they have chosen otherwise; not to fight. If that person truly believes that the war is the only way to solve the problem then that it would be ethically correct for him to be involved because morality is based on a person’s own judgment of what is right and wrong. On the other hand, if a person feels that is it wrong, without a doubt, then it is sad to believe that he chooses to go against his morals.
Works Cited
Johnson, Brendan B. “The Movie Quotes Site: The Deer Hunter.” (1997). 6 Dec. 2003 .
Dirks, Tim. “Greatest Films: The Deer Hunter.” (1996). 6 Dec. 2003
“IMDb: Full Metal Jacket.” (1990). 6 Dec. 2003
“Amazon.com: Apocalypse Now Redux.” (1996). 6 Dec. 2003
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