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Enter search terms here See Important Quotations Explained. He worked several short-lived jobs and lived with his parents. At one point he enrolled in junior college, but he eventually dropped out. He thought that without writing, he himself might have been paralyzed. The writing was easy, and he published the piece as a separate short story.
Eight months later Bowker hanged himself. But he contends that he does not want to imply that Bowker did not have a lapse of courage that was responsible for the death of Kiowa. As such, his success in dealing with his mental anguish is directly related to his success as a storyteller. Still, relief is not so easily earned. Later he stops and watches the fireworks show. Of the characters O'Brien revisits in a post-war story, Norman Bowker is by far the one who has the most difficult time carrying — to draw on the metaphor O'Brien presents in the novel's title — the burden of memory.
It is important to note that, like the first chapter, this chapter is told by a third person narrator — the narrator "O'Brien" is largely absent from this chapter as a witness or commentator, though he comments on it in the chapter that follows.
Instead, O'Brien employs a stream-of-consciousness technique that allows readers to learn the details of Kiowa's death by "overhearing" Bowker's interior dialogue. Norman's problem is one of not having an audience to which he can address the stories of Vietnam that weigh heavily on him emotionally.
O'Brien underscores Bowker's hesitation to tell others about his experiences in Vietnam, as he believes that they don't want to hear them. He imagines that his former girlfriend Sally's response would be one of horrified disapproval of the vulgarities of war, of the vulgarity of Kiowa's death in the shit field.
He imagines that his father will be disinterested, thinking that he has his own World War II stories and that he would call Norman's courage and valor into question. This rejection by his father that he assumes will occur, combined with his sense that the "town seemed remote" and that "he felt invisible," contributes to the extreme alienation Norman feels.
Norman's drive around the lake is a metaphor for this cycle of trying to articulate his story; he circles the familiar town where he grew up looking for his place in it, looking for what he should do next with his life, but being unable to discover that answer. Similarly, he needs to tell his story to begin to come to terms with and take meaning from the memories of Vietnam that creep into his thoughts. Norman, then, is searching for meaning.
Norman's repetitive drive in circles around the lake recalls the dancing girl that the troop encounters in "Style;" both are acting out a search for meaning. Before Norman can tell his story or find meaning, he must resolve the conflict between fear and courage that is at the core of his story of Kiowa's death. The elusive Silver Star is a symbol with its meanings in conflict within the context of this chapter: The award is a military recognition of valor, but Norman would have won it for an act that seems somehow incongruous, saving Kiowa from drowning in the muddy field of human excrement.
Because of this incongruity, Norman cannot tell the whole story. He imagines that his father, a veteran himself who understands medals as inaccurate measures of heroism "knowing full well that many brave men do not win medals for their bravery, and that others win medals for doing nothing" might ask him about the Silver Star.
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