// War Literature

“He has become obsessed with the idea of a rocket with his name on it-if they’re really set on getting him (“They” embracing possibilities far far beyond Nazi Germany) that’s the surest way, doesn’t cost them a thing to paint his name on every one, right?”

Amidst the confusion that Simona has already pointed out, the quote was the only thing I could really relate to anything else throughout the opening section of the novel. It is about Tyrone Slothrop, who is an investigator of “V-bomb ‘incidents,’” hangs a mysterious map in his office, and thinks that he is overdue for death. He expresses his fear to his friend Tantivy, and in his explanation exposes that he does not particularly fear death as a danger of war, but he is paranoid that he is being particularly targeted, “taken for a sucker.” He thinks he will be hit with a rocket dubbed with his name, but I almost feel like the V-bomb is just a product of his obsession. He clearly expresses that you cannot hear it approaching, and in his very appropriate position at ACHTUNG, has the duty of studying the remains of the rocket, which are never anything of substance.

In rereading the pages dedicated to Slothrop (pg. 20-30), this quote stood out: “…signs laid to satisfy the many sorts of police, military and civilian, whatever ‘civilian’ means nowadays.” I think this really ties in to the emphasis of Slothrop’s fear. Well, I think what it does is eliminate the boundaries between soldier and non-soldier, to show that everyone has some sort of connection to the war, that everyone’s daily life is affected by it, and, of course that there is an overwhelming fear rooted in it. Take, for example, the simple but continuous mention of the banana. A fruit normally taken for granted, though in this text and in this world defined by war, it has become a symbol of the luxury of normalcy.