The Price of War

The author uses war as a symbol of devastation that ruins the lives of everyone involved, even non-soldiers. Most of the characters are affected by the war in some capacity. However, the three most obvious groups are veterans, immigrants, and Muslim Americans.

The most obvious person to be affected by war is Skinner. As a veteran with no one to turn to, he would rather hitchhike to New York then go back home. His entire attitude and personality are linked to the war. His rudeness toward the taxi driver stems from a learned lack of care for people. His mental illness that grows throughout the book comes from the trauma of death. Even his occasional violence with Zou Lei is linked to war because of all the women he saw dead or who he killed. Almost everything about Skinner can be linked to...