The Sorrow of Life

In class, many people expressed that they did not feel bad for Kien and some said that they didn't even like him as a character. Later I thought that maybe this impression is purposeful by the writer. The novel is based on a manuscript that is found by an unknown narrator and the story is written after the fact by Kien himself. Kein is a veteran that has had many long years to think about his life and see all of the mistakes he has made. His writing is overcome with guilt and regret. The story has a focus on war and in the end war is what tore Kien and Phuong apart but it was with the mistakes that Kien made as well. He has been traumatized by war and his guilt has been amplified by his experience. The reader hates Kien because Kien hates himself because of all the opportunities he sees that he lost. Kien drinks, smokes, and does other self-destructive behavior. The narrator at the end describes,

"However, the sorrows of war had been much heavier for this author than they had been for me. His sorrows prevented him from relaxing by continually enticing him back into his past."

Kien was unable to escape his past and his loss from the war. He probably wrote for catharsis since his manuscript was "burned", "moth-eaten", and pages "withheld by the author" along with the fact that the had been no effort by Kien to keep any kind of chronological order. This story may have been Kien's dying wish, his purpose given to himself. He may have just wanted to relive something or see where he went wrong just to rid himself of his guilt. Near the end of the book, after Kien gets the letter from a fellow soldier, he writes,

"There would be a miracle, he had written. A miracle that would allow people to emerge unchanged by the war... His Phuong would remain young forever."

This is all Kien really wants. But as he writes, he realizes that he can't achieve this "miracle" and degenerates into self-hatred. That's where the reader doesn't like Kien. Guilt makes him write about himself in such a self-deprecating fashion. He feels guilty about surviving the war, not sacrificing himself to save others, and most of all he feels guilty that he couldn't save Phuong time and time again.

This article details guilt and it's genesis. Kien can easily be diagnosed with PTSD and his guilt can be seen to have roots in the trauma he experienced.