Literary Review of “Fallen Angels” Essay Sample
Literary Review of “Fallen Angels” Essay Sample

Literary Review of “Fallen Angels” Essay Sample

Available Only on StudyHippo
Topics:
View Entire Sample
Text preview

The novel. “Fallen Angels” . was written by Walter Dean Myers in 1988 in Jersey City. New Jersey. The authorship is of a war fiction genre and besides a coming-of-age narrative.

The narrative is told in a first individual point of position through a reasonably immature Afro-american soldier combat in the controversial Vietnam War. The narrative takes topographic point in 1967 to 1968. The novel begins in 1967 with Richie Perry; a 17 twelvemonth old. black. high-school alumnus fall ining the ground forces. He decides to fall in the ground forces because his female parent can non afford to direct him to college although he is really smart. and he does non desire to maintain life in Harlem. Richie hurts his articulatio genus in a hoops accident while in basic preparation and is told he will ne'er see combat because of hi

...

s hurt. The paperwork gets messed up and Perry is sent to Vietnam.

His company is stationed near Chu Lai where there isn’t a batch of contending. During the squad’s foremost outing. Richie’s friend Jenkins was killed by a landmine. He realizes how awful war is but can non come to happen the words when directing letters place to explicate the horror and daze of the war. Throughout the remainder of the narrative.

Richie can’t explain the war to himself and is incognizant of what he and the remainder of the soldiers are contending for.He encounters an egoistic captain. Stewart. whom is merely concerned with a publicity which he will merely acquire if his troop kills more enemies. This consequences in Richie’s squad being sent on inessential unsafe missions. Richie has an internal conflict with himself throughout

View entire sample
Join StudyHippo to see entire essay

the remainder of the novel. He struggles to happen his motivations for fall ining the ground forces. One twenty-four hours during a mission. Peewee and Richie hid in a hole overnight near an enemy infested river. They kill a adult male who checks in their hole and travel back to the original bead site.

They find a fellow companion whom they look up to because of his courage. Monaco sitting petrified. They boys recognize. much to their discouragement.

that the country around themselves and Monaco is a trap and the Viet-Cong are concealing in the shrubs environing the bead site to kill any staying Americans and a return chopper. The choppers arrive and Richie and Peewee commit a heroic act of opening fire on the enemy to salvage all of their fellow soldiers. The male childs are wounded in their attempts and are sent to a infirmary. The boys so return place as changed work forces.

Richie realizes that being thrust back into society is traveling to be really difficult. about every bit much as lasting Vietnam. and he is a everlastingly changed adult male.Richie Perry is the chief character in the novel and the narrative is told through his eyes. Richie had a really tough life in Harlem; his female parent is an alky who spends her meagre income on liquor and his male parent deserted the household old ages before.

Although Richie’s opportunities of wining and coming out of Harlem a good individual are low. he defies all odds and is a really bright pupil and does what is best for himself and his household. most peculiarly his brother Kenny. Richie and Kenny are dependent on each

other with Richie moving as a male parent figure that Kenny ne'er had. Because he can non afford college.

Richie escapes his jobs and bad place life by fall ining the ground forces. He can non believe the atrocity of the war and the absurdness of the whole struggle. At the terminal of the work. Richie is traumatized by the war and realizes that traveling place is merely the beginning of his personal conflict.The loss of artlessness is one of the predominate subjects in the novel.

The soldiers arrive in Vietnam as adolescents and have perfectly no hint as to what they’re acquiring themselves into. Peewee show’s his artlessness by saying his three ends in life are to imbibe vino from a bottle with a cork in it. to smoke a cigar. and to hold sex with a foreign adult female. When Jenkins is killed. Richie provinces that his grandma is the lone individual he of all time saw dead ( 15 ). He doesn’t recognize that he will be seeing many. many more work forces die than anyone of all time should. The military personnels have to rapidly alter from teenage jokers to work forces virtually nightlong. During combat.

Richie asks “Where the snake pit is the popcorn machine? ” ( 220 ) shows his immature personality. At the terminal of the novel. Richie realizes how hard it will be returning to the every twenty-four hours normality of his old life. He knows this during the transition “A fat adult male complained that they didn’t have the vino he wanted. We were headed back to the universe. ” ( 263 ) .

In Chapter 19. the symbolism of

the Canis familiaris ticket is revealed in a new visible radiation. Many soldiers died in a peculiar conflict and had to rapidly go forth the country because the North Vietnamese Army was hastily nearing. The soldiers were torn on what to make with the organic structures. “Make certain you get all the ticket! ” Gearhart was stating ( 215 ) . The tickets were needed to allow the households know about their son’s forfeit and give them peace cognizing they were in a better topographic point.

“He forgot the ticket. ” Gearhart said. “He left them in the hut. ” ( 217 ) . A soldier from Charlie Company accidentally left all of the Canis familiaris ticket of the dead in a hut where they could non return to.

“Not holding a organic structure in manus. non holding the exanimate signifier to direct with the flag. they would non admit that there was a decease at all” ( 217 ). The organic structures had to be burned and destroyed because if the NVA saw them they would mangle the cadavers. The Canis familiaris tickets were the last thing the households would hold been given from their boies and would hold to replace a organic structure. Richie realizes that his fallen companions won’t be recognized and their attempts and forfeit would travel unnoticed.Fallen Angels sheds a new visible radiation on the Vietnam War.

It shows the corrupt. selfish ways of the leaders. the dismaying face of adult male on adult male combat and the bond between soldiers. The fresh depicts the bond between soldiers and the sad loss of adolescence. The book was easy to read and entertaining. It

besides showed the army’s incompetency when it came to developing superior functionaries. for illustration the loss of paperwork ensuing in Richie’s war service. Walter Myers did a all right occupation of making a solid Vietnam War novel.

Get an explanation on any task
Get unstuck with the help of our AI assistant in seconds
New