The Gift in Wartime: Tran Mong Tu

 

About the poem

Tran Mong Tu’s poem is about all of the things that a victim of war has to give up. In return, the victim receives a mix of indifference and violence.

Summary

The first stanza begins with the speaker offering someone—an unnamed “you”—roses and a wedding gown.

 

In the second stanza, this “you” replies by giving the speaker medals, silver stars, and a badge. These items appear to be less meaningful and personal than the items that the speaker offers. his pattern—where the speaker gives away much more than the “you”—continues throughout the poem.

 

In the third stanza, the speaker offers their youth. In return, the “you” give them the “smell of blood.” Indeed, as the poem unfolds, it appears as if the speaker’s offerings become more abstract, while the offerings of the “you” become more violent and indifferent.

In the fifth stanza, the speaker gives the “you” clouds and a sacrifice. They sacrifice their pleasant “springtime” for the harshness of “cold winters.” Yet the “you” remains unmoved by these offerings. The “you” gives the speaker “lips with no smile” and “arms without tenderness.”

In the final stanza, the violence of the “you” is further clarified when the speaker mentions the “shrapnel”—that is, bomb fragments—that the “you” has given them.

Taking this summary into consideration, it seems that Tran Mong Tu’s poem is mainly about all of the things that a victim of war is forced to give up. Perhaps the “you” in the poem is war itself. That might be why the “you” react to the speaker’s offerings with a mix of violence and indifference.



Understanding the text

Answer the following questions.

a. Who is the speaker addressing and why can that person not hear or understand what she is saying?

The speaker is addressing an absent person. The person cannot hear or understand what she is saying because the person is dead.

b. What can you infer about the speaker’s feelings for the person addressed as “you”?

I can infer that the speaker's feelings for the person addressed as 'you' are affectionate, kind, and caring. She considers him as her life. She misses him a lot after his death. She feels an emptiness in life without his presence. She is emotional and offers roses and her wedding gown in his memory at his death tomb.

c. What is the speaker’s attitude toward war?

The speaker's attitude toward war is quite negative because she has gone through the terrible effects of war. The speaker has lost her family, friends, and acquaintances in the war between America and Vietnam from 1955-1975. Hence she cultivates a negative attitude towards wars and battles.

d. In what ways do you think this person’s fate has affected the speaker?

I think this person's fate has greatly affected the speaker. The person referred to being a brave soldier who sacrificed his life in the war although the nation paid the gratitude awarding him with medals, pips, and a badge for his valor shown on the battlefield. The person died in a bomb explosion. The speaker undergoes shock and is living a helpless, loveless, and miserable life since then.

e. What does the speaker promise at the end of the poem? Why do you think the speaker does this?

At the end of the poem, the speaker promises to visit her affectionate person in their next life. The speaker does this as she is deeply in love with him.

She wants to hold shrapnel as proof to show him the reason behind his death and their separation. According to her, it will help them to recognize each other. I think the speaker does this because her love for the absent person is deep and sincere. She wants to love him again and again.

 Reference to the context

a. What is the theme of the poem?

The poem speaks of multiple themes like inhumanity and cruelty of war and its destructive impacts on mankind. War can’t be a source of peace and happiness but death and destruction. It takes away the happiness of others. It invites suffering, agony, and trouble as it affects the larger society. War has to offer gifts like death, bloodshed, destruction, sorrows, etc for the people.

b. What imagery from the poem made the greatest impression on you? Why?

Imagery is a literary device that refers to the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience or create a picture with words for a reader. The poem makes use of imagery to put forward the speaker's hatred of war. They are roses on grave, wedding gown as a cover, a tomb with green grass, medals, badge, pips, youth days, wardress with blood, clouds, winters, lips without a smile, arms without tenderness, eye without sight, the body without motion, shrapnel as a token, etc.

To me the images that have made the greatest impression are from the sixth stanza where the speaker says that her affectionate but dead person has left her with lips without a smile, arms without tenderness, eyes without sight, and the body without motion. The idea is that the speaker is living a miserable and lonely life in the absence of her lovable person.


c. Which figurative language is used in the poem? Explain with examples.

Figurative language conveys deeper artistic meaning to a text through the use of figures of speech like irony, apostrophe, anaphora, and metaphor.

To begin with, the title of this poem itself is ironic as it states gifts of war as pains, sorrows, losses, blood, etc. to humans.

Next, apostrophe refers to a piece of writing addressed to someone who is absent. In the context of this poem, the speaker addresses an absent person and tells him the effects of war.

And then, anaphora is another figurative language employed in this poem which implies the use of the same words at the beginning of a line. "You give me" in the second, fourth, and sixth stanzas are examples of anaphora.


d. What does the speaker “offer” in this poem? What does the person addressed as “you” give in return?

The speaker offers various things like roses, her wedding gown, her youth, clouds, cold winters, etc. to her affectionate person in this poem.

The person addressed as "you" in return gives her the medals with shining stars, badge with yellow pips, the smell of blood from wardress, lips without a smile, arms without tenderness, eyes without sight and body without motion.

e. An apostrophe is a literary device in which a writer or speaker addresses an absent person or an abstract idea in such a way as if it were present and can understand. Discuss the poem in relation to apostrophe.

The present poem draws a negative picture of war and its effects on mankind. The speaker employs the use of the apostrophe to address an absent person. The person addressed have attained martyrdom in war. The speaker fervently tries to make him understand that she has kind, considerate, and loving feelings for him. The speaker offers various things like roses, her wedding gown, her youth, clouds, cold winters, etc to him and in return he gives her the medals with shining stars, badge with yellow pips, the smell of blood from the wardress, lips without a smile, arms without tenderness, eyes without sight and body without motion.

The war has stood in between the life of the speaker and her affectionate person. War has invited his untimely death and embarrassing separation. The speaker vents her emotion as if the person is listening and understanding all her words. The bitter cruelty of war is exposed with sublime and delicate feelings for the absent person. This has been made possible with the use of the apostrophe.

 Reference beyond the text

 

a. One way to get relief from grief is to write or talk about it. In your opinion, how might the speaker in this poem have benefitted from saying what she did? Explain.

Psychologists argue that the best way to obtain relief from grief is to write or talk about it. In my opinion, the speaker has benefitted here in this poem by successfully letting out her emotions in writing about the grief she is undergoing because of the death of her lovable person. Doing so, she has eased her heavy heart of agonizing feelings. War being a cause of death and destruction brings a dark future to humanity. The warrior who sacrifices life for the cause of the nation is not the lone sufferer but also all those people who are closely connected with him. Thus the speaker and the victim of war both suffer at the same plank. War has long-term negative impacts on human beings.

b. Write an essay on the effects of war.

The effects of war are widely spread and can be long-term or short-term. Soldiers experience war differently than civilians, although either suffers in times of war, and women and children suffer unspeakable atrocities in particular. In the past decade, up to two million of those killed in armed conflicts were children. The widespread trauma caused by these atrocities and the suffering of the civilian population is another legacy of these conflicts, the following creates extensive emotional and psychological stress.  Present-day internal wars generally take a larger toll on civilians than state wars. This is due to the increasing trend where combatants have made targeting civilians a strategic objective. A state conflict is an armed conflict that occurs with the use of armed force between two parties, of which one is the government of a state. Effects of war also include mass destruction of cities and have long-lasting effects on a country's economy. Armed conflict has important indirect negative consequences on infrastructure, public health provision, and social order. These indirect consequences are often overlooked and unappreciated.