Honor And Pity, Pride And Sacrifice

The Complexity of Forgetting In the short story Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice by Nam Le, readers are acknowledged the reason behind the conflict between the two protagonists, the father and the son, that it is rooted from overly strict nurturing. Not to let readers dislike the character of the father too far, the story of Thanh, the father, about his experience in Vietnam War is inserted to offer the reason of his suffering from the memory of the war which, perhaps, leads him to bring up Nam, the narrator and his son, strictly as if his life is in the war camp. The story probably arouses some readers ' pity, understanding, or interest in his attempt to forget the battle considered both his action and speech. Yet, in the meantime, although Thanh, in the first place, tries not to mention the years of service as a soldier as if to imply that it should be forsaken, getting confused later by his inconsistent actions and speeches, some readers may question whether Thanh really wants to forget the bitter experience in Vietnam War or not. There are two possibilities to consider the case: he really wants to forget the event but he cannot, or he is unable to forget because he still never puts all the effort in trying to forget it. Thanh manifests his intention to forget his bloody experience by barely talking about his past; he only informs Nam once that he is a veteran. He avoids mentioning about the experience in Vietnam War all along; it