Shallow Peace: Victory and Survivor Guilt in Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War

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Shallow Peace: Victory and Survivor Guilt
in Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War
Nayab Murad
NUML-F19-16539

2. Historical Background
The novel tells the story of a North
Vietnamese soldier, Kien. His pre-war,
during war and post-war experiences are
portrayed provocatively.

3. Vietnam War
1961
US military begin to
take direct role in the
war
1968
TET Offensive attack
US & South Vietnam
won
1975
Vietnam War ends
South Vietnam was
forced to surrender
1959
Ho Chi Minh declared
civil War in Vietnam
1964
The Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution
1969
President Nixon
Withdrawal of US
troops

4. Summary
The novel begins with Kien, the main character,
as part of a Missing In Action team that is
gathering the remains of bodies in the Jungle of
Screaming Souls in 1975, after the Vietnam War
has ended.
Everyone was affected by the war: Kien’s father,
who burned his paintings and die; Phuong, who
was raped by a sailor; Hoa, who sacrificed
herself to save Kien and other soldiers.
He recounts his days with Phuong, his
childhood sweetheart, right before the war
began, and how their youth was taken away
from them.
After the war, when Kien returns to his
hometown Hanoi, he devotes himself to his
last duty as soldier; writing his war
experience.

5. Non-linearity
Indicates the
traumatic experiences
 The whole plot is a sequence of flashbacks to
his youth days, his friends, back to his
experiences in war without any chronological
order and coherence of ideas.
 The novel weaves back and forth between tales
of unfulfilled love and the narrative of war.
 “The sorrow of war inside a soldier's heart was
in a strange way similar to the sorrow of love. It
was a kind of nostalgia, like the immense
sadness of a world at dusk.”

6. Literature
Review
‘The Sorrow Of War’ Creates
Controversy In Vietnam
Sun., May 28, 1995
By Tim Larimer New York
Times
Visitations of the Dead:
Trauma and Storytelling in
Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of
War
Andrew Ng
Shaping trauma textually
through stylistic practices
Sorrow, Regret, Guilt, and
War
Joseph Fredericks
April 25, 2015
Beyond the Sorrow of War
Kenneth Champeon, May 3,
2002
Writes about how The Sorrow
of War changed the social and
political status of Vietnam after
the war.

7. Peace is a
Political
Propaganda
Victory is fundamentally a hollow
nationalist discourse.
- Andrew Ng
Bao Ninh’s novel precisely talks about the
war within not the war outside. His
characters doesn’t seem to gain peace even
after victory. Thus, demonstrating the idea
that peace and victory are arbitrary.

8. Peace is
Shallow
Survival Guilt
Victory is
meaningless
Veterans cannot
regain peace
War never ends

9. Survival Guilt
"Sometimes I wish I could kill myself and
end everything quickly. War has robbed
me of the liberty I deserve. Now, I 'm a
slave . . ."
“The spirits of all those killed in the war
will remain with Kien beyond all political
consequences of the war.”
Analysis
1. Despite survival, Kien is guilty of all
the murders he has committed
during war. He even tries to commit
suicide but hesitates.
2. The burden of the dead and he sense
of lost innocence haunts him for the
rest of his life.
“He might even have killed himself to
escape the psychological burden of
killing others.”

10. Veterans cannot Regain Peace
.
“I 'm simply a soldier like you who'll now
have to live with broken dreams and with
pain. But, my friend, our era is finished.
After this hard-won victory fighters like
you, Kien, will never be normal again.”
Analysis
1. The given excerpts from the text
show that veterans do not regain
peace after war.
2. The pre-war and post-war
experiences can never be the same.
3. There is a sort of existential
surrender in the lives of veterans.
“We had shared all the vicissitudes, the
defeats and victories, the happiness and
suffering, the losses and gains. But each of
us had been crushed by the war in a
different way.”
“They could live but suffer the nightmares
of white blasts which destroyed their souls
and stripped their personalities bare.”

11. War Never Ends…
Analysis
War once started, can never
end. The bombs and bullets
might stop but the internal
war goes on.
“Oh, this is war without end,
War without end.
Tomorrow or today,
Today or tomorrow.
Tell me my fate,
Wl1ct1 will I die . . .”
“Victory after victory, withdrawal after
withdrawal. The path of war seemed
endless, desperate, and leading
nowhere.”

12. Meaninglessness of Victory
Analysis
Victory has no meaning since
the psychological war is
same for the victorious and
the losers.
“Victory, shit! The victory we got was a
victory for morons.
Call that civilization and progress?
Garbage!”
"If we found a way to tell them news of a
victory, would they be happier?" Kien
asked.
"Come on! Even if we could, what would
be the point?”
“The divine war had paid him for all his
suffering and losses with more suffering
and loss at home.”

13. “The problem with surviving was that you
ended up with the ghosts of everyone you’d
ever left behind riding on your shoulders.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, The Drowned Cities

14. Deaths of his
battalion
Sacrifice of Hoa
Rape of Phuong
Survivor Guilt
Existential Surrender
01
04
03
02
05
Kien’s Survivor Guilt

15. Kien’s Survivor Guilt
01 02 03 04 05
“He was at a stage
when he had no idea
how he would spend
the rest of his life.
Study? Career?
Business?
All those things…
suddenly seemed
meaningless and
beyond his reach.”
“He might even
have killed
himself to escape
the psychological
burden of killing
others.”
“Perhaps it was
all his fault… for
dragging her into
this fiasco in
which she had
been gang-raped
by thugs during
an air raid, then
held by force.”
“Hoa had saved
fifteen sick and
wounded from
certain death…
She gave
herself to save
me, too.”
“Of the entire
scout platoon
sent into the
airport, only
he had
survived.”

16. Shallow
Peace
“Peace had rushed
in brutally, leaving
them dazed and
staggering in its
wake. They were
more amazed than
happy with the
peace.”
“Those who had
died and those who
lived on shared a
common fate in
this war.”

17. Mockery of Heroism
“You're offering
your life for a cause
so I 've decided to
waste mine too.”
To volunteer for the army at
seventeen is nobler than going
to the university, isn't it?
"So, you'll kill lots
of men? That'll
make you a hero, I
suppose?"

18. Kien’s inability to recreate meaning in life
“Happiness seemed to lie in the past; the older he
grew the rosier the past looked to him.”
“There are times when he feels that only death will
give him a real rest.”

19. "Justice may have won, but cruelty, death,
and inhuman violence have also won. Just
look and think; it is the truth. Losses can be
made good, damage can be repaired, and
wounds will heal in time. But the
psychological scars of the war will remain
forever" (193).

20. Conclusion
• Thus, the analysis reveals that Bao Ninh’s novel is
more like an indirect mockery of heroism and
peace; peace that is never regained, peace that is
lost forever.
• It is the propaganda of politicians not the soldiers
and civilians. Their generation ends with war either
by physical death or psychological death.

21. Recommendations
Comparison of Phuong’s and Hoa’s role in
the plot and their experiences of war.

22. May there
be no wars
in future
Thank you