THE INFLUENCE OF THE WAR’S OPPRESSION ON THE LIFE OF A MARINE AND A WAR PHOTOGRAPHER: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ANTHONY SWOFFORD’S JARHEAD AND SCOTT ANDERSON’S TRIAGE.

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters

By

MITA SEPTIANA

Student Number: 024214094

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2006 THE INFLUENCE OF THE WAR’S OPPRESSION ON THE LIFE OF A MARINE AND A WAR PHOTOGRAPHER: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ANTHONY SWOFFORD’S JARHEAD AND SCOTT ANDERSON’S TRIAGE.

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters

By

MITA SEPTIANA

Student Number: 024214094

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2006

i A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis

THE INFLUENCE OF THE WAR’S OPPRESSION ON THE LIFE OF A MARINE AND A WAR PHOTOGRAPHER: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ANTHONY SWOFFORD’S JARHEAD AND SCOTT ANDERSON’S TRIAGE.

By

MITA SEPTIANA

Student Number: 024214094

Approved by

Dra . Sri Mulyani, M.A. December 15, 2006 Advisor

P. Sarwoto, S.S., M.A. December 15, 2006 Co-Advisor

ii A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis

THE INFLUENCE OF THE WAR’S OPPRESSION ON THE LIFE OF A MARINE AND A WAR PHOTOGRAPHER: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ANTHONY SWOFFORD’S JARHEAD AND SCOTT ANDERSON’S TRIAGE.

By

MITA SEPTIANA

Student Number: 024214094

Defended before the Board of Examiners on January 22, 2007 and Declared Acceptable

BOARD OF EXAMINERS

Name Signature

Chairman : Dr. Francis Borgias Alip, M. Pd., M.A.

Secretary : Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum.

Member : Harris Hermansyah Setiajid, S.S., M.Hum.

Member : Dra. Sri Mulyani, M.A.

Member : Paulus Sarwoto, S.S., M.A.

Yogyakarta, January 27,2007 Faculty of Letters Sanata Dharma University Dean

Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd, M.A.

iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, the writer would like to thank God that finally this undergraduate thesis is finished. Then, for my dearly loved parents and little brother for their endless helps and supports during the making process of the undergraduate thesis. In addition, the writer is grateful to have Dra. Sri Mulyani, M.A. and P. Sarwoto, S.S., M.A. as the advisor and co-advisor, and thus, would like to show my appreciation for their guidance. My special thanks go to my cousin and friends in the Faculty of Psychology for their time and patience when sharing their psychological knowledge with me. Last but not least, the writer would like to express her gratitude to everyone at the English Letters Department: the lecturers, the staff, and all of my friends for the helps, advices, as well as criticism that are surely significant in forming the writer to be a better individual. Once again, the writer would like to thank you very much.

Mita Septiana

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE ...... i APPROVAL PAGE ...... ii ACCEPTANCE PAGE ...... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... v ABSTRACT ...... vi ABSTRAK ...... vii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ...... 1 A. Background of the Study ...... 1 B. Problem Formulation ...... 4 C. Objectives of the Study ...... 4

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW ...... 5 A. Review of Related Studies...... 5 B. Review of Related Theories ...... 11 C. Theoretical Framework ...... 20

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY ...... 22 A. Object of the Study ...... 22 B. Approach of the Study ...... 23 C. Method of the Study ...... 24

CHAPTER IV THE INFLUENCE OF THE WAR’S OPPRESSION ON THE LIFE OF A MARINE AND A WAR PHOTOGRAPHER: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ANTHONY SWOFFORD’S JARHEAD AND SCOTT ANDERSON’S TRIAGE ...... 26 A. The Influence of the War’s Oppression on the Life of a War Photographer as Seen in Scott Anderson’s Triage...... 27 B. The Influence of the War’s Oppression on the Life of a Marine as Seen Through Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead ...... 45 C. The Similarities and Differences between the Influence of the War’s Oppression on the Life of a Marine and Those of a War Photographer as Seen in Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead And Scott Anderson’s Triage...... 61

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION ...... 67

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 72

APPENDICES ...... 74

v ABSTRACT

MITA SEPTIANA (2006). The Influence of the War’s Oppression on the Life of a Marine and a War Photographer: A Comparative Study of Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and Scott Anderson’s Triage. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.

The writer does a comparative study on Swofford’s Jarhead and Anderson’s Triage, particularly focusing on the main characters of both literary works, since they experience the cruelty of warfare although they are not of the same role. Within this comparative study, the writer attempts to figure out the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of actively fighting participant, like a marine and those who are not combatants, such as a war photographer. In addition, the comparative study is also intended to find similarities and differences between the two. Based on the background of the comparative study mentioned earlier, there are two main objectives in doing further analysis on the main characters of both literary works who are almost similarly affected by the oppression of war. The first is to find out the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine as seen through Swofford’s Jarhead, then those of a war photographer in Anderson’s Triage, and the last one is to comprehend how the oppression of the war affects the marine and the war photographer in similar or different ways. For the comparative study on Jarhead and Triage, the writer reads both literary works for several times to get thorough understanding on the novels. After that, the writer obtains any studies, theories, and approaches that are significant for the making of this undergraduate thesis, decides a topic, and formulates two problems to be examined further in this undergraduate thesis. In doing the analysis, the writer makes use of general psychology approaches and theories since they are of almost related psychological cases. Furthermore, because Jarhead portrays the life of a military individual, the writer applies military psychology theory to discover if the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer is similar to or different from each other. By doing deeper comparative study, the writer is able to acknowledge that for a non-combatant who has experienced the malicious warfare, like Mark, Swofford is also prone to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by showing typical indications and reactions to it, such as being in re-experiencing, avoidance, and arousal states, also reactions that cover feelings, behavior, and physical effects. Whereas for Swofford as a marine, even though there is no clear statement if he suffers from PTSD, he shares almost similar effects. He cannot avoid suffering the same states and depicting the reactions as well. Being a marine, the effects on him are quite different from Mark or other civilians in the warfare. He is likely to develop some psychiatric casualties, such as fatigue cases, confusional states, conversion hysteria, anxiety states, obsessional and compulsive states and the most distinguished one referred as Ganzer syndrome.

vi ABSTRAK

MITA SEPTIANA (2006). The Influence of the War’s Oppression on the Life of a Marine and a War Photographer: A Comparative Study of Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and Scott Anderson’s Triage. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Penulis melakukan studi banding pada Jarhead karya Swofford dan Triage karya Anderson, memfokuskan pada tokoh utama dalam kedua karya sastra karena keduanya memiliki persamaan, yaitu pernah berhadapan langsung dengan kekejaman perang walaupun peranan mereka berbeda satu sama lain. Dengan melakukan studi banding ini, penulis berusaha untuk mengetahui pengaruh perang dalam kehidupan individu yang secara aktif berperang, seperti seorang tentara dan mereka yang bukan pejuang, seperti fotografer perang. Selain itu, studi banding ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui persamaan dan perbedaan di antara keduanya. Berdasarkan pada latar belakang studi banding yang telah disebutkan sebelumnya, ada dua tujuan utama dalam melakukan analisis lebih jauh pada tokoh utama kedua karya sastra, di mana mereka terkena pengaruh perang yang tidak jauh berbeda. Pertama-tama, tujuan utama dari analisis yang mendalam ini adalah untuk megetahui pengaruh perang di kehidupan seorang tentara dalam Jarhead juga di kehidupan seorang fotografer perang dalam Triage, dan terakhir untuk memperoleh pengertian tentang bagaimana pengaruh perang dalam kehidupan keduanya dapat sama sekaligus berbeda. Dalam melakukan studi banding pada Jarhead dan Triage, penulis berulang kali membaca kedua karya sastra agar dapat memperoleh pengertian yang mendalam tentang kedua novel tersebut. Selanjutnya, penulis mengumpulkan studi, teori, maupun pendekatan yang berguna dalam pembuatan skripsi ini, menentukan sebuah topik, dan merumuskan dua permasalahan untuk diteliti lebih lanjut. Dalam melakukan analisa, penulis menerapkan teori psikologi umum karena keduanya menunjukkan kasus psikologis yang hampir serupa. Lebih lanjut, karena Jarhead meggambarkan kehidupan individu dalam militer, penulis menerapkan teori militer untuk mengetahui apakah pengaruh perang dalam kehidupan tentara serupa atau berbeda dari fotografer perang. Setelah melakukan analisis, penulis mampu menyatakan bahwa seseorang yang bukan pejuang tetapi pernah memiliki pengalaman dengan kekejaman perang seperti Mark, juga cenderung mengalami tekanan pasca kejadian traumatik (PTSD). Ia menunjukkan gejala maupun reaksi khas, seperti dalam keadaan re- experiencing dan avoidance, juga reaksi yang berhubungan dengan perasaan, tingkah laku, dan pengaruh fisik. Sedangkan Swofford sebagai seorang tentara, ia juga terkena pengaruh yang tidak jauh berbeda, seperti mengalami keadaan dan bereaksi yang serupa dengan Mark. Seperti individu lain dalam militer, ia menunjukkan pengaruh yang berbeda dari Mark atau warga sipil lainnya dalam perang, yaitu pengaruh kejiwaan, misal kelelahan, kebingungan, kecenderungan serupa dengan gangguan syaraf, kecemasan, terobsesi secara berlebihan, dan satu ciri khas, yaitu Ganzer syndrome.

vii 1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Literary works can be perceived as means of communication between the authors and the readers. Through literary works, the authors are able to communicate their idea, feeling, thought, argument, or opinion toward certain issues or happenings in society based on their own or others’ experiences.

A work of art is essentially the internal made external, resulting from a creative process operating under the impulse of feeling, and embodying the combined product of the poet’s perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. The primary source and subject matter of a poem, therefore, are the attributes and actions of the poet’s own mind; or if aspects of the external world, then these only as they are converted from fact to poetry by the feelings and operations of the poet’s mind (Abrams, 1979:22).

In this undergraduate thesis, the writer chooses two literary works and both were written based on the authors’ own experiences in facing the cruelty of wars.

Both literary works to be analyzed further do have a main theme in common, which presents individuals struggle, physically and mentally, in certain context of wars and how they are likely to carry the effects of once or several times being truly experienced the wars themselves later in their life, outside the context of wars. The influence of war’s oppression, for those common people, are often generalized as having the same so-called effects, such as excessively stressed that sooner or later might turn into insanity, having rude and weird behavior, regardless of their roles or positions in the wars themselves. 2

Based on the field of study that is related to physical as well as mental influence of certain disastrous happening, like war for instance, we are able to psychologically analyze that the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of those who experience it can cause different effects and reactions depend on how far individuals involve themselves in the context of wars. Some of the people actively take part in the wars because they are soldiers fighting for their country and protecting the innocent people from the enemies’ attack. The rest is usually simply divided into two groups, namely those who are active not in a way of fighting, but because of certain jobs require them so, and those who are nothing but simply ordinary people trapped in the war situation.

Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead, for instance, is an autobiographical literary work that portrays the chronicle of a U.S. Marine who experienced the harshness of the first Gulf War. Through Jarhead, the chronicle of a U.S. Marines is depicted in details – how they face the everyday fear and uncertainty during the war, how they react to the war’s oppression imposed on them, and how the war’s oppression gives greater influence on life outside the war discourse. Since the characters on Jarhead are U.S. Marines who are certainly active in the war discourse – fighting for the sake of their beloved country and the needy, it is worth noting that those are simple things that cannot be taken for granted, accepted as it is. It is a phenomenon that can be psychologically revealed even through trifles, such as marines’ daily typical jargons, their seemingly rude behavior, and from the general influence of war’s oppression we, as common people, already know. 3

On the other hand, Scott Anderson’s Triage is analyzed as a kind of “foil” for

Jarhead in a way it depicts the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of semi-active war participant. In Triage, the main character is a war photographer who, like marines, also faces the reality of war discourse, but he positions himself differently from the marines. He is active in taking photographs of any interesting and valuable moments during the war discourse but it is a must for him to stay neutral, without supporting any sides. As a war photographer, he has seen what marines had seen even often treated no different from marines or enemies.

In a glance, it seems that the influence of the war’s oppression is all the same, whether it is on the life of marines, war photographers, or any other people in war discourse but actually, using psychological approach, it is possible to figure out the difference of the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of individuals based on their role on the war discourse (the way they adjust to war) and how they react to the influence itself. Referring to what has been mentioned before, the writer decided to do a comparative study on Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and

Scott Anderson’s Triage in terms of analyzing the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer since both main characters of the analyzed literary works experienced the harsh world of war discourse actively but the characters had different role in the war, they have to undergo the influence of the war’s oppression in a slightly different way. 4

B. Problem Formulation

In analyzing the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer as seen in Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and Scott Anderson’s

Triage, there are two questions formulated as problems to be analyzed further, namely:

1. What is the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine as seen

through Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and on the life of a war photographer in

Scott Anderson’s Triage?

2. How is the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine similar to

or different from the influence on a war photographer’s life?

C. Objectives of the Study

A comparative study on Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and Scott Anderson’s

Triage will be made in order to analyze the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer. Since the study is a comparative one, this undergraduate thesis will cover two main objectives, namely to find out the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine as seen through Anthony

Swofford’s Jarhead and on the life of a war photographer in Scott Anderson’s

Triage and finally to understand how the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer is similar to or different from one another.

5

CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL REVIEW

A. Review of Related Studies

Since Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and Scott Anderson’s Triage, looking through the year of the writing and first publication, can be included as 20th century literary works, there are not many studies done on both literary works.

However, there are some reviews and studies found on the Internet that commented on Jarhead and Triage.

Review found on Anderson’s Triage was by Valerie Sutherland, entitled

”Scott Anderson’s Triage Looks at The Paradoxes and The Traumas of War.” As it is suggested by the title, Sutherland focuses the review on discussing essential points on Triage which depict the common effects of the warfare and paradoxes created by the warfare itself.

Commenting on the paradoxes of war discourse, Sutherland states that the central characters on Triage, Mark, Dr. Morales, and Dr. Talzani, who are all categorized as “peripheral participants” in the war discourse, share similar burden.

This burden is not a matter of clash between armies or ideologies, but it is related to their responsibilities and their survivor status.

A pivotal image in Triage is the paradox of the healer who kills. Dr Talzani in Kurdistan and Dr Morales in Spain both carry guns and use them to hasten the end for ‘incurables.’ By framing the story of Mark Walsh's psychological collapse and journey back to health between these two occurrences, author Scott Anderson has focused his discourse on the casualties of war on the related concepts of survival and responsibility. Viewed from the perspective of the peripheral participant, whether it be medico or photographer, war loses its historical 6

dimension. For Morales, Talzani and Mark, the experience of war is not a conflict between ideologies or empires or even armies''. For them it has become a confrontation with their own individual sense of responsibility. Each has to delve into his conscience and find the strength to hasten the death of people damaged beyond repair. The two doctors understand their actions as morally responsible ones, albeit marked by guesswork as to who should be chosen to die. Talzani is practicing euthanasia, Morales is protecting the community (http://www.education.theage.com.au/pagedetail.asp?intpageid=97&strs ection=students&intsectionid=3).

Furthermore, she explains about war’s oppression traumas undergone by the main character on Triage, Mark. In her opinion, his traumas during a tedious healing process of post-traumatic stress disorder still have connection with the sense of responsibility for being the sole survivor, and later this might create denial of the truth, sense of alienation, and also irrational obsession. All of these, for instance, are shown by Mark’s condition after being several times “involved” in war discourse. Witnessing his close friend dying horribly and then finally dies, he unconsciously starts to create seemingly convincing situation in which his friend is still alive and would come home soon. Mark even worsens his trauma not only by denying the truth, but he also becoming obsessed with Perez’s problem, which has nothing to do with his own business. By shifting his attention to another unrelated problem, he hopes that it would act as a kind of payment for his denial of the horrible and unbearable facts.

In a literal sense Mark is responsible for Colin’s death and the weight of the responsibility almost breaks him. Just as the weight of Colin’s body almost pins him to the bottom of the river, the burden of the guilt he feels almost locks him into a dangerous alienation from his familiar world, bringing him close to insanity. Mark’s guilt does not stem only from the fact that he loosened the tourniquets on Colin’s legs, he is also suffering the ‘guilt of the survivor’, the sense that one has no right to be alive when others, or one particular other, has died… Although the younger Perez believes his father to have been an evil man, he is still driven to know 7

‘what happened to him’ Mark has denied Diane this knowledge about Colin and tries to compensate through finding the truth about ‘the butcher of Olia’ (http://www.education.theage.com.au/pagedetail.asp?intpageid=97&strs ection=students&intsectionid=3).

Since the thesis is a comparative one, besides review on Triage, the writer also puts some reviews on Jarhead into use. One of the reviews on Jarhead, for instance, is by Sam Williamson. In general, he comments more on Swofford’s failure in depicting positive sides of the U.S. Marines. The memoir might depict true portrayal of the marines’ everyday situation during the course of war, but logically Jarhead is exaggeratedly written. For instance, the simple scene about

Swofford and his weapon.

Some of this is due to some obvious exaggerations that Swofford worked into his stories, all of which seemed unnecessary. For example, at one point Swofford says that he's "been in the Marine Corps less than two years, and I've probably performed this one act, assembling the M16, more than ten thousand times." But that can't be true; it would mean that he assembled his M16 over 15 times every single day of those two years. Even averaging breaking down a weapon one time a day would seem high; though there would doubtless be days where a Marine broke down his weapon multiple times, there would also be many days where the weapons sat in the armory unused (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/books/reviews/20030418_williamson.html).

Almost similar tone to those of Williamson’s is presented by Mick LaSalle, a

Chronicle movie critic on the movie based on Swofford’s memoir, Jarhead, entitled “A Soldier’s Story that’s Full of Blood and Guts – but No Heroics”.

Since the movie, as well as the book, is portrayed from one man’s experience, it does not cover the entire truth about war. Its extent is limited. In spite of its limited extent, LaSalle states that Jarhead has the ring of truth and shows us things we have not seen, that no one would or could make up. In his opinion, 8

Swofford exemplifies the ring of truth by portraying a disappointed sniper who is not allowed to satisfy his lust to kill just because the order has changed. In addition to that, there is another encouraging point about Jarhead.

The great virtue of "Jarhead," which some will mistake as a fault, is that it doesn't try to make sense of it. Neither does it try to make something senseless of it. The invigorating thing about "Jarhead" is it makes us encounter the truth in its undigested form (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi).

What he means of “the truth in its undigested form” here is Swofford, in fact, is trying to illustrate that those who join the Marines have their yearn for killing since the very first time they are pinched into military life. Therefore, “Their blood lust is not a matter of swagger, not a matter of hardening themselves for the inevitable unpleasantness” (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi). In short, based on LaSalle’s review of Jarhead, it is likely to say that Jarhead is lack of heroic aspects generally shown by Marines. Instead, it is only “A soldier's story that's full of blood and guts” (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi).

Watching Jarhead, as well as peering trough all pages of Anthony Swofford’s honest memoir about his experiences in the military and during the Gulf War, it is likely to assume that Jarhead is all about war and marine, soldierly stuffs.

According to Stephanie Zacharek in her study about Jarhead, although the movie is known for the true visualization of Swofford’s memoir, the movie is slightly different from the book. She states that the result of reshaping process of the adapted text gives contribution to the deceptiveness of Jarhead as a motion picture version. The movie is “antiwar and anti-soldier” in a way the director tends to create his own art of showing things that are opposed to what most of war 9

movies have been depicted so far. Therefore, the movie ultimately degrades the intricacies of the original text.

And while every filmmaker has the right to shape (and sometimes reshape) the text he's adapting, the difference between Swofford's account of the assault and Mendes' dramatization of it encapsulates everything that's specious about the movie "Jarhead." Swofford's book is both funnier and more horrifying than the movie Mendes has made from it, and he makes no bones about how messed up (by civilian standards, at least), the U.S. Marine Corps is. But his book also addresses a world of greater complexities, and at the very least, it's ultimately about soldiers -- in other words, people. Mendes doesn't care about people -- he's too busy making his art. And with "Jarhead" he pulls off, effortlessly, what so many pro- and antiwar individuals since Vietnam have tried so conscientiously to avoid: His movie is antiwar and anti-soldier (http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/review/2005/11/04/jarhead/index.ht ml?CP=IMD&DN=110).

Besides commenting on the movie that is, in her opinion, only pleasing the director’s personal aim, she also takes her stance on the more interesting points

Swofford tries to portray on his book, such as some positive notions about being a marine and involved in military life that might not be consciously realized.

We can cluck cluck over the U.S. war machine, professing to feel the pain of the poor innocents forced to participate in such cruelty, without ever acknowledging that the guys who join that "war machine" often get something more from it than just a cruel induction into real manhood. As Swofford points out in his book, the military offers a kind of secure domesticity, and there's certainly a sense of community (http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/review/2005/11/04/jarhead/index.ht ml?CP=IMD&DN=110).

Not only does the book depict the positive sides about marines and military life, but it also presents different way of thinking. For instance, rather than simply perceiving that marines are a group of young men in gallant manner, it is wise to acknowledge that they are actually real representation of our authority’s weaknesses. 10

Mendes means to suggest, I think, that the flawed, reckless Marines we've gotten to know in his movie are exactly the people we've sent out to fight our current war: They may be brave kids, doing their duty, but they're really not very smart, and it's our government's fault for sending them out that way (http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/review/2005/11/04/jarhead/index.ht ml?CP=IMD&DN=110).

From many reviews on Jarhead mentioned earlier, all of them discuss the crucial matter in Jarhead only from the surface. None of them relates his review with psycological aspect which is actually also significant to be discussed. Among those only-external reviews on Jarhead, there is a review done by William

Arnold, a Seattle Post intelligencer movie critic that is related to psychological aspect, entitled “'Jarhead' Sends A Powerful Message about War's Psychological

Toll”. In his review, he believes that Jarhead is unlike most of famous war movies ever made. Within its limitation, Jarhead can be inferred as a non-political movie. Being a non-political one, Jarhead is more focusing on the human psychological aspect, especially in the term of war discourse.

For a movie that deals so boldly with the roots of our current, controversial war in Iraq, it's also surprisingly apolitical. It keeps its point of view narrow, its characters clueless and any moral reservations close to its vest. And yet it's a powerful experience that measures the human cost of its war -- and all war, really -- less in terms of battlefield statistics than in the subtle, degenerative psychological effect that it sends rippling through a generation and a society (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/movies/247017_jarhead04q.html).

Arnold sums up his review by saying that Jarhead is an impressive movie in a way it brings back our consciousness that the echoes of war still can be felt not only during the event, but it is also possible to take place again later regardless of time and space. 11

But the sum of the movie is devastating. One takes out of it a sense that the human cost of our endless adventure in Iraq is going to be incalculable, perhaps catastrophic -- a psychological time bomb that will be exploding for decades to come (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/movies/247017_jarhead04q.html).

Referred to all reviews of related studies done on Jarhead and Triage mentioned before, most of them only external ones, the writer decides to do further analysis on the psychological effects seen in characters in both novels who are involved in the war discourse. The analysis is intended to support the comparative study on the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer in Jarhead and Triage.

B. Review of Related Theories

1. PTSD Symptoms

In doing the analysis on the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer in Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and Scott

Anderson’s Triage. since the study is aimed at analyzing certain characteristic of individual’s mental or behavioral, the writer applies theories on psychology, focusing on post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. First, we have to know what post-trauma stress means.

At its simplest it can be defined as ‘the normal reactions of normal people to events that for them are unusual or abnormal (Parkinson, 2000:29).

As we all know that every happening has its own cause and effect, the same thing also applied to the case of post-trauma stress. In discussing post-trauma stress, it cannot be separated from detecting its specific symptoms. The symptoms 12

generally divided into three kinds, which are re-experiencing, avoidance, and arousal (Parkinson, 2000:52-62).

a. Re-experiencing

What it means by re-experiencing here is that any feeling or emotion felt not only during the time of traumatic event or shortly afterwards, but it is common to be felt again after years of the experience. The sensational feeling or emotion might be varied from only serene to intensely disturbing one, and it usually comes when we are not prepared to anticipate it. The sense of re-experiencing can be unconsciously jumped out of the repressed mind because of both external and internal cause. As a result, this thing can directly cause another common reaction to follow.

These feelings can be ‘triggered’ by sights (TV, video, media, news items, movies, photographs, people, talking about it), and by sounds, smells, tastes, and touch… They can be extremely frightening, and the fear of losing control or going crazy is not unusual… This can lead people to practice avoidance or isolation (Parkinson, 2000:53).

It is much more understandable that certain external cause contributes to the sense of re-experiencing certain traumatic event, but it is more complicated when it comes to our own internal feeling or emotion. Yet, it is possible to occur.

These experiences are sometimes referred to as flashbacks, but they could equally well be called flash-forwards. They can emerge gradually or suddenly from our unconscious. They not only seem to take us right back to the event, but also can bring the feelings and emotions-even sights, smells and sounds associated with it-into the present (Parkinson, 2000:55).

13

b. Avoidance

Being traumatized by certain horrible experience will definitely forces us to be cautious not to be trapped in the same situation again. One simple way that most people do is detaching themselves as far as possible from potential remembrances.

Similarly, when we have experienced a traumatic incident, we may try to avoid anything that reminds us of the circumstances, such as places, people, pictures, or other things that might bring the memories and feelings back into our minds (Parkinson, 2000:56).

Avoidance is fairly acceptable to both major and minor incidents, but actually it tends to build other complicated forms that are related to one another, such as continuously denying the fact and unconsciously drawing self from our surrounding.

A common response to trauma is denial. This response is actually a form of avoidance, especially among men… I might join a support group or club and cling to something, to someone, to a memory…Through this experience I am at risk of becoming more isolated and lonely…(Parkinson, 2000:56-59).

c. Arousal

Besides feeling the sense of re-experiencing and practicing avoidance, any human being who has been experiencing traumatic event might be awakened by arrangement of unpredicted responses.

Because a traumatic incident sensitizes the nervous system, other symptoms may arise. A traumatic event can make us touchy and jumpy, and our reactions can be erratic and unexpected (Parkinson, 2000:60).

Similar to PTSD symptoms explained before, excessive arousal or self- consciousness might lead to difficulty in facing reality and self-withdrawal. Those are all typical in the case of PTSD. 14

An overstimulated sense of awareness and arousal can lead to an incapacity to cope with normal events and experiences and a retreat into isolation. There can be outburst of anger between bouts of silence and a withdrawal into self. (Parkinson, 2000:61)

Interestingly, there is a unique characteristic that makes arousal different from other PTSD symptoms, which is called replacement behavior.

Another sign of this increased sense of arousal can be the desire to do things on impulse without knowing why… Some people will spend vast sums of money on things they don’t need, change their lifestyle or relationships and do things they have never done before (Parkinson, 2000:61).

2. PTSD Reactions

After knowing the kind of PTSD symptoms, there are several common reactions that are often found in the case of PTSD. These common reactions covered feelings, behavior, and physical effects of the person traumatized by certain incident (Parkinson, 2000:64-71).

a. Feelings

There are many and various emotions emerged after certain traumatic happening, such sense of pointlessness and increase of anxiety and vulnerability.

A person who is traumatized usually shows that there is no point of living his life back to normal. Of course, it would intensify sadness or creating more excessive fear and panic that would even lead us to “a descent into apathy and inactivity”

(Parkinson, 2000:64).

Furthermore, intrusive images and thoughts are likely to appear although sometimes the projection made by our minds is irrelevant to actual traumatic happening. 15

People can see images of the event flashing into their minds, or these can be projected outside… and even experience smells and sounds that remind them of the event… The images can be disturbing because sometimes they seem to bear no relation to what we have been through (Parkinson, 2000:64).

As it is stated before, the flashing images can be disturbing. Being realized or not, those disturbing images cannot be repressed forever into the depth of our minds. There are times when they need to emerge in the forms of nightmares and sleep disturbances.

If I have intrusive thoughts and images, and especially if I refuse to acknowledge how I really feel, then these thoughts can also be experienced in dreams and nightmares (Parkinson, 2000:65).

Another noticeable reaction related to feeling and emotion is the mixture of uncertain feelings. This mixture of uncertain feeling usually involved feeling of anger, blame, guilt, regret, shame, and bitterness. These feelings are unavoidable especially when we survive while others do not from a traumatic incident. It is common to be referred as survivor guilt. Having developed sense of survivor guilt, we are likely to segregate ourselves from any remembrance or anything that might awaken the guilt itself. As a result of the detachment, loneliness and social isolation are likely to follow.

These feelings may cause people to avoid those who have suffered a loss, behavior for which they feel even more intense guilt. Some people retreat into social isolation and loneliness (Parkinson, 2000:67).

Finally, there is also no guilt in being afraid that the traumatic incident might take place again later regardless of the chance of happening as long as it does not bother our normal life.

This is a natural, normal reaction, because if something has happened to me once, it can happen again, even if the possibility is fairly remote… 16

There is nothing wrong even with this unless it becomes incapacitating or so disturbing we can no longer cope with it (Parkinson, 2000:68).

b. Behavior

Not only do our feelings react to traumatized event, but we also react by showing some typical behavior that might be contradictory to our usual behavior.

For instance, if making decision is a thing to be proud of from us, traumatic happening is likely to torn it apart.

When you have been through a traumatic experience the simple and ordinary things of life pale when compared with what has been experienced… The effect on people who were once decisive and direct may be that they now find it hard to make decisions or know what to do (Parkinson, 2000:69).

In addition to difficulty in making decisions, people traumatized by certain incident are often found to be difficult to focus on things and thus, they are easily annoyed - get angry and sometimes tend to be violence for no apparent reason.

Some find it difficult to concentrate for any length of time and become irritable. An inability to concentrate can lead to more irritability and anger…There may even be violence… (Parkinson, 2000:69).

c. Physical Effects

People who have been through a certain incident might get injured by the event, be it major or only minor injuries. The wounds might be apparent, in this case real ones, or only as creation of a hypochondriac.

A traumatic event may trigger illnesses of a nonspecific nature, such as headaches, stomachaches, pains or tightness in the chest and various pains in other parts of the body… The symptoms may be real or imagined… (Parkinson, 2000:70).

Besides real or imaginative illnesses, there are physical effects seen as parts of

PTSD that actually contrast to each other. Some people seem to affect much by 17

traumatic incident that they are experiencing what they called listlessness while the rests become hyperactive and full of excitement whether it is useful or not.

Some complain of never having any energy, of being tired all the time…The opposite of listlessness can occur. Some become greatly excited and hyperactive, often with no real aim in life, but may become involved in… anything that takes their energy or activity (Parkinson, 2000:71).

3. Psychiatric Casualties (based on Military Psychology)

After knowing the definition, typical characteristics, and symptoms of PTSD, we will use another theory in psychology that is usually applied to the military life. Therefore, the psychological study related to military life is often referred as military psychology. In military psychology, it is common for those involved in military life to suffer from psychiatric casualties. Even, the opportunity of undergoing those casualties is likely to be bigger than to be executed by our foes.

Richard Gabriel tells us that in every war … the chances of becoming a psychiatric casualty – of being debilitated for some period of time as a consequence of the stresses of military life – were greater than the chances of being killed by enemy fire (Grossman, 1995:43).

Additionally, still quoting from Gabriel’s No More Heroes, Grossman explains the various visible expressions shown by these common casualties most soldiers suffer from, such as fatigue cases, confusional states, conversion hysteria, anxiety states, obsessional and compulsive states, and character disorders

(Grossman, 1995:45-48).

a. Fatigue Cases

Even for those who are involved in military life, physically strong is never enough because they also, like others human being, tend to feel consumed by 18

exhaustion or weariness that sooner or later will affect to the degeneration of their performance in their daily military life.

Increasingly sociable and overly irritable, the soldier loses interest in all activities with comrades and seeks to avoid any responsibility or activity involving physical or mental efforts… There will also be such somatic symptoms as hypersensitivity to sound, increased sweating, and palpitations (Grossman, 1995:45).

b. Confusional States

The initial symptoms known as fatigue cases will create more complex problem that makes soldiers gradually no longer take hold of the logical truth or reality as a form of their incapability to adjust with the surroundings.

Usually, the soldier no longer knows who he is or where he is. Unable to deal with his environment, he has mentally removed himself from it. Symptoms include delirium, psychotic dissociation, and manic- depressive mood swings (Grossman, 1995:45).

In psychological study, typical symptoms mentioned before are not impossible to develop Ganzer syndrome that we often found in daily military life regardless of the danger surrounds and is waiting for them.

One often noted response is Ganzer syndrome, in which the soldier will begin to make jokes, act silly, and otherwise try to ward off the horror with humor and the ridiculous (Grossman, 1995:45).

c. Conversion Hysteria

This alteration does not only take place during conflict but it also likely to continue years after the incident happened. It also important to acknowledge that this conversion hysteria can lead to some sudden and uncontrolled contraction of muscles.

Conversion hysteria… as an inability to know where one is or to function at all… Upon occasion the soldier becomes amnesiatic, blocking out large parts of his memory. Often, hysteria degenerates into 19

convulsive attacks in which the soldier rolls into the fetal position and begins to shake violently (Grossman, 1995:46).

d. Anxiety States

If weariness felt by the soldier reaches its peak, it is common that the soldier becomes difficult to focus on things, excessively frightened, obsessed with fatality, and endure some mental and physical illnesses. Besides that, the soldier is also potential to suffer from PTSD.

These states are characterized by feelings of total weariness and tenseness… degenerating into an inability to concentrate... Ultimately the soldier becomes obsessed with death and the fear… Frequently anxiety is accompanied by shortness of breath, weakness, pain, blurred vision, giddiness, vasomotor abnormalities, and fainting (Grossman, 1995:47).

e. Obsessional and Compulsive States

These states are actually almost similar to those of conversion hysteria cases except that a person who experience this state is aware of “the morbid nature of his symptoms and that his fears are at their root” (Grossman, 1995:47), although some physical expressions shown are beyond our control. These will cause further escape mechanism.

Even so, his tremors, palpitations, stammers, tics, and so on cannot be controlled. Eventually the soldier is likely to take refuge in some type of hysterical reaction that allows him to escape physic responsibility for his physical symptoms (Grossman, 1995:47).

f. Character Disorder

In this state, the soldier usually has compelling motivation on particular craze or deed that shortly will impinge on the change of someone’s character. For 20

instance, he might turn into a paranoid, schizophrenic, epileptic, and eventually becomes a psychotic victim.

Character disorders include obsessional trait in which the soldier becomes fixated on certain actions or things; paranoid trends accompanied by irascibility, depression, and anxiety… schizoid trends leading to hypersensitivity and isolation; epileptoid…accompanied by periodic rages…and finally degeneration into a psychotic personality (Grossman, 1995:48).

C. Theoretical Framework

Like what has been explained earlier, the writer decided to do further study on the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer as seen in Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and Scott Anderson’s

Triage. In doing further study on the topic, the writer considers psychological study is exactly appropriate in giving account for the study related to certain mental or behavioral of human being case. Similar to other fields of studies, psychology is further grouped into several branches based on its specific study.

The study done in this undergraduate thesis is purposely related to the psychological effects undergone by the characters in Jarhead and Triage in term of war discourse. Consequently, the writer applies some theories on post- traumatic stress disorder or PTSD in analyzing the psychological effects regardless of their account in the war discourse whether they are active participants or only peripheral ones because the psychological effects on certain individual who has experienced shocking and unexpected incident is generally similar – the typical symptoms and reactions are all the same. 21

Even though the symptoms and reactions are of no difference whether in active or peripheral individual who is exposed to traumatic happening, the explanation for those cases is slightly different when we refer to military individual as an active participant. Considering the difference, the writer also puts theories on another branch of psychology known as military psychology into use in doing further analysis on the study of the influence of the war’s oppression, especially on the life of a marine in Swofford’s Jarhead. The application of military psychology study gives significant contribution to this undergraduate thesis in a way it reveals thorough understanding on how the oppression of war seriously affects military individual physically and mentally.

By working on the more certain focused aspects on psychological study, in this case post-traumatic stress disorder and military psychology analysis, the comparative study of Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and Scott Anderson’s Triage on the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer will be more reasonable and trustworthy.

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CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

A. Object of the Study

The literary work to be analyzed in this undergraduate thesis is Anthony

Swofford’s autobiography, especially focusing on his own experience as a U.S.

Marine scout/sniper during the First Gulf War, entitled Jarhead. The writer chooses the recent edition of Jarhead published by Pocket Books of USA in

October 2005. In addition, the writer also makes use of the 1999 publication of

Scott Anderson’s Triage by Pan Books in Great Britain because it gives account for the comparative study in this undergraduate thesis.

In spite of endless controversies on Jarhead, British movie director, Sam

Mendes chose to visualize it into a movie, starring many talented actors, such as

Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Lucas Black, Chris Cooper, and Jamie Foxx.

The successfulness in making Jarhead as a new genre of war movie brings it to be worth of several cinematic award nominations for Art Directors Guild, Satellite

Awards, and Visual Effects Society Awards (http://www.imdb.com/).

Jarhead presents a U.S. marine’s struggle, mentally as well as physically, to mange his everyday fear towards the uncertainty of the wars, especially the first

Gulf War in Kuwait in which he is compulsorily engaged. Whereas Triage depicts the traumatic experiences of an American war photographer for being exposed many times to the cruelty of war, including its aftermath.

23

B. Approach of the Study

In doing the comparative study between Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and Scott

Anderson’s Triage, particularly focusing on the analysis of the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer, the writer applies psychological approach. The writer uses the application of psychological approach because this undergraduate thesis is meant to analyze literary works through the lens of psychology.

Referring to Guerin’s A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, the psychological approach in studying literature focuses on either the psychological motivations of the characters in the literary works or might be of the authors. In analyzing the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer as seen in Swofford’s Jarhead and Anderson’s Triage, the writer looks more at the psychological motivations of the main characters who are considered to be having almost similar cases which is psychologically influenced by the wars’ oppression. Furthermore, in order to be specific, the writer puts

Jungian approach into use. Unlike Freudian approach, Jungian approach concerns deeper on the process of finding out why certain individual is not similar to others, known as individuation. In individuation, Jung divided self into three parts. First is the unconscious self or the darker where individual’s unconscious memories and experiences lie. Above the unconscious self is persona or social personality of certain individual and the last one is anima or “soul image”. Among the three, persona is the most essential part in balancing individual’s psyche components. If there is a failure in absorbing the unconscious components, a 24

neurosis is likely to occur. According to Merriam Webster’s 11th Collegiate

Dictionary, neurosis is explained as follow.

A mental and emotional disorder that affects only part of the personality, is accompanied by a less distorted perception of reality than in a psychosis, does not result in disturbance of the use of language, and is accompanied by various physical, physiological, and mental disturbances (as visceral symptoms, anxieties, or phobias) (Webster, 2004:834).

As seen in both literary works, the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer is closely related to the process of individuation and thus account for further and thorough analysis in this undergraduate thesis.

C. Method of the Study

In doing the comparative study on the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer as seen in Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and Scott Anderson’s Triage, the writer did a library research and to complete the the data needed in the analysis, the writer also made use of Internet research.

Since the study is not a field research, the writer used Anthony Swofford’s

Jarhead and Scott Anderson’s Triage as primary texts. In addition to those primary texts, Guerin’s A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature,

Parkinson’s Post-Trauma Stress, and Grossman’s On Killing: The Psychological

Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society were also put into use, especially in account for the approaches and theories applied in this undergraduate thesis. Not only did the writer refer to books mentioned before, but the writer also referred to several reviews and studies made on Jarhead and Triage, such as Sutherland’s

”Scott Anderson’s Triage Looks at The Paradoxes and The Traumas of War”, 25

Arnold’s “'Jarhead' Sends A Powerful Message about War's Psychological Toll”, and other related reviews to support the analysis as well as to differ the study from common studies that have been done before.

In doing the analysis, the writer began with reading Swofford’s Jarhead and

Anderson’s Triage to get the main or general idea of both literary works. The writer did the reading process for several times in order to deepen the understanding about the analyzed literary works. After that, the writer obtained related studies, approaches, and theories needed to support the analysis, studied the data thoroughly, and considered an appropriate topic for the undergraduate thesis. The next step was that the writer created two questions as the problem formulations to be analyzed further in the analysis and applied the approaches as well as theories gained to answer the problem formulations. In applying the significant approaches and theories, firstly, the writer related the general psychological approaches and theories on psychology to both literary works because they were of almost similar psychological cases. Then, for the analysis on

Jarhead, the writer focused more on the theory of military psychology since the analysis done also involved the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a military person, of a marine. The writer considered the application of more specific psychology theories, such as the theories on military psychology, because it gave important contribution for the finding on similarities and differences of the influence of the war’s oppression between those happened in a marine and in a war photographer’s life.

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CHAPTER IV

THE INFLUENCE OF THE WAR’S OPPRESSION ON THE LIFE OF A

MARINE AND A WAR PHOTOGRAPHER: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

OF ANTHONY SWOFFORD’S JARHEAD AND SCOTT ANDERSON’S

TRIAGE

Reading Jarhead and Triage, we could generally perceive that both literary works presented similar common issue, which is the influence of certain happenings on the life of the people who have undergone them, in this case the experience for being affected psychologically by the oppression of war.

Basically, the oppression of war could be felt not only by those who are actively participate in it, but those who are peripheral participants or just simply present at the wrong place and time might undergo similar problems. Because of that reason, the writer will make thorough analysis to answer the two problems formulations stated earlier in the first chapter. The analysis will be divided into three subchapters. In the first subchapter, the writer will discuss the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a war photographer as seen in Scott Anderson’s

Triage. For the second subchapter, the writer will do the analysis on the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine as seen through Anthony

Swofford’s Jarhead. Lastly, in the third subchapter, the writer will put together both analysis in the two previous subchapters to find the similarities and differences between the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and those of a war photographer as seen in both literary works. 27

A. The Influence of the War’s Oppression on the Life of a War

Photographer as Seen in Scott Anderson’s Triage

One of the main characters in Anderson’s Triage, Mark Walsh, is an

American war photographer who has witnessed the cruelty of wars, including its participants and victims, during his duty. One of the most traumatic warfare he has ever experienced is being in the middle of battle life in Kurdistan, where he begins forcefully accustomed with the so-called “ritual” of triage. Being wounded and formerly fell unconscious, he has no idea at all when he suddenly finds himself in a room among other wounded men.

A long barrow room lit by kerosene lanterns. A Pesh Merga barracks with men lying in army cots… The aisle between the rows crowded with men sitting cross-legged, leaning their backs on the cot frames (1999:14).

Although Mark does not suffer badly from physical injuries and does not have to be killed to “end his suffering”, his psychological condition is worsened by continuous indications leading to post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD that has its root on the oppression of war he faced earlier where he also captured horrific sights and made his living out of it. From reading Scott Anderson’s Triage, we are able to perceive that one of the main characters, Mark Walsh, is suffering from

PTSD from Joaquin’s remark after he asks Mark to tell him some war stories he had been through.

Post-traumatic stress disorder. The person has experienced an event that is outside the range of usual human experience and that would be markedly distressing to almost anyone (1999:123).

28

Actually, without Joaquin’s remark about a common consequence of the oppression of war on Mark, from the beginning, we are capable of fact that he suffers from it because he noticeably signifies some typical PTSD symptoms.

Mark starts to show typical indications leading to PTSD when he is moved to a ward where not-seriously-wounded men rest until they are fully recovered.

Although he does not directly witness it, he is in the state of re-experiencing the deadly part of Kurdish doctor’s triage, the killing of the incurables, from the familiar sounds he hears. His reaction to the sounds is serene, but it causes mental pang on him. It is shown from his reluctance to open his eyes even though he is not able to witness the triage process. Later on, reflexively, other re-experiencing states give account for greater contribution to the endurance of PTSD.

In late afternoon, he heard the sound rise within the cave… The prayers of the men in recovery grew louder. Mark closed his eyes. The report of a gunshot. Mark twitched but kept his eyes shut. Four or five minutes later, another shot. Then another. Another. After the last one, Mark opened his eyes and stared into the reed roof (1999:19-20).

The state of re-experiencing Mark has undergone is not only awakened by triggered sound of gunshots performed by Dr. Talzani in order to end the suffering of wounded men who were given blue tags, but there are other times when Mark’s psychological condition clearly shows further indications of typical post-traumatic stress symptoms, such as continuous flashbacks of shocking and usually painful past experiences, for being face to face with the oppression of wars, detachment from anything that brings his memory back to traumatic happening he has ever experienced, and much worsened by inability to cope with 29

reality then unconsciously performing self-withdrawal from his usual surroundings.

There are several moments when Mark’s thought keeps on flashing back to past events during his stay in Kurdistan, mostly those that emotionally stir him up.

For instance, when in one Saturday morning, Mark and Elena are going to the

Cloisters. After taking pleasure in enjoying the inside of Cloisters, Elena comes to

Mark who is standing alone at the promontory near Hudson River and asks him why he suddenly decides not to take the Times job then goes to Burma.

I’m not going to do the Burma trip. I’m telling Amy to pull my name. Are you serious? But you’ve always talked about working with the Times. What – Mark, did something happen in Kurdistan? (1999:67)

The simple and carefully asked question whether something has happened in

Kurdistan certainly awaken Mark’s memories about his horrific moments during his stay in Kurdistan – the frightening artillery shell explosion, his excessive worry about whether he might undergo the triage process or not, and his fear of not being able to survive through all those worst moments in Kurdistan. Upon remembering again, Mark’s defense is starting to weaken. Although he does not turn mad, his emotion is quite disturbed by the re-experiencing state. Mark slowly feels fragile and insecure, but still unable to share it with her or anyone else.

At that moment, he thought of telling her some of it. Maybe about the artillery shell in the hillside, shuffling his little plastic tags, deciding whether he should live or die. Or maybe about that first night in the recovery bay, when he had lain on his back… how when he finally gave in and cried he had been to helpless to even hide his face from the others… Mark couldn’t do it. He felt so delicate, so precarious, there above the river, as if with one word, one step, the avalanche would start and he would be lost (1999:67-68).

30

Mark does not only endure re-experiencing state right after coming home from that traumatic and devastating war in Kurdistan, but he is also having flashbacks weeks after his returning home. For instance, the flashback of traumatic event with dying Colin suddenly pops up when he and Joaquin attempt to retrace the possible sources of Mark’s post-traumatic stress. They do the retracing process by marking some particular places in maps where Mark had been during his past traumatic moments. The marking on the maps goes pretty well along Mark’s explanation about his exact location, but, unfortunately, it is not until they reach the place where the artillery shell landed. Joaquin’s simple question about Colin’s exact location at the time the artillery shell landed surely triggers Mark’s painful memory.

So you were standing here…he said softly, remotely, as if to himself… and the artillery shell landed here … and where was Colin? (1999:161)

Similar to previous times when anyone often tries to make what he had been through in Kurdistan as a main subject of the talk, the flashback of his past traumatic experiences always go hand in hand with his dropping state of his psychological condition. In a split second, he becomes senseless. He is no longer able to envision his surroundings and finally he finds himself back to the emotionally awakening moment where he spent his last time with dying Colin who was begging to be saved and kept on mumbling as if he was speaking with his wife, Diane.

Time stopped. Life stopped. Just for an instant, but in that instant all was white, a white of endless depth – no sound, no movement, no thought – and then he was back on the mountain, and the world was brown and quiet all around him (1999:162). 31

… and Mark comes to the blackened ground and there he finds him… and looks into his frightened eyes. Save me, Mark. Save me. Take me home. Please take me home. And some time later, Colin begins to talk to his wife, to slip away, and there is nothing peaceful in this, there is a last moment of shame and nakedness in this (1999:162-163).

The flashbacks of his horrific past happenings keep carrying on even when there is any single sight, sound, and smell that triggers it. Mark’s thought suddenly projects the traumatic memories when he is alone and does not think of any particular subject in mind. This re-experiencing state happens when Mark is leisurely drowning his body into a bathtub in his New York apartment. Intended to feel the warmth steam entering every parts of his exhausted body, he closes his eyes and there come many traumatic moments during his stay in Kurdistan. First, he remembers about a seriously wounded man in Harir cave in whose stomach lies a bullet, named Mustafa Karim. Like others, he has to face any decided treatment he would immediately receive based on the tag given by Dr. Talzani.

There is nothing extremely special until Mark’s camera captures the whole figure of Mustafa, revealing the blue tag amid his bloody fingers.

He closed his eyes and saw each frame… Mustafa Karim… now with a bullet in his stomach and lying in the Harir cave… Now Mustafa stares into the camera, his eyes wider… and in the foreground, at the very bottom of the frame, the blood-colored fingers of Mustafa Karim clutch the triage tag and the tag is blue (1999:90).

The flashback of Mustafa then shifts to the last moments of Mustafa’s life. As it has been stated before that those who are seriously injured and are likely to have minor chances to be fully recovered, that is also Mustafa’s condition, will be given blue tags, meaning have to be shot by Talzani. At this moment, Mark’s 32

psyche only involves the detail of triage process, from the beginning until the silence moment after Talzani releases his last, the end-of-suffering moment.

Mustafa being carried to the cemetery, the mullah beside reading from the Koran… Now Talzani kneels beside him … and the gun is coming up… and there is a bright yellow flash in Talzani’s hand, a puff of red mist, and now Mustafa’s head is turned to the side, his mouth is pursed, his face smoothed of pain or fear or worry, and Mustafa is at peace… (1999:90).

From those flashing images of Mustafa and the devastating triage process Mark has witnessed in Kurdistan, his mind reluctantly moves into the thought of Colin with no one accompanying him and unable to survive from sudden catastrophe then he is finally gone without a trace.

And then, against his will, another vision came into Mark’s mind. It was of Colin and he was standing alone out in the desert and the wall of sand and noise was coming for him, sweeping over the flat land like a wave, and then it was upon him and he was thrashing, staggering, trying to get out, but already it had his feet, already it was too late (1999:90).

The traumatic moments that come again in the form of flashbacks causes inexplicable numbness over his body. It seems that Mark is no longer capable of controlling his own movement. His inability to move normally is worsened by his mixture feeling of sudden fright and panic that finally forces him to sit helplessly on the bathroom floor. In such unbearable condition, he starts to re-envision himself at the mountain, struggling to stand firm on the ground as well as to be able to survive, and this evokes certain sadness in him.

He touched his legs. They felt as if they belonged to someone else… He gripped the side of the tub, attempted to hoist himself up, but the legs lay dead before him. A stab of fear, the heat and moisture of the room suddenly suffocating, pinching the life from him… The floor felt cold and good beneath him, but the legs felt nothing (1999:90-91). And then he was back on the mountain, stumbling his way toward the river, and he was saying his last prayer – ‘I don’t want to die here, I don’t want to die here’ – and this time he let the tears come (1999:91). 33

The re-experiencing states seem to haunt Mark’s everyday life, even when his physical condition is getting better. This case is apparent at times when he is in

Spain weeks after his returning from Kurdistan. His mind is reluctant to end the sudden and unpredictable flashbacks of particular traumatic past events during his days in Kurdistan that later always construct unbearable grief in him.

Despite his gradual physical improvement, despite the pleasured face he displayed, there were moments when Mark was wrenched back to the mountain or the river or the cave. These moments came without warning…-and Mark would be gripped with a sadness that seemed ready to crush him (1999:176-177).

In addition to the continuous re-experiencing states caused by any sights, sounds, smells that remind Mark of traumatic past events he has undergone, and even simply talks about it, along with recurring flashbacks, Mark is likely to show another PTSD symptom, known as avoidance. As it has been reviewed before, as someone who is suffer from PTSD, Mark also attempts to segregate himself from anything that reminds him of the past traumatic happenings, whether in the form of things, places, or even people who are directly as well as indirectly connected.

Although Mark does not extremely avoid any potential remembrances of his past traumatic memories, especially those of Kurdistan, he still indicates avoidance state by deciding to cancel his going to Burma. His decision certainly comes as a surprise for Elena who knows that Mark has been hoping to work with the Times since quite a long time and now he suddenly decides to unreasonably let this rare opportunity pass.

I’m not going to do the Burma trip. I’m telling Amy to pull my name. Are you serious? But you’ve always talked about working with the Times. What – Mark, did something happen in Kurdistan? (1999: 67) 34

In this case, if it is analyzed based on theory on PTSD symptoms, Mark is possible to have certain fear inside that if he agreed to take the job and went to

Burma, he would face horrific and traumatic moments he had faced earlier in

Kurdistan. No matter how difference Burma from other places he had been, his job still as a war photographer, always forever deals with wars and photography.

For him, he had enough of undergoing such terrifying happenings, such as capturing triage process, the civilians’ death, and the most important thing is that he does not want to lose anyone whom he loves so much, one Colin is enough to stimulate his endless grief. Therefore, by staying away temporarily from all war photography stuffs, he hopes to revive his psychological condition back to normal. Unfortunately, staying in New York works ineffectively for his complete and thorough psychological revival because there are several things that remind him of his traumatic past events. Moreover, he still has his fellow photographers around who unwillingly bring back his memories about Colin, and not to forget

Colin’s wife, Diane, whom he cannot completely avoid unless he is able to get out of New York and stay somewhere else far from it. When all of his desperate attempts to hide the fact that Colin is death are no longer works, without considering further, he tells Elena that he wants to go to Spain with her and

Joaquin along with mixed feelings of doubt, fear, anguish, and enigmatic deadness.

He was pale with exhaustion, as pale as when she had found him on the bathroom tiles…and her tears at that moment were for both Colin and the numbed pain she saw in his eyes. Why, Mark? 35

I don’t know. I didn’t want it to be true. I so didn’t want it to be true. I think for a time I even believed…’ He turned to her then, and there was such sorrow and shame in his eyes… I want to go away. With you. I want to go to Spain (1999:164).

The avoidance state does not stop until Mark decides to avoid anything in New

York that is likely to trigger back his traumatic memories of what happened in

Kurdistan by “escaping” to Spain with Elena and Joaquin, but he illustrates another form of simple avoidance by incapability to psychologically balance himself when he meets Diane and has a light conversation with her. It happens when he and Elena visit Diane after her labor in the hospital. Instead of showing joy upon the birth, Mark keeps on closing his eyes and begins to lose control of his own self. He doesn’t dare to look Diane in the eyes, not even see and embrace the newborn baby because he knows that he is to blame for not telling the truth of

Colin’s death to her from the very beginning and because of that, he ask for her forgiveness. However, it is hard for him to accept the fact that his beloved friend died.

Would you like to see the baby? she asked. Would you like to hold her? Mark closed his eyes and shook his head. He felt his jaw begin to tremble. Tears slipped from his closed eyes. I didn’t know how to say goodbye. I loved him. I still don’t. I’m sorry (1999:164). She continued to beg him, her arm outstretched. But Mark would only shake his head, his eyes shut tight (1999:165).

As additional results from recurring re-experiencing states and common indication of avoidance, Mark develops endless impulsive arousal whether it involves his physical or emotional being. He is not as tough as he used to be. In spite of his physical injuries, he tends to be emotionally fragile and easily shaken by his traumatic past experiences. He reveals his fragility for several times after 36

his return from Kurdistan. Many times, he becomes quite sensitive and seems irritable particularly when all of sudden his mind reluctantly projecting flashbacks of certain traumatic happenings. For him, instead of putting himself into unreasonable rage as a mean to express the oppression of war inside, he chooses to keep it for himself although he cannot avoid crying. For instance, when he is alone in his apartment with his thirty-four boxes of slides which he had arranged them in order. At first, the images projected dreary sights, such as “ Kurdish women breaking down old bolt-actions, earnest Pesh Merga cadets going through drills with stick-guns on their shoulders, a nice shot of a young boy bayoneting a sawdust dummy” (1999:51). In addition to those dreary images, there are slides of the particular ambush of Iraqi troops and its after effects showing the fraught Pesh

Merga on their way back to the mountain hill. Upon projecting these images,

Mark does not feel emotionally awakened and no weird indication as a result of his PTSD is clearly shown. Unfortunately, this absent of PTSD symptoms does not last until he reaches the twenty-nine projecting images of Colin and himself acted cheerily and foolishly like a Pesh Merga. It is surely one of their best moments ever captured in camera. After seeing his own images together with

Colin, even when he has turned off the projector, however, Mark cannot help crying.

Against his will, his gaze moved across the room, to the slide boxes on the coffee table. He felt the coming of tears and turned quickly to the window. The light dazzled his eyes, made everything he saw glitter like jewels (1999:51).

There are other times when Mark becomes too sensitive as a result of PTSD he has undergone. The writer mentioned earlier that Mark formed a kind of simply 37

avoidance by keeping away his sights from Diane and the newborn baby in the hospital (1999:164). Actually, along with his performing common PTSD symptom known as avoidance, he also experiences arousal state in a way his movement turns into inconsistent ones – his jaw is quivering and once again, he breaks into tears.

Mark closed his eyes and shook his head. He felt his jaw begin to tremble. Tears slipped from his closed eyes. I didn’t know how to say goodbye. I loved him. I still don’t. I’m sorry (1999:164).

Like most of common cases of PTSD, Mark is also affected by his excessive sense of arousal. As a person who suffers from PTSD, he expresses further and quite complicated symptom of arousal, namely replacement behavior. Mark does not necessarily spending his money on trifles. Instead, he unreasonably begins to do things he never did before. He begins to take interest on Carlos Perez’s matter which has no relation at all with him. We are able to get brief and general introduction on Perez from his son, Lewis, who comes to see Elena at her office one day and asks for her help so that he could get in touch with Joaquin then obtain any information about his missing father. Carlos Perez is one of the

“incurables” in Joaquin’s institute that differs from the common government’s psychiatric clinics in a way it is only treats psychologically wounded officers. As a captain of the Spanish armed forces who suffers from one of the worst consequences of wars, which is mental breakdown, he is likely to be handed over to the institute immediately after the war ends. He enters the institute in the late spring of 1939 and is released at the end of summer. But the main problem is that his family have not heard from him ever since until the family give up their eight 38

years of searching (1999: 74). Mark suddenly bears the missing Carlos Perez in mind when he drives alone in the area of Alpujarra. He suddenly catches sight of the written sign of “Olia” and there goes thought about Perez whom Joaquin said known for his reputation as “Beast of Olia” (1999:188-189). After that, he straight away explains to Elena that he wants to go to Olfa the next morning to see if he could find any information about Carlos Perez there and asks for her escort.

Right, he said. Well, I was thinking of going up there tomorrow, just asking around, see if he ever did show up again. You want to come along? (1999: 190)

Mark’s replacement behavior comes into realization when Mark and Elena finally come to Olia and hear themselves what were actually going on with Perez and any facts that are likely related to him from its inhabitants (1999: 201). As other typical symptoms of PTSD, Mark’s impulsive curiosity on things unrelated to him is in fact a part of his excessive self-arousal. As mentioned earlier, he prefers to find information about Carlos Perez without exactly knowing why he has desire on the matter.

Elena searched his face, searched out to touch his arm. He looked into the darkening valley and tried to find some answer to her question. ‘I would just like to find him, that’s all,’ he said, because he could not think of anything else to tell her (1999: 208).

The writer has explained about the common symptoms of PTSD undergone by the main character in Triage namely Mark Walsh that is grouped into re- experiencing, avoidance, and arousal states. When we concern about PTSD, we are not only talking about its common symptoms, but it is surely cannot be separated from discussing the typical reactions from people who suffer from one of the most noticeable psychological threats as the influence of the war’s 39

oppression in his everyday life. In the theoretical review on PTSD reactions, it is stated that people suffer from PTSD tend to involuntarily build up sense of defenselessness in them. Seemingly without logical explanation, they become terribly frightened and unable to control themselves. These things often happen to

Mark even though he is no longer directly face the cruelty of the war’s oppression. However, its influences will certainly last afterwards for some period of time. The clearest illustration on how in sudden Mark loses control of himself is when he just comes home from Kurdistan one late afternoon. For him, it is certainly against his habit of getting rid of all pressures caused by hard times in the past. Changing his habit by flying directly home to New York, even now in his own apartment, Mark cannot avoid becoming easily vulnerable that consequently makes him unable to manage himself. He remains still when the bathroom filled with the steam until he falls unconsciously.

This time, of all times, he should have waited. In the misting bathroom of his home, he felt helpless and besieged, gripped by a loneliness deeper than any he had ever known (1999:32). The entire room became indistinct in the steam. Looking down, he could not see his own feet. He looked dead, his head lolled on the porcelain, one hand dangling over the edge (1999:33).

People who suffer from PTSD have tendencies to recurring flashbacks as discussed earlier in terms of PTSD symptoms widely referred as re-experiencing states. For Mark’s case, the flashbacks frequently related to what he had been through during his traumatic days in Kurdistan. For instance, the flashbacks of the horrific triage process of Mustafa Karim (1999:90), his very last moment right before and after Colin’s death (1999:162-163), until the constant ones of himself back to the Harir cave, the mountain hill, and the river in spite of his ongoing 40

physical recovery (1999:176-177). In addition to the recurring flashbacks of traumatic past experiences, in Triage, it is often stated that Mark’s emotional states are quite inexplicable because he has mixture of uncertain feelings – grief rage, indignity, and resentment.

I don’t know. I didn’t want it to be true. I so didn’t want it to be true. I think for a time I even believed…He turned to her then, and there was such sorrow and shame in his eyes… (1999:164).

For Mark, the grief he frequently suffers as part of the influence of war’s oppression, which used to be his “daily” milieu, still exists inside him although he is far away from any potential remembrances of the traumatic past happenings.

Even when he finally says that his condition is improving, he is still not sure of the improvement because his angst refuses to completely die out.

The sadness, it never goes away. I’m sad all the time. Mark remembered Talzani’s words – pain is always preferable to numbness. ‘But I don’t feel like I’m healing. It’s not getting any easier. Every morning, it’s the first thing I think of. Every day – (1999:179).

Besides illustrating the mixture of uncertain feelings that often involves grief, rage, indignity, and resentment, he also indicates the most typical PTSD reaction connected to feeling and emotion that is feeling of guilt, known as survivor guilt.

The excessive feeling of guilt does not merely come to the surface just because of he had been in Kurdistan war zone, but his guilt rooted from several dreadful traumatic moments he had experienced before. There are three moments that affect him the most. The first is of one afternoon in Beirut, when a boy jumped out of a jeep and was running toward him as if he was the only one who could save the boy. At that time, he was busy covering himself from the firing soldiers instead of saving the boy. Then, he witnessed how the innocent boy died 41

peacefully. It is certainly develops guiltiness in him for putting his own safety in the first place.

Mark scanned the hospital room. I guess I felt responsible somehow (1999:122).

Another emotionally shocking moment is when a woman asked him to find her family member’s skulls in a quite primitive village in Uganda. Since it was impossible task to perform, he pretended to select which skull fits the woman’s description. It was all right until the woman wanted to pay for his service.

Mark stopped picking at the armrest, rubbed his hand against his jaw. And I think what struck me the most, the thing that kind of bothered me, was that she tried to pay me… Mark gazed at the ceiling, trying to think of the words. . I don’t know. I don’t know. There was just something so sad and dignified, proud, in that (1999:148-149).

The last one, he tells Joaquin, is when he was in Sri Lanka. It was terrifying to acknowledge he was the only man alive on the beach witnessing the dead scattered around him.

… of how it was only when he had walked into their midst, when they lay around him in every direction, that he realized they were dead… of how he had breathed in the intermingled scent of brine and blood and burning fish and understood he was the only living thing on the beach… (1999:154).

Subsequently, Mark indicates his sense of survivor guilt, for being survived while others including his best friend died as the harsh and deadly penalty of wars, through his simple avoidance of things that might, particularly, remind him of traumatic moments in Kurdistan. Although not extremely detaching himself away from his usual surroundings, Mark cannot help feeling insecure if he keeps staying in New York. Therefore, without any further consideration, he desperately desires to go to Spain with Elena and his grandfather as a form of segregation 42

from any potential remembrance of traumatic happenings in Kurdistan, including those that are certainly remind him of Colin.

I want to go away. With you. I want to go to Spain (1999:164).

People suffer from PTSD also illustrates another common reaction through their everyday behavior. It is worth noticing that this everyday behavior will prone to be opposing from what they used to do before they suffer from PTSD.

That is what happens to Mark. Even though in the novel, there is no apparent mentioning that Mark was once influential, he cannot avoid being difficult to make even simple decision. He appears to be unnecessarily puzzled just to decide which guidebook to buy because he is busily thinking about the future too.

He started with the shelf of regional guidebooks… But now it was different. Now, if they were going to have a baby, Elena would probably take a six-month leave… Connecticut? No…He spotted a guidebook on the Hudson Valley and snatched it off the shelf…The Adirondacks close by… fairly good schools for when the child was of age (1999:86-87).

At other time, as part of the consequences of being face-to-face with the cruelty of

Wars, he seems to be an individual who is easily gives up in a way he cannot stand for his own opinion. It happens when he and Elena have a light conversation about her suggestion in involving UN people to get any slightest but important information about Colin.

I know, but Diane is worried. I offered to send a cable. A cable? He frowned. To who? To the UN people over there, to ask if they’ve seen him (1999:63).

At first, knowing about the involvement, he unexpectedly becomes quite irritable and states his disagreement. Mark shows his opposition to the idea by giving reason that everything will be fine, Colin will come home soon and finally, the 43

whole business will make the involvers feel humiliated. Instead of sticking to his own opinion and assuring her that it is childish thing to do, he gives up easily and agrees with her idea of involving the UN people to get any information about

Colin.

Look, I think it’s a very nice gesture on your part, but I also think it’s premature. Nine days doesn’t mean anything in Kurdistan. Wait a bit. If he shows up and the UN are running all over Kurdistan looking for him, it’s going to be embarrassing. And I really doubt the camp workers over there would appreciate being – (1999:63-64). Okay, he said. You’re right (1999:64).

Not only at that time Mark is irritable about simple matter, but even when he gets acquainted with Joaquin, the only person whom he tells about most of his traumatic past memories, he turns out to be petulant when Joaquin softly “forces”

Mark to tell about what he truly felt when he was the only man alive on Sri

Lanka’s beach. Fortunately, this only last just for a short moment and thus, it does not cause any further violate behavior.

But if you will just tell me one last thing. At that moment, when you understood you were the only one alive on the beach, what were your thoughts? I had no thoughts. But what did you feel? I didn’t feel anything. Come, you must have felt something? Fear? Sorrow? Relief at having survived? (1999:154) Fuck you. You’re not really a psychiatrist. I’m not one of your war criminals, so let’s just stop all this shit (1999:155).

It is definite that an individual who had experienced shocking incident in the past will have tendency for being affected both physically and mentally, be it major effects or only the minor ones. For Mark, being a war photographer, he is accustomed to the brutality of warfare, including to endure some physical 44

consequences, from small change like different physical appearance, degrading stamina, to quite serious wounds. Initially, we recognize that Mark is injured when he lays weakly on the flat rock after the artillery shell incident. Although at first, he does not feel any harm but his body movement, what he senses indicate that he is wounded.

No pain… There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with it. The right arm lay on his chest, the hand rising and falling as he breathed… The fingers trembled, and he felt their nervous little taps on a rib… His left foot twitched back and forth… Mark twisted to see that his head had rested in a slight bowl in the rock. A pool of blood there (1999:12).

Later, even he is no longer lay down helplessly and tells Talzani he does not feel any serious ache, his body movement is still rigid.

Talzani straightened and took back his cigarette. He stared at Mark’s body, sent twin streams of smoke out his nose. Can you move your arms? Mark bit his lip and slowly raised his elbows a little of the mattress. Your legs? (1999:17) He tried to lift his legs clear from the bed but couldn’t; he brought his feet in, pushed the knees up a few inches (1999:18).

Besides the physical effects mentioned before, there are wounds all over his body noticeable when Elena bathe him after finding him lay unconsciously on the bathroom floor.

She looked over his body. Through the murk, Elena saw its mottle of bruises. Picking up the hand she had placed in the water, she examined the cuts. They were shallow – little more than scratches, really – and she took the washcloth from the soap rack and began to bathe him (1999:33).

After some period of time, Mark himself starts to notice that there is significant change in his physical appearance as a result from being through hard and traumatic times in the past. It is apparent that his physical look is swooping along with his inner strength. 45

He saw that the clothes he wore – blue jeans, a dark olive cotton shirt – were a bit loose on him…He noticed he was stooped and made an effort to straighten… He came close to the mirror and studied his reflection. His skin was taut, flexed, and his eyes were too sharp (1999:71-72).

Furthermore, we can perceive that there is a serious injury on Mark’s head after experiencing the explosion of artillery when Dr. Christopher shows him a strange metal object that soon is known taken out of Mark’s head.

He didn’t answer. Dr. Christopher set the folder aside and held up the plastic bag for Mark to see. Inside was a curved black object about the size of a fingernail. Well, to be honest, I didn’t really pit it together until I was given this. It’s what they took out of your head. It’s metal – steel, to be exact (1999:96).

B. The Influence of the War’s Oppression on the Life of a Marine as Seen

Through Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead

The writer put Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead into use as a comparison to Scott

Anderson’s Triage because of both main characters in the novels are considered to be experiencing the influence of the war’s oppression but slightly in a different way since one is categorized as active war participant while the other is only peripheral – involved in a war zone but not as a combatant. In Jarhead, the main character as well as the narrative of the story is Anthony Swofford, a U.S. Marine who fully dedicates himself in STA (Surveillance and Target Acquisition)/Scout-

Sniper platoon at the period of the first Gulf War. Being marines who serve for our beloved nation does not always seem like what civilian and ordinary people perceive. The generalization that marines are brave, hard, tough, and fearless could turn into a kind of stigma if we scrutinize further what really happen in the daily military life whether during the combat or the deployment. 46

As stated earlier in theoretical review, the prospect of being annihilated by our foes is not as big as those of being stressed as the common influence of the hard military life that often includes wars. (Grossman, 1995:43) Being a marine who get used to face to face with warfare, Swofford cannot avoid of being stressed by unbearable military life. Almost similar to the case of Mark Walsh, an American war photographer in Scott Anderson’s Triage, he also has some typical indications leading to PTSD symptoms and reactions. Although there is not any single explicit statement that he suffers from PTSD, we can perceive that once he was in re-experiencing state. It is when the STA platoon watch some brutal scenes from famous war movies at Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base. At first, all of them, including Swofford, are thrilled by the brutality of the war movies until one of them starts to sob and no longer stand to watch the movie.

We watch our films and drink our beer and occasionally someone begins weeping and exits the room to stand on the catwalk and stare at the Bullion Mountains, the treacherous, craggy range that borders out barracks. Once, this person is me (2005:8).

From his last sentence, it is obvious that the brutal sights of the war movie emotionally trigger his feeling and as a result, he cannot stop the coming of tears then decides to stop watching the movie in which he actually perform a simple avoidance to things that remind him of what he really faces in his daily life. Not only does external cause like brutal scenes in a war movie emotionally arouse his feeling, but flashbacks of bad yet memorable past experience is likely to come out of his repressed mind. The flashbacks occur after the marines fully dressed with their MOPP suits are playing football in the extremely hot desert to impress the coming reporters. When Swofford is taking shower, he notices that his skin 47

shapes a fish scales tattoo, and it reminds him of his certain childhood experience in Japan. So bad and memorable the moment is toppling with exhaustion from playing football in the hot desert, he suddenly feels pain and hears imaginative sounds.

… I recognize an odd formation on my skin, like a tattoo of fish scales. My thoughts return to my childhood in Japan. The world expands and contracts. My temples begin to throb and my ears ring a piercing rhythm through my brain (2005:30). They painted fish scales… The woman’s work was completed first, and when her tattooist noticed me, he hissed and threw his cigarette at me. The burning cigarette missed and I picked it up and threw it back at him, then I ran from the shop. The woman screamed. I didn’t stop running until I made it home (2005:31-32).

Even when he is no longer in the Marine Corps, he chooses to keep performing his avoidance by detaching himself from people, places, or anything that might remind him of the warfare in order to dust away all of bad and traumatic memories of being a marine. As terrific as his total avoidance for two years,

Fergus’ call brings back anything related to military into his present life.

I hadn’t spoken to any of my former STA platoon mates since leaving the Corps… when I discharged, I abandoned the Corps and all personal links to the institution, and his call brought me into contact with emotions and events I’d buried (2005:161).

There are several moments when Swofford indicates some reactions to PTSD, both in terms of feeling and behavior. It is common that his reactions will involve mixture of uncertain feelings, such as anger, fear, shame, and resentment and when those feelings strongly react, he tends to get easily irritated and he is likely to change in manner and behavior. He illustrates his reaction when reporters from the New York Times and the Boston Globe come to interview the U.S. Marines after their six weeks of deployment in Saudi Arabia. At a glance, he seems having 48

no trouble with the whole interview matter, but actually inside he feels furious of his incapability of telling the truth that he is sick and tired of all of that. From inside his mind, he seems to portray that he does not give any attention to the world’s crucial issues because he is just “a grunt with limited vision”. (2005:21)

Later, we can perceive that all of his anger, resentment, and his refusal to care about the important things is, in fact, has its root on his endless dread for being a marine, for being involved in warfare.

I don’t care about a New World Order, I don’t care about human rights violations in Kuwait City. Amnesty International, my ass…. I don’t care about the Flag and God and Country and Corps… and here I sit, miserable, oh misery oh stinking hell of all miseries…and I can hear their bombs already, Mr. Times, I can hear their bombs and I am afraid (2005:21).

At other moment, he obviously reveals attitude that is contrast to what he used to do, or more accurately to what he used to believe in, because his behavioral change relates to his belief. When mentioning about the religion stamped on his dog tag, he is certain that what is written there is none other than Roman Catholic.

It is true that he is a Roman Catholic since he was born. Even, he did his task well as an altar boy for several times and showed that he was religious.

I enjoyed being an altar boy for a few of my teenage years. I solemnly perform my duties… My high moments of Catholic belief occurred during the fifteen minutes before Mass started each Sunday, when I’d be alone in the sacristy with the priest and my fellow altar boys as we donned our vestments and prepared the wine and host (2005:237-238).

Different from his religious sense and attitude when he was an altar boy, he does not really care about his belief. This is shown when he orders new dog tags. Even though, he is still a Roman Catholic, he prefers to show as if he is an atheist by ordering “NO RELIGION” and “NO PREFERENCE” stamped on the dog tags. 49

Unluckily, he cannot get what he really wants. No matter how proper he puts his seemingly atheism into words, “but still the tags came back ROMAN

CATHOLIC” (2005:241). After all, he does not even bothered what religion he might belong to according to the dog tags.

Shortly after joining the Seventh Marines, I ordered new dog tags, and I requested that NO RELIGION be pressed into the metal… and I requested, finally, NO PREFERENCE… Eventually I realized that I enjoyed ordering new sets of dog tags, and that it didn’t matter to me what they listed on the religion line, I didn’t care (2005:241).

Actually, he begins to show his lack of care of anything connected to his belief since the very beginning he joins the Marine Corps. At that time, there is no extreme attitude such as prefers not to mention any belief in his dog tags, but he illustrates from his behavior that military matter is always over his belief or religion. No matter easy his task as an appointed Catholic lay reader at boot camp, he often disregards it because of trifles, like occupying himself with his boots or weapon. When others finally remind him, he leads others to the church in a rush and only performs his duty as quickly as possible, unlike his fellow Protestant leader who is sincerely preaching.

Often, on Sundays, I’d forget about Mass, busy as I was cleaning my rifle or spit-shining my boots… And I’d run us Catholics in double time the mile to the theater… And we’d mumble our two simple prayers, led by me, while at the other end of the squad bay the Protestant lay reader was busy sweating and throwing down some serious fire and brimstone (2005:239).

In addition to the mixture of uncertain feelings that usually involves feeling of anger and fear, noticeable physical effects also affect him. For instance, when he and his fellow marines performing what is known as “field-fuck” to Kuehn, an act of abusing someone who turns out to be the most foolish member of the unit in 50

turn. (2005:27) Swofford and the other marines become uncontrollably overjoyed with the act of violating Kuehn even though they often do that as one of the means to have fun in military life. This is an obvious example of how the oppression of war affects much in term of physical condition and leads to behavioral change in all marines without exception – they are not what they used to be before joining the Corps.

We continue to scream, in joy, in revelry, still wearing full MOPP and gas mask, and we look like wild, hungry, bug-eyed animals swarming around disabled prey, and we sound thousands of miles away from ourselves (2005:27).

For Swofford, the delight of abusing Kuehn in front of the reporters does not last long. In a sudden, he senses mixed feelings of shared fear, rage, and expectation blends into one upon witnessing the seemingly vicious sight.

I stand back from a turn with Kuehn. I feel frightened and exhilarated by the scene. The exhilaration isn’t sexual, it’s communal – a pure surge of passion and violence and shared anger, a pure distillation of our confusion and hope and shared fear (2005:28).

As a combatant who used to be face to face with the cruel wars, Swofford also badly suffers from injuries, but that will not hamper his spirit and movement to continue his duty as a marine who fights for the sake of others.

My body is sore. My feet are burning… but my shoulders feel as though fires have been lit on them. My crotch is sweaty and rancid and bleeding. I can feel sand working into the wound. My knees are sore and my back and even my toes hurt, but I will not stop until I’m told to (2005:316).

Furthermore, in Jarhead, we are capable of acknowledging that there is one bad moment Swofford has to undergo. It is a moment when he does not understand what the drill instructor means and therefore, performs the unintended task of drawing that causes the instructor fiercely tortures him. 51

While he spoke, he spit in my face, and he bashed the brim of his Smokey Bear cover into my nose and pressed his index finger into my chest… He slapped me on the back of the head a few times, as though slowly contemplating some further violence, winding me up, and then he shoved my head into the chalkboard (2005:38).

Even though he is simply ignoring the drill instructor’s physical attacks, believing that his head wound would heal soon, and even the instructor is no longer in

Swofford’s platoon, this harsh and unbearable moment envelops into a kind of intrusive thought which pops up into recurring daydreams. Even in his daydreams, his position remains weak and hopeless.

I had daydreams of running into Burke in a bar on Okinawa, where I’d apologize to him for being so weak, ask his forgiveness, and let him beat on me more, as I assumed he’d have liked to that second night at boot camp (2005:41).

At other time, another intrusive images comes to Swofford’s mind and later, as usual projected in the forms of frequent daydreams after he reads “an article in the Arab Times about the Iraqi Republican Guard Snipers.” (2005:175) The newspaper article projects dreams about his being a boy wandering aimlessly through alleys in Tokyo, who, soon, is shot by a sniper until he realizes that nothing could hurt and kill him, not even smashed glass and only one eye left.

I’m a boy again… and I’m on a quest, for what I don’t know… Eventually, I turn a corner out of the alley, and a sniper shoots me in the left eye. The shot doesn’t hurt… and though my eye has been blown away, I still maintain vision through the socket…I begin coughing up pieces of shattered glass, but no blood issues from my mouth… (2005:175-176).

What has been explained earlier is clear description of how certain remembrances, specifically those that remind him of harsh and dreadful past moments often project themselves in forms intrusive thoughts and later, occur in his daydreams.

Unfortunately, when there is neither intrusive thought nor daydream projected as 52

a result from remembering traumatic past happening, Swofford cannot avoid of having sleep disturbances at night because, nevertheless, fear still easily possess his whole being regardless how great the sleeping pills might work in such an alarming situation.

Once the air campaign begins, I never sleep through the night (2005:260). Doc John Duncan passes out sleeping pills to those who want them, but I’m afraid of sleeping through a valid alert, and anyway, the guys who take the pills wake up just like those who don’t. The synthetic chemical for drowsiness is not as strong as the naturally occurring chemical called fear (2005:261).

The typical symptoms and reactions to PTSD shown by Swofford both in terms of feeling and behavior are basically similar to those analyzed earlier from the character of Mark Walsh in Scott Anderson’s Triage. Since in Jarhead, the main character who is also the narrator of the story is a marine, it is more appropriate if we also apply theories of military psychology to do further analysis on the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of its main character, who is

Anthony Swofford himself. Referring to Richard Gabriel’s No More Heroes and

Dave Grossman’s On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, like other soldiers, Swofford is having possibilities to suffer from

“psychiatric casualties” generally classified into fatigue cases, confusional states, conversion hysteria, anxiety states, obsessional and compulsive states, and lastly the worst one known as character disorders.

First of all the common psychiatric casualties is the fatigue cases. On August,

Swofford and his fellow from the Seventh marines pull in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, carrying a vital mission of protecting their abundant oil fields from the Iraqi troops. Their deployment in the hot-killing desert is surely consuming most of 53

their everyday vigor. Consequently, the marines cannot avoid being in the condition of total tiredness although at that time, they do not perform any heavy military task and drink gallons of water.

Our days consist of sand and water and sweat and piss. We walk and drive over the sand and we drink water, gallons of water. And as we drink, we sweat, and as we sweat, we drink… and we piss and sweat and walk the desert and drink and piss and sweat (2005:12-13).

Another illustration of how fatigue control over the marines, including him, is when they decide to stop all seemingly weird but fun activities, such as playing football with MOPP suits and the gas masks in the desert while the air is burning hot and violating the recently most foolish member in the unit. Next, they do what they want to in order to lessen their weariness. However, it is obvious that they are all exhausted for being exposed to the heat;

We stop the field-fuck and rip our gas masks from our faces and throw them in the air… We pile our charcoal-lined MOPP suits in the straddle trench. We’re standing around the trench either naked or in skivvy bottoms. We look like burn victims. The fires, the smoke and mirrors of history have been transposed to our skin (2005:29).

The times in which Swofford greatly affected by exhaustion is when he and some other marines are taking the STA Indoc tests before finally admitted to elite platoon of great and talented scout/sniper in the wet Jungle of Okinawa at the time of rainy season. Although the situation is made less dangerous than the real one, he cannot help being worn out when he is doing low-crawl and keeping himself unnoticed at the same time.

The rain came on hard, and then harder, which was good for tactical movement, but I was miserable and cold and sleepy and at times I wanted to stand up and scream… (2005:82).

54

As pointed in the theoretical review of military psychology, fatigue cases soldiers undergo tend to impinge on the decrease of their daily military performance. This also happens to Swofford, particularly after the merciless drill instructor thrust his head into the chalkboard. Along with other recruits, Swofford at his culmination of lassitude, hail to correctly perform even the simple task like how to carry the rifles.

We dropped our rifles, confused port arms with shoulder arms, and along the way Burke became angrier and angrier, until he grabbed a recruit’s rifle and rifle-butted him in the chest (2005:40).

In addition to the degeneration in daily military task, weariness causes Swofford to kind of losing interest to engage in a certain daily activity in which it involves contact with other fellow marines from different units. He portrays his lack of interest when all of the Marine Corps personnel gather at the meeting point in the middle of the Triangle. Unlike the others, he chooses to remain silent, keeping himself away, and eventually burying himself deep into pages of his favorite book.

My STA mates have fanned out to find friends and talk trash, but I sit in the back of our Humvee and read The Iliad. I rarely socialize with other units, and sometimes this causes me trouble, because people assume I’m either a sniper elitist or simply an asshole… (2005:215).

Besides suffering from fatigue cases, he also endures more complex psychiatric casualty known as confusional states. During his confusional states, he is likely to be incapable of dealing with his surrounding. It is shown when he is taking the STA Indoc tests, spending five days in the Northern Training Area.

During the five days of endless toil, exhaustion is certainly outstrip his physical strength capacity and results in unavoidable delirium. 55

They teargassed us and stripped us and staved us. During moments of high delirium, I thought I heard screaming from the jungle, the voices of Japanese and American dead (2005:81).

Even when his is in the war aftermath situation, when he is simply human being not a combatant, illusory images keeps in coming whenever he is face to face with anything that brings back his memory of the cruelty of war. Right after American troops’ bombs precisely hit the intended target, the surroundings is nothing but revealing its horrific scenes – the blown up vehicles and dreadfully dead Iraqis scattered around. This dreadful sight slowly leads him to have another mirage.

The corpses are badly burned and decaying… The insects of the dead are swarming. Though I can make out no insignia, I imagine that the man across from me commanded the unit, and that when the bombs landed, he was in the middle of issuing a patrol order, Tomorrow we will kick some American ass (2005:318).

His delusion of the man issuing a patrol order to beat up the American is logical and might be true, but the following imagination can be considered is highly impossible and illogical. He imagines there is a contact between him and the

Iraqis corpses, and thus they could share a kind of mutual feeling. Luckily, he soon becomes conscious that it is unattainable.

I want to ask the dead men their names and identification numbers and tell them this will soon end. They must have questions for me. But the distance between the living and the dead is too immense to breach. I could bend at the waist, close my eyes, and try to join these men in their tight dead circle, but I am not yet one of them. I must not close my eyes (2005:318-319).

Still in relation with confusional states Swofford undergoes, his behavior as well indicates one of the most notable responses to confusional states, namely Ganzer syndrome. He attempts to deflect his fear along with any atrocious thought about taking part in warfare and its consequences by making jokes and doing ridiculous 56

things. From the very beginning of the story, he and others start to make light jokes about his main goal of being sent to Saudi Arabia to protect their rich oil fields from Iraqis’ usurpation.

We joke about having transferred from the Marine Corps to the Oil Corps, or the Petrol Battalion, and while we laugh at our jokes and we all think we’re damn funny jarheads, we know we might soon die, and this is not funny, the possibility of death, but like many combatants before us, we laugh to obscure the tragedy of our cheap, squandered lives… (2005:11- 12).

Swofford and the others continue to indicate Ganzer syndrome by doing foolish things, such as playing football with complete MOPP suits and gas masks in the hot desert of Saudi Arabia in front of the coming reporters on late September.

Although they know that the MOPP suits and gas masks will only suffer them because they are not properly used – they are supposed only to shield their skin from contamination during chemical assault, they seem to take pleasure in playing the unusual football game.

We’re happy to use the suits for this foolish game, because now they’ll really be useless… With just the bottoms on, I begin to roast; I feel as though I’ve stepped into an oven (2005:22-23). The gas mask and hood cause your hearing to lengthen and stretch, so that words enter your brain in slow motion, and it takes a moment to formulate just what it is you’re hearing (2005:24).

Playing the fun but torturing football game is not enough to temporarily avert their dread. Therefore, after playing the football game, they shift to “abuse”

Kuehn with any possible physical contact and all of them shout as loud as they can. These ridiculous things can be perceived as efforts to let go all of the fear inside.

We continue to scream, in joy, in revelry, still wearing full MOPP and gas mask, and we look like wild, hungry, bug-eyed animals swarming around 57

disabled prey, and we sound thousands of miles away from ourselves (2005:27).

Not only do Swofford experience the fatigue and confusional states, but he also proves certain behavior leading to conversion hysteria. Nothing like others who mostly suffer from loss of memory or amnesia and convulsive attacks, he is still fully aware of his existence but somehow, at a certain time, he considers himself as having no function at all even though he is fully armed. This sunconfident consideration has its root on the failure of gaining fire support from the Battalion as the Iraqis troops are hoped to wave the white flags soon.

We’re being possum-fucked – not only has the command denied support but their denial of the support is a vote of no confidence in our ability to properly and lawfully engage the enemy. Twice fucked. We’re bait, and for the first time since joining the Marine Corps and for the first time since my arrival in-country, I feel completely dispensable (2005:273).

From doing thorough reading on Jarhead, particularly focuses on Swofford, we are able to acknowledge that his absolute jumpiness as well as exhaustion has reached its highest level. As a result, Swofford signifies his anxiety states more than the other psychiatric casualties. The simplest indication is that he is inept to focus on the task he has to do when he is in a certain actual patrol. Instead he is thinking of something else that bears no relation at all with the task he is performing.

I begin to daydream, to think of the place I will eat my first hamburger. Nationwide Freezer Meats in downtown Sacramento, a double french with cheese, and when Johnny stops, I nearly run into him. He glares at me, aware that I’ve been somewhere else (2005:191).

Furthermore, Swofford turns out to be infatuated with fright and fatality. One day when he is alone in his small barracks room, he directed his M16 to his mouth 58

serenely as if in an attempt to commit suicide. At that time, he has no particular logical thought of why he is doing so since “it’s not the suicide’s job to know, only to do” (2005:96).

My thumb rests on the trigger. I bite into the steel muzzle and feel my teeth reversing into my gums. With my tongue running between the slits of the flash suppressor… I think of a bullet traveling around my head… and ripping my brain to shreds until the momentum of ballistics is overpowered by fleshly resistance. Stop. Dead (2005:97).

As dangerously as his attempt to commit suicide by placing the end of his M16 in his mouth, at other time he directs his M16 muzzle to Dettmann’s temple after cleaning it in the rear-rear barracks. Even tough it is stated that there is no attention of ending his fellow marine’s life, he has a vague anticipation that

“Dettmann might learn something” from being threatened by M16 (2005:144).

Soon, he becomes excessively excited to the thought of killing Dettmann as he convinces himself that he is a skillful murderer to overcome his tenseness while performing the thoughtless deed.

I don’t know who is more nervous, me or Dettmann, but I continue to talk, and as I talk, I soothe myself and come closer to believing that I can finish this reckless act. I am, after all, a trained killer, and my heart has been hardened so as to allow death to enter (2005:146).

Swofford keeps on carrying his obsession with fear until he is on the battlefield when they are finally face to face with the enemy’s threat. He shows his extreme horror as soon as the enemy shower the U.S troops with their countless multiple launch rockets (MLRs). He and the others seem fixated by the dreadful situation and no longer able to control themselves. Consequently, they also cannot avoid typical reactions that follow, such as blurred vision and giddiness. 59

… many rockets launching, landing, near us… so that the command and control Johnny might want in such a situation are now overruled by our collective fear and terror, and the now of these moments is a blur, a hall mirror shattering, a shiver of bodies. I see all of our broken faces, caught in this eternal moment, and no one can find the way out (2005:277).

Even before the terrifying moment of being bathed with multiple launch rockets by the Iraqis, Swofford already senses giddiness but not in terms of physically ill.

The basic cause is surely none other than his fright of death. He just think that if he rebel not to take the PB pills issued to protect the combatants from the chemical attack, he would be easily as well as miserably died consumed by the nerve gas. Before eventually taking the pills, he wildly imagines the process of being consumed by the nerve gas, as if his world is going to crumble without the

PB pills.

Me, I’m afraid… In my dark fantasies, the chemicals are gassy and green or yellow and floating around the warhead, the warhead on its way to me, my personal warhead, whistling its way to the earth, into my little hole… and I don’t want to die that old terrible way… (2005:259).

As other common soldiers who are having more chances to suffer from psychiatric casualties than civilians, Swofford is also in what is known in military psychology as obsessional and compulsive states. During his obsessional and compulsive states, he “is likely to take refuge in some type of hysterical reaction that allows him to escape psychic responsibility for his physical symptoms”

(Grossman, 1995:47) In working on the meaning of the ‘hysterical’, the writer refers to Merriam’s Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary. The dictionary states the meaning of ‘hysterical’ as follow.

Behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess (Webster, 2004:613). 60

There are several occasions that portray Swofford’s frantic responses. It begins in

February, a moment where the marines begin to do actual preparation in anticipating the war. As they realize that sooner or later the war will spread its heat, the marines are digging sand holes to protect them from the enemy’s artillery rounds or any kind of attacks they might aim to the American troops. (2005:265)

When the artillery rounds land near them and he actually witnesses the blows,

Swofford is overreact by shedding tears as indication of joy that he is in real warfare now although he is still frightened inside. Not only does he weep, but he also cannot help but urinating his pants.

More rounds impact… and I begin to weep inside my gas mask, not because of fear, though certainly I’m afraid of one of those rounds landing closer or even on top of me, but because I’m finally in combat, my Combat Action has commenced. I’ve pissed my pants, but only a bit… (2005:266).

Through more observation on Swofford, he has common reaction if he is no longer able to manage his fear. He tends to piss his pants. The more he is scare or in the dreadful situation, the more prone he is pissing his pants. We can see it when he and his other fellow marines are trapped in a situation in which no support from battalion is gained while the MLRs keep on landing surround them.

… a situation are now overruled by our collective fear and terror, and the now of these moments is a blur, a hall mirror shattering, a shiver of bodies… I stand in place and piss my pants, this time not just a trickle but piss all over… (2005:277).

Besides his tendency of pissing his pants whenever he is afraid to the deadly warfare, he lets go screaming to overcome his fear. Thus, he will be able to control himself and to stay fearless either as a marine or a combatant. It is the time when he compellingly sprints for batteries they need to run an immediate 61

mission. In fact, the distance is not a main problem for him, but it is completely difficult and frightening since he has to run in a fully equipped condition while artillery rounds keep on blazing. During that unbearable period, he shouts to lessen his fear, exhaustion, and the thought of death.

An explosion of sound surrounds me, the sound of my breathing, the sound of my gear…. the comm.shack closer now, I’m still running and breathing and the deadly sounds continue and I’m afraid of dying. I think, You are afraid of dying, I say aloud Do not die now …(2005:270-271).

C. The Similarities and Differences between the Influence of the War’s

Oppression on the Life of a Marine and Those of a War Photographer as

Seen in Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead And Scott Anderson’s Triage

Even though both literary works seem different from each other in terms of the story and intended idea imposed by the writers, the central characters in

Jarhead and Triage share a main, general idea that they are both undergo the influence of the war’s oppression in their everyday life. It is worth noticing that the influence on a marine and a war photographer might not be similar since one is unquestionably a combatant who is more or less active participant in the warfare, whereas the other is only a war photographer in the warfare. Because of that, this last subchapter of the analysis is intended to find the similarities as well as differences between the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer as seen in Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead and Scott

Anderson’s Triage.

Reading Jarhead and Triage thoroughly, we are capable to acknowledge that both central characters, Mark and Swofford, have had terrible and traumatic past 62

experiences related to the cruelty of wars. From the beginning of the stories, there is not any single statement that both are suffered from PTSD. Nevertheless, they cannot manage themselves completely away from various symptoms and reactions leading to PTSD. Basically, they indicate similitude whether for symptoms or reactions. We can recognize those similarities as soon as the detailed study reveals that their indications almost always involve re-experiencing, avoidance, and arousal as commonly initial PTSD symptoms and feelings, behavior, also physical effects as typical reactions that follow.

The initial similarity they share as the influence of the war’s oppression on both characters’ life is re-experiencing state, For instance, in Triage, even though

Mark is not able to see the triage process in one late afternoon, he cannot avoid being triggered by the sounds of Talzani’s gunshots and he keeps on closing his eyes (Anderson, 1999:19-20). Once, Swofford is also emotionally awakened by the wicked scenes of the war movies while watching them together with his fellow marines (Swofford, 2005:8). Still bearing relation with re-experiencing, their minds often project flashbacks of bad and traumatic past experiences, such as back to the moment with dying Colin on the mountain (1999:162-163) and his childhood in Japan where a tattooist throw burning cigarette at him (2005:31).

Furthermore, the form of avoidance is likely to take place. Mark suddenly uncontrollably desires to go to Spain, hoping to leave any potential remembrances in New York (1999:164). Whereas for Swofford, in intention to detach themselves from anyone or anything after leaving the Marine Corps is the only simple way to keep away from the bad memories of military life and the cruelty 63

of warfare (2005:161). Not only do the central characters of both analyzed literary works indicate similar symptoms of PTSD, but they also illustrate similar reactions to PTSD. Like others who have been through the traumatic past experience, such as wars, they turn out to be easily vulnerable or having mixture of uncertain feelings, like anger, fear, grief and bitterness. For instance, in all of a sudden, Mark fell helplessly on the bathroom floor, encircling by the hot steam

(1999:33) and at other time, even when his physical condition is improving, he still admits that he feels certain misery inside (1999:179). In Jarhead, Swofford chooses not to care about other worldly essential matters because actually, he dreads of anything related to the deadly possibility of warfare (2005:21). As explained earlier in the previous subchapters of analysis, the past traumatic happenings causes their logical mind to form flashing, intrusive images regardless they are in connection with the actual events or not, and sometimes they recur in dreams. In Triage, Mark’s thought keeps on coming back to the dreadful sights of

Mustafa Karim’s triage process (1999:90). Much worse, Swofford even dreams about being shot by a sniper in Tokyo’s alley that is obviously not his own experience – it is merely an inexplicable effect of reading about the Iraqi

Republican Guard Snipers in the newspapers (2005:175-176). In addition to reactions to PTSD in terms of feelings, they tend to be different from what they used to be. Their changes in behavior are clearly shown when Mark becomes easily confused to decide simple thing like which guide book to buy (1999:86-

87), and for Swofford who turns out to be rather ignorant for belief matter unlike before joining the Marine Corps – ordering atheist dog tags (2005:241) also 64

forgetting about Sunday Masses (2005:239). The last alike reactions to PTSD are those covered physical effects. Physical effects as one of typical reactions to

PTSD include injuries and non-injury ones, such as unnecessary excitement.

Reading Triage, we can perceive that as a result of the artillery explosion, there is a strange metal object found inside Mark’s head (1999:96). In Jarhead, Swofford endures physical injuries as well. He can no longer stand these extreme pain moments after the American bombing hit the Iraqis, when he is walking toward the miserably blown enemy zone (2005:316).

Those are the similarities of the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer as seen in Swofford’s Jarhead and

Anderson’s Triage, mostly in terms of generally the same symptoms and reactions to PTSD. Logically speaking, the influence of the war’s oppression on one individual is different from others no matter how slightly the difference might be.

Therefore, after finding the similarities between the effects of wars on Mark and

Swofford’s life, the differences are likely to follow. The most distinguished characteristic Mark depicts that is obviously opposed to what Swofford does is he is having what is known as replacement behavior. His replacement behavior is a more complex indication of his arousal state. Having developed this particular behavior, Mark becomes obsessed with finding any information about the mysteriously missing Carlos Perez which, we all know, does not show any relation with his problem nor with him as an individual (1999: 190). In addition to his replacement behavior, Mark differs himself from Swofford in a way he is clearly illustrating that he often feels excessively responsible for the death of 65

others because he is able to survive while others do not. For instance, he is aware that he could have saved the boy in Beirut instead of thinking for his own safety, but he chooses the last and the boy is shot in front of him. It develops certain sense of responsibility in him (1999:122). Meanwhile, since the writer applies theories in military psychology when doing further analysis on Jarhead, it is likely that Swofford indicates several dissimilar reactions to the influence of the war’s oppression, commonly referred as psychiatric casualties. Soldiers or combatants certainly cannot avoid the simplest casualty that is called fatigue.

They are likely to undergo extreme tiredness because of their heavy and unbearable tasks as marines. For Swofford, the peak of his extreme weariness takes place when he is taking STA Indoc tests, particularly when he has to crawl on his belly (2005:82). Being in several situations that waste all of his energy, once or so, he loses interest in interacting with marines from other units and this results in his fixation on certain reading (2005:215). At other time, his tiredness causes him to the degeneration of his daily performance, like confused how to carry the rifle even though that is not his very first time holding it (2005:40).

Besides enduring endless fatigue, he starts to develop disorientation as soon as the process of STA Indoc tests come about in Okinawa. During his state of delirium as a part of his confusional state, he imagines that he thinks he can hear screaming from the dead Japanese and Americans (2005:81). Based on the psychological study, if someone has ever been in the delirium state, he is likely to develop

Ganzer syndrome. Swofford shows his tendency of developing this syndrome when in one moment, he jokes about being transferred to the Oil Corps because 66

their main task is, in fact, to protect oil fields in Saudi Arabia (2005:11-12) and playing silly football games with a gas mask on along with full MOPP suit

(2005:22) in order to temporarily shifting away any dreadful possibility of warfare. Furthermore, once, he is in conversion hysteria state in a way he considers himself as worthless, no longer knows if he can be of any function at all, when he and others do not have any fire support from the Battalion

(2005:273). Another psychiatric casualty he has to endure is anxiety. There are many times he is in intolerable anxiety states. For example, he turns out to be greatly obsessed with death and fatality that he attempts to kill himself (2005:97) and his fellow marine (2005:144). He is experiencing extreme fright when the

MLRs shower him and distorts his visualization (2005:277). Furthermore, sense of giddiness cannot be separated from Swofford as he imagines that his world was going to ruin in pieces if he refused to take the PB pills (2005:259). Finally, the last difference is that unlike Mark, Swofford is experiencing obsessional and compulsive states where he depicts some hysterical behaviors as the forms of escaping for physical symptoms rooted on fear, such as pissing his pants when he is excited for being eventually in a real combat (2005:266) and when he is surrounded by the MLRs (2005:277), also by shouting as loud as he can to overcome his dread while running for batteries among artillery explosions

(2005:270-271).

67

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

From the detail analysis in previous chapter, we are able to acknowledge that both central characters in Jarhead and Triage, namely Mark Walsh and Anthony

Swofford, are of perfect examples on how the influence of the war’s oppression is greatly affects the life of people who ever experienced the cruelty of wars although one is a combatant and the other is a war photographer.

In Scott Anderson’s Triage, the main character to be analyzed is Mark Walsh.

Being a professional war photographer, he get used to face the cruelty of wars, including its aftermath. From what are illustrated by the novel in detail, Mark shows some typical indications leading to PTSD which is known as one of the worst influence of war. These common PTSD indications cover both initial symptoms and reactions to it. Throughout the novel, we can discover that Mark indicates some typical PTSD symptoms, such as the states of re-experiencing, avoidance, and arousal. For re-experiencing state, he is likely to be emotionally triggered by any sights, smells, or hearing that bring back his past traumatic memories into life. Furthermore, those past traumatic memories often come out in the form of recurring flashbacks. Not wanting to experience dreadful and traumatic happening again, Mark starts to form avoidance by disengaging himself from any potential remembrances whether they are things, people, or places as he decides to go to Spain for his mental as well as physical healing instead of staying in New York or taking a duty trip to Burma. However hard his attempts to appear 68

and sound tough, he cannot avoid being terribly shaken and defenseless, suddenly fell unconscious and weeps easily. Even, he develops replacement behavior in which he becomes unnecessarily obsessed with the missing Carlos Perez’ matter.

Not only does Mark portray common PTSD symptoms, but he also reacts to

PTSD he endures. His reactions are related to feelings, behavior, and physical effects. As stated earlier, disturbing images are likely to appear, particularly when he is emotionally triggered. The intrusive images are mostly related to past traumatic happening, such as the dreadful triage process of Mustafa Karim, his last moment with dying Colin on the mountain, and others. These intrusive and horrible images affect his emotional being. As a result, he keeps on developing mixture of uncertain feelings that involve anger, angst, shame, and also bitterness.

This mixture of uncertain feelings is likely to come when we are survived from devastation while the others not. For Mark, his sense of survivor guilt is rooted from witnessing Colin’s death, ignoring his heart call to save the boy in Beirut, collecting unidentified skulls in Uganda, and being the only man alive on the Sri

Lanka beach. Being greatly traumatized, he is no longer person he used to be. He cannot even decide books he wants to buy and taking a solid stand in maintaining his own opinion – he gives up effortlessly. The last influence of the war’s oppression on his life as a war photographer is to physical effects. In spite of light and serious injuries, he also notices that his strength and physical appearance is degrading.

As a comparison to the influence of the war’s oppression on Mark’s life as a war photographer, the writer does detail study on the influence on Swofford’s life 69

as a marine. Similar to Mark, he is also emotionally awakened by the sights of the brutal scenes in war movies that cause him to cry and stop to watch them again.

Furthermore, his re-experiencing state projects his childhood experience of being thrown a burning cigarette by a tattoo artist in Japan upon seeing the fish scales- like scar on his skin. Besides being in re-experiencing state, he forms avoidance by entirely not having any contact with the Corps after leaving it. Even though there is no clear mentioning about his having PTSD, he indicates typical PTSD reactions in terms of feelings, manners, and also physical effects. At several times, he feels possessed by anger and fear, especially when he realizes that the possibility of death is approaching. His mixture of feelings appears in the forms of intrusive thought and dreams, such as about apologizing to Burke or being shot by a sniper. When there is no intrusive dream comes, he cannot sleep well during cautious situation. Along with his mixture of feelings, his attitude is also change.

After joining the Marine Corps, he considers that religion is not really important compared to his own safety as a marine. The war’s oppression also influences his physical condition. He turns out to be energized, not in performing his military tasks, but when doing foolish, unnecessary thing like physically abusing Kuehn in front of the coming reporters. At the end of the story, it is mentioned that he is having some injuries after the marines successfully bombing the enemy.

Additionally, based on the military psychology, Swofford endures some psychiatric casualties. To begin with, like other soldiers, he is frequently suffering from fatigue cases whether he is performing military tasks or not. This extreme tiredness affects him further that he loses interest to interact with other units and 70

confuses him in doing simple task, such as carrying rifle. Another psychiatric casualty he endures is confusional states. It is mentioned that he is having delirium when his weariness is at peak. It is shown when he is taking the hard

STA Indoc tests in the wet jungle of Okinawa. Meanwhile, his jokes about the Oil

Corps and playing foolish football games to obscure fear and any thought of death are obvious signs that he develops Ganzer syndrome. Once, he assumes that he is completely insignificant although he is consciously aware of his existence unlike others who become amnesiatic when undergoing conversion hysteria. Among psychiatric casualties he has to endure, Swofford is mostly found in anxiety states.

Being in an uncertainty situation of warfare, he is surely incapable of concentrating, feels extreme fear, has seemingly illogical fascination on death and fatality that is accompanied by giddiness and blurred vision. From the final observation on the psychiatric casualties, the writer comes across trifle findings on his hysterical reactions when he finds himself in dreadful situation of warfare. His minor hysterical reactions include shouting loudly and pissing his pants.

Comparing both literary works, the writer is able to acknowledge the similarities and differences of the influence of the war’s oppression on the life of a marine and a war photographer. Their similarities cover re-experiencing, avoidance, feelings, behavior, and physical effects. In terms of differences, the most notable ones is that Mark indicates replacement behavior and develops the sense of survivor guilt, while Swofford does not experience none of this. Jarhead, being analyzed in advance using military psychology theories, the influence of the war’s oppression on a marine’s life is precisely unlike those in a war 71

photographer’s life. This diversity refers to some common psychiatric casualties, such as fatigue cases, confusional states, conversion hysteria, anxiety states, and also obsessional and compulsive states.

To give final thought on the conclusion, the writer would like to state that any terrible and traumatic past happening we had been through, including wars, is having great possibilities to affect its participant mentally and physically regardless of our position during the traumatic happening – become active participants or only peripheral ones because we are just merely civilian doing our jobs or living in the combat area. For the case of wars, no matter how hard we want to keep ourselves away from the devastating warfare and its influence, they sssare still existing “for generations, heating up at times, cooling down at others, but the flames never went out” (Anderson, 1999:46). This is wisely viewed as one of the precautions that “more bombs are coming” (Swofford, 2005:359) and thus, be prepared for either bad or good possibilities.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abrams, M.H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. .

Anderson, Scott. Triage. London: PAN Books, 1999.

Arnold, William. “’Jarhead’ Sends A Powerful Message about War's Psychological Toll.” (4 November 2005)

Grossman, Dave. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. New York: Back Bay Books, 1995.

Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature: New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

International Movie Data Base

LaSalle, Mick. “A Soldier’s Story that’s Full of Blood and Guts – but No Heroics” < http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi> (4 November 2005)

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Eleventh Edition. Springfield: Merriam-Webster Inc., 2004.

Parkinson, Frank. Post-Trauma Stress: A Personal Guide to Reduce the Long- Term Effects and Hidden Emotional Damage Caused by Violence and Disaster. Tucson: Fisher Books, 2000.

Sutherland, Valerie. “Scott Anderson’s Triage Looks at the Paradoxes and the Traumas of War.” Education Age. 5 May 2001. (4 November 2005)

Swofford, Anthony. Jarhead. New York: Pocket Books, 2005.

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Williamson, Sam. “A Skewed View of Life in the Marines: A Review of Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead.” (18 April 2003)

Zacharek, Stephanie. (4 November 2005)

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APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Summary of Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead

Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead generally tells about U.S. Marines’ chronicle of the Gulf War and other battle. Since the novel is an autobiography, it particularly depicts the U.S. Marines’ chronicle through Swofford’s own experience as a

”jarhead” - a special term known for a marine. Throughout the novel, Swofford portrays how complicated it is to be a U.S. Marine, individually and collectively, mentally as well as physically. The opening of the novel focused on Swofford solely. At the time he was alone in the basement, he traced back a few things marines generally did when they started to open themselves to the world of fighting and combating. Unfortunately, what marines did were often not because they wanted to or willing to, but because they were told to do so and as a marine, you must remember although in many years that followed, forgetting would be the only thing you could do. Later on, Swofford’s platoon, STA (Surveillance and

Target Acquisition) 2/7 – a special platoon for brave and talented scout/snipers, was stationed at Twentynine Palms base in California’s Mojave Desert before they were ‘released’ into the real world of the first Gulf War. From that moment on, the reality began to reveal. Although the Marines seemed fascinated with anything brutal, such as wars and other killing stuffs, their minds were all occupied with fear of failure and death. No wonder that they were about to lose their sanity – yelled, wept like babies, even tried to end other fellow marines’ life. 75

In 1990, Swofford’s platoon and the others were sent to Saudi Arabia. The marines were stationed in Kuwait with their main task to protect Kuwaiti oil fields from the Iraqi troops. At the time they were arrived there, the battle had not begun. Instead of depicting U.S. Marines’ attitudes as heroes of the country and the real gentlemen for their beloved ones, Jarhead portrays their bad and sometimes dangerous behavior that were all considered to be normal and proper in marines’ everyday life. After quite a tedious moment of waiting, the announcement of the real battle begun to be heard through the polluted, unhealthy air of burning oil mixed with sea of sands and uncertainty. All of the marines were prepared to protect themselves as well as the country they had been ordered to defend. As a very first basic step, they dug holes filled with their precious ammunitions and things they believed might bring luck and safety for them. The situation was getting tense, not because they enemy started to attack, but it was no longer clear who were on whose side. It can be seen that the U.S. tanks carelessly aiming friendly fires at other U.S. Marines. When the real battle begun, the enemy really attacked, the situation was only rather tense, as not as bloody as the marines and others had imagined. The war did not last long and the U.S. marines gained their victory easily.

Appendix 2: Summary of Scott Anderson’s Triage

Anderson’s Triage is a story about a war photographer named Mark Walsh who had been wounded when performing his jobs in Kurdistan. Being wounded, he also experienced what is known by “triage”, as suggested by the title of the 76

novel. Although he did not receive blue tag from Dr. Talzani, Mark was surely traumatized by the sounds of the execution done for the incurable wounded men.

In addition to that, witnessing his close friend, Colin, died gave account for further sore and guilt for this sole survivor. Then, he began to deny the fact, he kept acting as if Colin would be back soon while endless nightmares and torturing experiences kept flashing on his minds. Upon seeing Mark behaved rather different than he had used to be, Elena, Mark’s girlfriend, reluctantly accept her grandfather offer to help Mark to his usual condition. Elena’s grandfather,

Joaquin, was famous for his ability to ”purify” the war criminals’ consciousness, especially those of Franco's fascist officers and for this reason, his relationship with Elena was cut-off for some times. To help Mark restore his condition, he took Mark and Elena to Spain. Soon, Mark’s condition was getting better but only in terms of physical. It is apparent that inner part of his mind was reluctant to completely get rid of many traumatic incidents in the past. Fortunately, with

Joaquin’s mild but persuasive approach, Mark could lessen his burden by sharing his past experience with Joaquin and slowly overcome his trauma. In the end of the story, the act of casting down an unknown flower on the Guadalfeo River actually shows that Mark was no longer suffer from his “survivor guilt”, including began to accept the death of his close friend that made him suffer terribly for quite a long time, and as a good starting point to go on with his future life.