Symbolisim

- A person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself.
This book is full of symbolic images and actions. A few that I found especially predominate were The people O'Brien sees on the side of the river in the chapter, Th Rainy River, the tongue necklace Anne wears in the chapter, Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, and the man O'Brien claims to kill. Each of these people or objects had symbolic meanings. For example, the people on the side of the river symbolized the turn out of O'Brien's life. This decision would change the entire way his life played out and effect the people he would or would not meet in the future. The necklace of tongues that Anne wears shows that she is now more tribal and part of Vietnam more than she is a fellow American. It's never quite clear if O'Brien did ever kill a man but from what I understood he did not but his guilt made him feel as responsible for the man's life as if he had killed him. The dead man is a symbol of the guilt O'Brien feels as well as the guilt all soldiers feel after killing another human being.