On Distant Ground Themes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 15 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of On Distant Ground.

On Distant Ground Themes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 15 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of On Distant Ground.
This section contains 724 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the On Distant Ground Short Guide

On Distant Ground Summary & Study Guide Description

On Distant Ground Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:

This detailed literature summary also contains Related Titles on On Distant Ground by Robert Olen Butler.

Preview of On Distant Ground Summary:

Three themes are tightly entwined throughout the novel: the need to define the self when conventional sociocultural frames of reference are lost; the need to retain a sense of humanity amid the savageries of war; and the need to carry on life in the face of death.

Through flashbacks, Fleming allows the reader glimpses of his experiences as a young military intelligence officer working in and near Saigon. When one of his enlisted men, Wilson Hand, was captured, Fleming raided the location and readily killed the VC guarding the imprisoned American. Thus, as a young American officer, he did not shrink from the need for combat. In questioning prisoners, he was not above employing moderately abusive techniques to persuade people to divulge information, though he preferred to leave the harsher methods to South Vietnamese interrogators rather than use them himself. The conventions of patriotism and the U.S...

This section contains 724 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the On Distant Ground Short Guide
Copyrights
Gale
On Distant Ground from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.