Essay Questions

How does the narrator’s role in the war reflect the ways in which his childhood shaped his identity?

The narrator constantly ruminates on the ways in which Vietnamese people deride him for being a bastard. He deeply loves his mother, who raised him singlehandedly in impoverished circumstances. Yet, he carries deep shame for the exploitative circumstances of his birth when his mother was taken advantage of by a French priest.

This shame carries into his life as a spy. The narrator works to support the revolutionary efforts, which are set up as an opposition to American efforts to fight communism. Yet, he finds himself sympathizing at times with the American-backed Vietnamese military. Similar to the way he feels with respect to the westernized parts of his identity, he is deeply shameful of the violent, exploitative acts he carries out in the name of the West—torturing a man, helping to kill two men in California, and serving as a passive bystander during a brutal rape.

His mixed race identity also reflects his ability to identify with two sides of a conflict. As both European and Vietnamese, he feels truly at home in nearly east nor west but he has deep affinities to both Vietnam and elements of Western culture. Similarly, he is neither fully communist nor fully a military officer, but he contributes significantly to the efforts of both and sympathizes with both sides’ opposing motivations.

What does the narrator's role in the Hollywood film teach us about him?

Throughout the novel, we see as the narrator's allegiances shift between communist forces and the Vietnamese military, United States and Vietnam. His convictions are fleeting. When working on the Hollywood film, however, he is fully committed to trying to improve the representation of Vietnamese people in American media. Both his military commander and communist handler support this effort, a consensus of both sides. However, he is unable to make a difference in the film's portrayal, which is just as exploitative as it was at the beginning. His failure to achieve his true conviction reflects his general inconsistency in his loyalties.

How does the naming of the novel's characters further the book's themes?

Nguyen calls many of the characters by their roles rather than by a specific name, such as the General and the Congressman. This allows him to make statements about not only the specific characters involved in the novel, but more generally about war, colonialism, and media. The characters both stand on their own as individuals, and allow the author to use them as metaphors to speak about the war experience in general.