Essay Questions

What is the historical context of the novel?

The action described in The Yellow Birds takes place in the year 2003 when two men, John Bartle and Murph are sent to war. The war mentioned here takes place in Iraq and is a real-life war which took place between the years 2001 and 2011. The war started after the terrorist attack which took place in September 11 2001 which resulted in the fall of the Twin Towers and the death of thousand innocent American people. The terrorist attack was planned and carried out by a terrorist Islamic group, Al-Qaeda. American president George Bush declared war against Iraq, claiming the terrorist group and the government of the country were in close connection. As a result, during the 10-year war, more than 4.400 Americans were killed in action and almost 32.000 wounded. This time in history was an extremely tense and difficult one for those who were in one way or another involved in the war since many ended up having to deal with various health problems caused by the time they spent in war long after they returned to their home country.

What is a casualty feeder card?

After the main characters reach Iraq, they are often described as taking care of their casualty feeder card, some of them keeping it inside their helmets. These cards included personal information about the soldier as well as general information about their physical appearance. In the case of a soldier's death, these cards could be used to identify the body especially in those cases when the body was badly disfigured and the identity of the body could not be determined through traditional means. The card ensured the death would be recorded and then the next of kin informed about the passing of their loved one.

Explain the title of the novel.

The novel is entitled "The Yellow Birds" and the meaning of the title becomes obvious only after Bartle returns to America after spending a few years in Iraq. Back in America, he sees many people wearing a yellow ribbon pined to their clothes. The yellow ribbon was used by the civilian population to show their support for the soldier who fought in the war and as a sign of patriotism. For those returning back from the war,the ribbon symbolized all the horrible experiences they had to go through and became a symbol for their suffering.

"While we slept, the war rubbed its thousand ribs
against the ground in prayer. When we pressed onward through exhaustion, its eyes were white and open in the dark. While we ate, the war fasted, fed by its own deprivation. It made love and gave birth and spread through fire." Explain.

The narrator, Bartle, opens this book by reflecting on his perception of war in Al Tafar, Iraq as a soldier. He personified war into an evil person with a life of its own; war was thriving while the soldiers were suffering. It feasted on death and deprivation that was brought about by its down doings. These lines powerfully set up the plot of the novel that highlights themes like grief, trauma,memory, and violence in vivid detail. The novel starts in spring, the season of rebirth where everything blossoms as it gradually shifts to a dark, lonely winter signifying the trajectory of war.

Bartle starts off with this pessimistic view and doesn’t shy away from telling the reader exactly how he feels about the futility of war. In his opinion, bloodshed was all that it brought. He comes back to this idea several times in the course of the novel. Back home in Virginia when his mother asks him what happened during the war, he says, “It is not enough to say what happened. Everything happened and everything fell” (Powers, 148). His grief and pessimism are evident here as he sees no real meaning in whatever the war put him through.

Additionally, he paints a frightening picture of the gory violence that took place in Al Tafar. Later in the book, Murph’s dead body was described as “broken and bruised and cut and still pale except for his face and hands, and now his eyes had been gouged out, the two hollow sockets looking like angry passages to his mind” (Powers, 205). This vivid picture seems to be foreshadowed in the opening paragraph.