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Chapter 21

Summary: Chapter 21, The Nature of the Spirit

Once again, the narrative moves back and forth in time throughout this chapter.

The violence at Thuan Yen continues until late morning when the company takes a break. PFC Richard Thinbill and Sorcerer listen to the sounds around them. Thinbill wonders why they attacked civilians. Sorcerer says he “got” two of them. Thinbill, still perturbed by the sound, which he doesn’t think will ever go away, didn’t kill anybody.

On primary night, John concedes to his opponent early on. He and Kathy, who looks radiant, eat dinner in their room with Tony. Tony wonders why John never said anything about Vietnam so they could have managed the message. When Tony says he has agreed to work for John’s opponent, Kathy leaves the room. The men drink a final scotch, and Tony confesses to fantasizing about Kathy and only sticking with the doomed campaign to be around her.

In the midafternoon, Charlie Company leaves the village and sets up in foxholes. Calley calls the villagers “gooks.” He says they followed orders to search and destroy the village. Calley implies that everyone is guilty. Later, Sorcerer joins Thinbill in his foxhole. Thinbill can’t stop seeing the carnage, at least 300 dead. He thinks it’s not possible to wash the stink off. He questions how they’ll live with what happened, but Sorcerer says to forget it all.

The next morning Charlie Company heads south. Sorcerer keeps seeing the old man he shot. Paul Meadlo steps on a mine and gets his foot blown off.

John’s father calls him Jiggling John, but all John wants is to make his father proud. John slims down once he starts growing, and the mirrors in John’s head also give him a place to hide. A loner, John occasionally gives a magic show, and the applause fills his inner emptiness. He starts spying on his father in eighth grade and learns his father’s secrets about drinking.

Charlie Company is told to return to Thuan Yen. The village reeks. Fly-covered corpses are everywhere. Calley claims the flies told him that a crime took place here. When he asks Thinbill and Sorcerer, they say they know nothing about any crime. Calley tells the men to keep quiet and then sends them to search for enemy weapons, which they fail to find. That night they sit in their foxholes outside the village. Sorcerer tries to erase the day from his thoughts. He and Thinbill discuss reporting what happened. Thinbill believes reporting what they’ve seen will help them sleep. Sorcerer starts shaking and laughing. He pictures all the death, even the old man he killed. Calley, Meadlo, and Weatherby shot so many people in a ditch that they all turned into one mushy body. Sorcerer ended up in an irrigation ditch. Sorcerer stops laughing and tries to banish his memories, including Weatherby. Sorcerer tells Thinbill he is okay now.

Analysis: Chapter 21

Chapter 21 provides more detail to show just how disturbing the massacre at Thuan Yen was, which adds to the horrific picture already painted in Chapter 13. The narrator writes of the smell of blood coming off Calley’s clothes and skin, of bodies that have been blown up or dismembered or bayoneted, of the wounds filled with so many flies that they made the corpses look like they were moving. It’s no wonder that whenever John is placed in Thuan Yen, just like in Chapter 13, the narrator refers to him as Sorcerer. This name shift represents John’s efforts to distance or dissociate himself from the events of the day.

Readers also have the chance to meet a fleshed-out version of PFC Richard Thinbill. This character was introduced to the narrative portion of the novel in Chapter 13, where Thinbill surely caught readers’ attention since he figures so uniquely in the “Evidence” chapters with his incomprehensible talk of flies. Here, in Chapter 21, Thinbill’s previous testimony begins to come together. The flies are covering the dead, creating a buzzing sound that threatens to haunt Thinbill forever. Thinbill shows himself to be a sensitive soldier, visibly reacting when Calley calls the dead “gooks,” Thinbill saying they will never be able to wash off the stink of the dead. Thinbill is also the only man willing to acknowledge that what they did in Thuan Yen was wrong, even suggesting to Sorcerer that they report the events.

Thinbill, a Chippewa, killed no one and emerges as the least culpable person in the massacre. Based on what is shared, John may be the next least guilty, with only two deaths on his head. Thinbill and even Sorcerer stand in marked contrast to Calley, however, who alone among the company seems to feel no guilt whatsoever at what he has done. Even Paul Meadlo, who in Chapter 20 claimed that every villager was the enemy, is crying by the end of the massacre.

Also included in Chapter 21 are scenes that show the fall of John’s political star. Such juxtaposition is fitting. After all, John’s murder of two people and then covering up his participation at Thuan Yen is what effectively ends his career. While John did not demonstrate the depravity of many of his fellow soldiers, he certainly did not demonstrate courage either, not during and not afterward, when he rejects Thinbill’s suggestion that they report the massacre. Thinbill’s suggestion represents the chance to become “clean,” but John feels uncomfortable with the notion of confession. John’s uncomfortable at the thought of telling the truth instead of resorting to his usual bag of tricks to revolve a situation. Telling and facing the truth is not what Sorcerer does.

The moral quandary that John faces during his conversation with Thinbill relates to the scene in the chapter that focuses on John’s transition from a husky boy teased by his father to a slim teen. This abusive treatment led John to develop the habit of retreating into his head, to the stand-up mirrors he put there. Depending on how readers look at this coping mechanism, this practice is a lifesaver or a life ender. The mirrors in John’s head are the first step toward him becoming Sorcerer. If John did not have that identity to retreat to, perhaps he would have done as Thinbill suggested and told the truth.

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