Boekverslag: In Country
First Published: 1986
Publisher: Flamingo
Edition and year of my copy: 1986
2. Author :
Bobbie Ann Mason was born in 1940 and brought up on a farm in western Kentucky. She now lives in rural Pennsylvania. Her first collection of fiction, Shiloh and other stories, also published in Flamingo, received major critical acclaim and was awarded a Hemingway Prize. In Country is Bobbie Ann Mason first novel, and has now been made into a major film staring Bruce Willes and Emily Loyd.
3. Genre :
Main distinction: psychological roman , The story tells us what's going on in Sam's mind. It's not a war-story, although there are a few flashbacks dealing with Vietnam.
4. Theme :
Algemeen : Het verhaal van Emmet.
? "To come to terms with the Vietnam-experience"
-Hoe gaat de Amerikaanse regering om met de Vietnam veteranen.
Persoonlijk : Het verhaal van Sam
? "Looking for her roots, identity"
- Hoe Sam leert leven met de Vietnam-ervaring.
- Hoe Sam de Vietnam-ervaring accepteert.
The first war they ever lost, it was a humiliation. The V.A. (groep die veteranen helpt) didn't help the veterans. For lots of American soldiers this war has been a traumatic experience, lots of soldiers suffer from: P.T.S.D ? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The soldiers who came back didn't get any welcome, they are seen as war-criminals, even as baby-murderers.
5. Title :
In Country ? Hopewell, a boring village with about 300 inhabitants (ten tijde van het verhaal).
-Overly religious, backward and narrow minded.
?Being in Vietnam
6. Time :
The story plays in 1984, in part two there are a few flashbacks telling how it was in Vietnam (diary, letters).
7 Setting :
Sam and Emmet live in Hopewell, a boring village , with about 300 inhabitants. Irine lives in Lexington, a (big) city. The story ends in Washington.
8 Social Backgrounds :
All the characters are farming-people. Irine (mother of Sam) and Sam wants to leave Hopewell, because it's narrow- minded (bekrompen).
9. Point of view :
There is one point of view. The narrator tells us the story from Sam's point of view. We only get to see what Sam thinks and feels (lots of exaggeration: "All men are murderers").
10. Narrative technique :
The story isn't told in a chronological order, Part two is a flashback and tells us how it is to live in Hopewell.
De chronologische volgorde :
Part two
Part three - chapter one
Part one
Part three - chapter two
11. Symbolism :
The egret, bird that Emmet is looking for, the only good thing which remind him to the war.
12. Language :
Ordinary , every day language (Amerikaans).
13. Characterization :
Sam Hughes :
A 17 years old girl that is struggling with her roots, her identity. She wants to know everything about Vietnam, and how life was over there. She is well informed about cancer, aids and Agent Orange. When she reads Dwayne's diary and sleeps at Cawood's Pond she changes completely, she thinks every men is a killer (she even considers abortion as murder).
Emmet Smith :
A man who is supposed to suffer from Agent Orange, his face is full of pimples and he has nightmares. Emmet tries to accept his past, but there is a lot of resistance (Emmet moet werken en moet naar dokters). At the end of the story Emmet talks about Vietnam, it's a great relief for him.
Irene Hughes, Smith :
Sam's mother. After Dwayne died, she took many years care of Emmet. She wanted to leave her past (Vietnam) behind. Now she's married to Lorenzo Jones, and got a baby named Heather. Sam used to hate her, but at the end of the story, they show some understanding for each other.
Dwayne Hughes :
Sam's father, who died in Vietnam. He was a country-boy. It's hard for Sam to find out something about her father. Sam gets angry when she finds out that her father killed people, she thought her father wasn't like that(als ze later zelf angst heeft word ze ook agressief).
Donna (zus van Dwayne) and Dawn (haar vriendin) are types of woman Sam doesn't want to become: young ? having a baby ? married ? stuck in Hopewell.
** Belangrijke punten!!
- Het motto gaat over een Vietnam-veteraan die voor zijn veleden probeert weg te lopen (nowhere to run).
- America didn't want South-Vietnam to become communist, so they sent lots of soldiers to Vietnam to fight for a good cause. They didn't succeed.
- The Vietcong and the N.V.A. gave lots of drugs to the American soldiers (het is daar redelijk goedkoop en zo waren de Amerkanen makkelijker te verslaan), lots of soldiers came back addicted to drugs.
- My Lai = a village where the American soldiers where killed ? 500 civilians; women, children and old people.
- U.S. ?? -Vietcong (guerrilla-oorlog)
-N.V.A. (Northern Vietnamese Army)
** Agent Orange = a chemical which the American used to defoliate (=ontbladeren) the jungle. It was sprayed with airplanes, pilots and soldiers who worked with it got lots of pimples and their wives had lots of miscarriages (miskramen). Emmet is supposed to suffer from Agent Orange.
Betty Mahmoody is een Amerikaanse auteur. Zij is de Voorzitter en de mede-stichter van Één Wereld: Voor Kinderen, een organisatie die begrip tussen culturen bevordert en ernaar streeft om veiligheid en bescherming aan kinderen van biculturele huwelijken aan te bieden. Zij was instrumentaal in de ontwikkeling van de internationale ontvoeringswetgeving die in de staat van Michigan werd goedgekeurd. Haar boek is een rekening van haar ervaringen in 1984, toen zij en haar echtgenoot en dochter naar Iran reisten voor wat verondersteld om een bezoek van twee weken was te zijn. Betty beweerde dat haar echtgenoot geen bedoeling had om aan de V.S. terug te keren, ook weigerend om zijn familie toe te staan om terug te reizen. Zij beweerde verder dat hij naar haar en hun dochter bazig en verkeerd werd. Hoewel geboren in de Verenigde Staten, eiste de Iraanse wet hun dochter Mahtob als een Iraanse burger, die niet het land zonder haar father' kon verlaten; s toestemming. Geconfronteerd met het feit dat zij slechts zou mogen weggaan als zij haar dochter met haar echtgenoot verliet, bleef zij in Iran 18 maanden. Uiteindelijk, slaagden erin zij en haar dochter om aan haar echtgenoot en Iran te ontsnappen die, die in Turkije kruisen en de ambassade van de V.S. bereiken. Zij werden teruggegeven aan de Verenigde Staten.
Boek informatie
- In Country
- Bobbie Ann Mason
- Nederlands
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