Patriotism

Jacob Smith

Patriotism

Late in the novel after Marson kills the sniper that shot Asch, a daunting realization comes over him:  “He stumbled out of the clearing and headed down the mountain to catch up with the others, moving quickly, as if running away from what he had just done…He did not feel sick now, so much, but empty.  It seemed that all the human parts of him had gone, had leeched out of him…”Do your duty,” his father had said.  And he could not find in his heart what the word meant anymore. And he could not find in his heart what the word meant anymore…”Do your duty” was an abstraction, and the dead made it seem ugly and irrelevant” (153-154).  Bausch’s telling of Marson’s last exchange with his father initially didn’t carry much weight.  At first, it only seemed to serve as another source of background information, and to fill out Marson as a character.  It also served as another example of time slowing down for Marson amidst the action in the war.  However, it becomes evident that Bausch inserted this patriotism into Marson’s backstory in order to bring into question the futility of it.  There was a large outpouring of nationalism during the Second World War.  This is personified through Joyner’s character as he constantly refers to the Italians as fascists in order to justify Glick shooting the Italian whore.  But it seems to fail Marson in the end.  Even after his father, a man that Marson has dreamt of being able to talk man-to-man with, tries to instill his own patriotism into Marson, it doesn’t help Marson come to grips with his actions.  Marson has done his duty as a soldier, but cannot seem to find satisfaction in this.  This nationalistic pride that fueled young men to battle fails to assuage any grief that Marson feels over the killing.  Ironically, the killing in the name of patriotic duty or vengeance made Marson’s duty all the more meaningless.