Facing It Essay Questions

What is the meaning of the speaker’s paradoxical description of himself: “I'm stone. I'm flesh.”

One interpretation of this line emerges from the context of the reflective quality of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Depending on angle and light, the polished black granite can look like a regular mirror, reflecting back the image of those who face it. As the speaker moves, the quality of his reflection shifts, disappearing and reappearing with degrees of clarity or obscurity. This description of himself as both stone and flesh, or as stone and then as flesh, observes the changing reality of his reflection in the stone wall. He vacillates between observing the memorial and observing himself; between seeing himself outside himself, and feeling himself standing there in the flesh.

Another interpretation of this line relies on the previous two lines for context: “I said I wouldn't / dammit: No tears.” A “stone-faced” person is defined as an “expressionless” person, while someone who is “flesh and blood” is vulnerable to feeling, to hurt. So “I’m stone” could represent the speaker’s struggle to remain emotionless, while “I’m flesh” concedes to his hurt, allowing for his tears.

What are some of the layers of significance of Andrew Johnson’s name in the poem?

This particular moment in the poem is infused with symbolism. The name Andrew Johnson is immediately familiar as the name of the man who succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Republican and a member of Lincoln’s cabinet, but he only opposed secession on a constitutional basis, while maintaining white supremacist views. He chose to subvert Lincoln’s post-war agenda for reconciling the Union and dealing with the consequences of abolition. For instance, Johnson vetoed the famous plan to distribute “40 acres and a mule” to freed Black Americans and returned the confiscated land to its previous white owners, setting into motion the exploitative regime of sharecropping which robbed generations of Black Americans of their wealth.

Andrew Johnson is also evidently the name of a soldier who died in the Vietnam War, but we glean little about him from the poem itself. It is unclear how the speaker knows him—if the speaker knows him—and we do not know his race or his age at his death. But biographical details of the dead soldiers are available on the website of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, and searching his name brings forth a photo of the soldier, a young Black man, and the information that he died in 1967 in Dinh Tuong at the age of 19. The hometown of Bogalusa, LA that he shares with the author provides a hint at their personal connection.

How would you describe the symbolic resonance of the names shimmering on the woman’s blouse?

The names shimmering on the woman’s blouse are one of many optical illusions created by the wall’s reflective capacity. But while at times the wall presents a kind of perfect mirror, here we see that the names etched in the wall overlay the reflection of the woman facing it. The wall is not simply a mirror in this moment: it etches the names of the dead on the bodies of the living, so that her blouse is inscribed like a tombstone. The names are not static but shimmering; it seems as though she might be able to carry them away with her. Yet when she walks away, the names remain on the wall. Here the attachment of the dead to the living, and the idea of what we carry with us and what we leave behind, is poignantly revealed in the image of the names fleetingly touching this woman.