Religion as a metaphor
The narrator, born to a French priest and resentful of his father, constantly uses religion as a metaphor for western imperialism. He also uses more specific metaphors linking religion to Vietnam’s loss of agency. In Chapter One: "As the plane grumbled its way along the tarmac, the whole population rocked back and forth with every motion, a congregation swaying to inaudible prayers."
Metaphor for nefarious bureacracy
Paper is used as a metaphor for bureaucracy and the corruption and violence it embodies for little worth. In Chapter One, the narrator describes how he bribes a bureaucrat for visas to leave Vietnam. The narrator says of the bureaucrat's anger: "But to a bureaucrat paper was never just paper. Paper was life!" The bureaucrat criticizes the narrator's hypocrisy, but he ultimately engages in the very same corrupt behavior to get his family out of Vietnam.
Metaphor for Vietnam
The narrator compares Vietnam to a person who died young, because due to the war, the country was unable to realize its hopes after declaring independence. In Chapter 4, he says: "thousands of refugees wailed as if attending a funeral, the burial of their nation, dead too soon, as so many were, at a tender twenty-one years of age."
Metaphor for the futility of war
The narrator uses the Hollywood film about the war to depict the war’s futility. The novel’s characters talk about how the war was fought to further their ideals and defend their country. However, the theatricality of the film represents the war’s true falsity and pointlessness. The film crew destroys the land in the Philippines, where they shoot the film, exploiting the country solely to create a dramatized image of the war. Similarly, the war represents the United States’ exploitation of Vietnam for pointless ends.
Masks as a metaphor
The mask is a metaphor for the narrator’s false portrayal of his true motivations. He describes his face as if it is a mask, representing the false front he puts forward to those around him. Even Bon, his best friend, does not know he is working for the communist revolutionaries.
