Chapter 13 and 14

"Ambush"

Quote 1:

"When she was nine, my daughter Kathleen asked if I had ever killed anyone. She knew about the war; she knew I'd been a soldier. 'You keep writing this stories,' she said, 'so I guess you must've killed somebody.' It was a difficult moment, but I did what seemed right, which was to say, 'Of course not,' [...]" 

Analysis:

In this quote we can see the how remorseful, Tim O'Brien feels about having killed that man. He remembered  how Kiowa had woken him up to do the night shift, and how he watched the young man walking through the trail. Now that the author looks back upon this event, he thinks that If he wouldn't have thrown the grenade at the man, he would just have made his way through the platoon, without harming any troop members. That is why when Kathleen asks him "[...] If i had ever killed anyone." he lied because there was nothing glorious and bravery in killing a person on the contrary it is devastating and even more so if the person was innocent.

"Style"

Quote 1:

"A while later, when we moved out of the hamlet, she was still dancing. 'Probably some weird ritual,' Azar said, but Henry Dobbins looked back and said no, the girl just liked to dance." (page 136)

Analysis:

By calling the girl's dancing to a "[...] weird ritual [...]" Azar transmutes the girl into something surreal. Since she is Vietnamese people would normally tend to infer that she is in fact doing a "[...] weird ritual [...]" But Dobbins humanely reminds the reader that when he looks back at the girl, all she sees is a girl who just lost his family, and likes to dance.

Quote 2:

"'All right, then,' Henry Dobbins said, 'dance right.'" (page 136)

Analysis:

In this quote we can see that Dobbins is the most "humane" soldier. After burning down the village, the soldiers pass through a burning hut, and they find themselves with a girl dancing through the ashes and the wreckage.They all find it funny except Dobbins, and when Azar mocks the girl trying to imitate her dance steps, Dobbins jumps to her "defense" and threatens him by telling him that he will end up in the dwell if he didn't "[...] dance right [...].".