Big V Essay, Research Paper

The title of this story is the Big V written by William Pelfrey. Henry Winsted was drafted to the Vietnam 3 month s after high school. When he is in the army he meets he meets a guy that turns out to be his best friend named Fai Bait. The Anachronism is henry s friend from high school that is the troop leader. Colonel Fetterman is in charged of all the troops that are going to Vietnam. Fai Bait gets transferred to Fort Polk for about six weeks and has to leave Henry. The colonel soon loses the Anachronism s troop and he later find s the Anachronism s dead body on his way to fight the Chinese. The war they have with the Chinese lasts for several hours. Colonel Fetterman finds the lost troop when he has his troop go with him when they fight the Chinese. They fight a war that no one wins. Fai Bait returns to Bangkok from Fort Polk immediately after the war is finished. When he gets there he goes straight to the colonels office to check the people that were killed in action to make sure his friends were still alive.

The three major characters witch are Henry, Fai Bait, and the Anachronism change and grow as the story progresses because they learn how to communicate with each other instead of being shy with each other and they start talking to each other about private things. They all become very good friends and realize how good of friends they are when the Anachronism dies. The characters are dominated by love with each other. They take care of one another when they need help and they have their friends come before themselves. Henry feels angry seeing Fai Bait kill the innocent people with a flash round. The subordinate characters affect the plot majorly because they get transported to different areas and separated because of there slacking off in the fields. When that happens they lose track of each other and don t see one another for a couple of weeks. Most of the characters relate with each other with out a problem for example when the Anachronism gets shot and he tells Henry how he wants to be buried face down so the whole world can kiss his butt. Fai Bait relates to colonel Fetterman with respect for example saying yes sir and no sir remarks. He doesn t show any respect to the other colonels. Henry Winsted witnesses Fai Bait kill the poor innocent Chinese with a flash round and he says, Oh I could kill him slowly for that. I would like to show him how it feels if I were to throw one at him .

The setting starts off in Fort Polk, Louisiana and ends up in Bangkok. This war takes place around in 1950. What really makes the setting authentic is how Henry explains the bushes, desert, and the rockets flying through the air. He explains it so you could visualize the war and it almost seems as you are there in person. The characters are affected by the setting because it got

them in a conscious and fearful mood. They were all uncertain that they would be able to stay alive throughout the war. The setting is shown through description when he reads out the letter that he writes to his parents and reads that he is in the middle of the jungle in monsoon season, and he can hear explosions from miles away from his bunker. It is shown through incident when they are fighting a Chinese troop and then, Henry explains how there are dozens of trees around him exploded and some on fire. Setting is shown through dialogue for example when Fi Bait is talking to colonel Fetterman and Fi Bait is telling him how the surroundings were at Belgium, like all the dead animals, dead people with no heads covered with blood, very damp, and a cloudy area. The way the setting lends mood and atmosphere to the story is because the way Henry explained to the reader that the rain is coming in so hard that it would sting when it hit you, tall jungle trees would block the sun so there was always shade, and you could smell the scent of dead bodies everywhere you walk. Fai Bait sets a well made out example when he says, You should have seen the Anachronism he had an eye ball hanging out by a socket, his face was covered with blood and twisted ankles from the impact when he hit the ground. The mood that is created for me was an angry mood because just to think that people can do that to each other.

The moral of the book is that war isn t a good thing at all. The reason the author wrote this book was probably to help him get over his bad times from the war and give the world a better picture of how dangerous the war was. The theme of this book was straight forward and common sense that war was bad. He advances his theme is by explaining the airplanes crashing down, the foxholes with dead people in them, and the dead bodies everywhere.

These soldiers fought for what they believe in and for what America believed in. The point he makes is when he say s the war is a waste of life and it stinks. The author uses the plot to prove his point to show how you had to keep your eye open for everything around you. The way he expresses it through the characters is that the characters act psycho and scared when they leave. He uses his theme to prove his point by saying war is bad.