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Definition of Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics, emotions, and behaviors to animals or other non-human things (including objects, plants, and supernatural beings). Some famous examples of anthropomorphism include Winnie the Pooh, the Little Engine... read full definition
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics, emotions, and behaviors to animals or other non-human things (including objects, plants, and supernatural beings). Some famous examples of anthropomorphism include Winnie... read full definition
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics, emotions, and behaviors to animals or other non-human things (including objects, plants, and supernatural beings). Some famous... read full definition
How to Tell a True War Story
Explanation and Analysis—The Place Talks:
In "How to Tell a True War Story," the narrator recounts Mitchell Sanders telling him a story about a six-man patrol that goes into the mountains on "a basic listening-post operation." The men hear a lot of eerie sounds on this mission, and Sanders claims that features of nature were talking. Because Sanders wants his listeners to truly believe that these non-human elements were making human sounds, the passage features a large mount of personification and anthropomorphism. This underlines the non-belonging and fear of American soldiers in Vietnam.
In the story, Sanders claims that the men begin to hear "wacked-out music" that "comes right out of the rocks." He uses personification, saying it is as though the mountains were "tuned in to Radio fucking Hanoi." Eventually, they start hearing what resembles a cocktail party:
And the whole time, in the background, there’s still that cocktail party going on. All these different voices. Not human voices, though. Because it’s the mountains. Follow me? The rock—it’s talking. And the fog, too, and the grass and the goddamn mongooses. Everything talks. The trees talk politics, the monkeys talk religion. The whole country. Vietnam. The place talks. It talks. Understand? Nam—it truly talks.
Throughout the story, it's important to Sanders to emphasize that he isn't expressing himself figuratively. The men do not feel as though the animals, rock, fog, grass, mongooses, trees, and monkeys are talking. Rather, the men really feel as though the music and voices come from the nature around them—that the place "truly talks."
It is worth noting that, even if they feel sure that nature is talking, it is not in a language that the American soldiers understand. The men cannot understand what's being said, and they don't feel as though they're being spoken to. Ultimately, the scariest part is the incomprehensible nature of the sounds—which also serves as a reminder that they're in a place in which they do not belong. As intruders, the American soldiers speak neither the language of the people nor of the landscape. They have a clear sense of where the sounds are coming from, but no idea what they mean.
Related Themes:
