Around the River Bend Essay Example
Around the River Bend Essay Example

Around the River Bend Essay Example

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Have you ever heard your mom nagging, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? Well, that’s this story’s lesson except this short story does it better. In literature, authors frequently write about one character who is looking for someone to hold responsible for all their problems. In the short story, Around the River Bend, by Sherry Garland, the narrator blames all Vietnamese for her brother’s death. Through a chance encounter with a South Vietnamese soldier, the narrator learns not to judge by appearance alone or without correct facts. This is also known as “don’t judge a book by its cover”.

In the beginning of the story, the narrator blames all Vietnamese for her brother’s death. The evidence for that is there is four times in which she refers to all Vietnam

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ese as bad people. In the prelude it states, “Soldiers from the US and South Vietnam are training at the camp. Those sounds make her think of Vietnam ----and the war that claimed her brother.” Also when she is listening to the choppers she says, “…My heart grew sick, thinking of the waste of so many lives. And for what? Some country that I never heard of? Who cares what happens to them?” When Trung reveals he is Vietnamese, she says, “You’re Vietnamese?’ I said recoiling from his hand.’ What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be out in the jungles fighting your stinking war?” Clearly she said that she hates all Vietnamese, in the beginning.

The narrator didn’t have the correct facts. She didn’t know the facts and that caused her to think that all Vietnamese are responsible for her

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brother’s death. She didn’t know the North Vietnamese were fighting the South Vietnamese. She didn’t know the whole story. She didn’t know, but when after she told her side of the story, Trung says, “All American brave….help my village build wall to keep out the North Vietnamese……My mother cook fish for soldier name Joe Bailey.” Then Trung continued to tell her, “When the North Vietnamese discover our village helped Americans, they come and kill our village leaders…… They kill my mother for feeding fish to Joe Bailey.” After Trung tells her the truth, she now knew the facts.

At the start of the story, the young narrator makes incorrect assumptions. For example, when she first saw Trung, she assumed he was American because he wore an American uniform. When he helped her up, she realized he was Asian. When she finds out Trung is Vietnamese, she got so upset, and she turned blue. Listening to Trung, she finds out that Trung, with the Americans, are fighting Northern Vietnamese. Then she realized that the South Vietnamese aren’t responsible for her brother’s death. Consequently, she learned “not to judge a book by its cover”.

In my opinion, this story teaches the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” very well. At the end of the story, the narrator learns to have facts before judging somebody or something. The narrator let emotions cloud her ability to judge. Have you ever let emotions and uneducated assumptions cloud your ability to judge?

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