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Writers usually deploy a lot of literary devices like symbolism, imagery, metaphor, and simile to communicate to their audience, apart from achieving the objective of enhancing the quality of their work. This becomes apparent in the poem, “Facing It,” by Yusef Komunyakaa, where the author effectively articulates both the literal and figurative aspects of his message through the use of rich symbolism and vivid imagery.
This literary technique allows the reader to form a connection between the direct concrete meaning of the words that the writer uses to communicate his anguish and their deeper abstract meaning. The poem portrays a vivid image of the emotional rollercoaster the author is experiencing as he visits the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. “Facing It” successfully incorporates the use symbolism and imagery throughout the structure of the poem and its carefully chosen words enable the reader to analyze and interpret the poem’s psychological themes and meaning as they relate to the mental state of the protagonist.
This poem is structured in one long stanza, which overflows with the nostalgic memories of a veteran soldier, who has served the American Army during the Vietnam War. The richness of the symbolism in the poem becomes amply evident right from its beginning where the author connotes to the protagonist’s ethnicity by using the words “black face” which may be an allusion to his being a Black American and having experienced discrimination at the hands of Viet Cong as well as the country he fought for. Besides, the color black itself represents a sense of gloom that encroaches the conscience of a war veteran when he visits a memorial created in the honor of those who died in the said war.
Moreover, it appears that the author wants to foreshadow the essence of human tragedy by hinting to this gloom and finally connecting it to a reality, where, towards the end of the poem, he presents the image of a sole woman. He introduces her by stating that she appears to “erase names” but a closer look reveals to him that she is brushing the hair of her son. This image draws the attention of the audience to recognize a fact that the war has deprived many a woman of their spouses and many children of their father.
The image of a woman, who tries to erase names, though it is a product of the fleeting imagination of the narrator, gives out a sense to the reader that she is trying to escape the memories of a dead husband. This further illustrates the psychological framework of the protagonist who feels the seclusion from the society as he may necessarily have had to remain segregated from others due to the specific situations resulting from the war, and the sense of guilt he undergoes as a survivor.
In addition, the structure of the poem is a very prominent example of the richness of vivid imagery that Yusef deploys in his craft to communicate his message to the readers. The author purposely does not break up stanzas or add spaces in between lines thus creating a direct visual impact. As one examines the piece it is clear that the structure of the poem itself symbolically resembles a wall. The poem is also symbolic through the way Yusef chooses to separate the lines.
For instance, in the sentence “I go down the 58,022 names/half-expecting to find/ my own in letter like smoke,” the word count of each line is ironic. It is purposely formatted so that the line above the word “half-expecting,” has exactly double the amount of words. The deeper meaning behind the specific word count is that the author is trying to convey to the reader his feelings that “part” of him died with the war.VERY NICE Through this line, the reader is also able to psychologically diagnose the authors’ obvious condition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is a disorder that many war veterans suffer from and relates to feelings of survivor guilt and the fact that after the traumatic exposure from the war their innocence is stripped and part of them left behind.
Further, Yusef’s deployment of symbolism and imagery is conspicuous when he illustrates the manner in which the protagonist “go down the 58022 names, half expecting to find his (my) own in letters like smoke.” The reference to ‘smoke’ renders the narration a surreal quality and perhaps the author intends to signify a fact that these names may remain in the nation’s agenda only for a short while, and then evaporate from the citizens’ mind as if smoke disappears into air after a while.
This, again, seems to be the protagonist’s psychological fear that he, like one of those soldiers, may be forgotten by the society and become insignificant like a wisp of smoke vanishing into thin air – forgotten, disappearing without leaving a trace.
The power of the author’s imagery further becomes evidenced in the way he refers to “Andrew Johnson” perhaps, a friend of his, who was killed in an explosion. “The booby trap’s white flash” is a strong and vivid image that makes the reader shudder in the full impact of an exploding mine. The diligence of the author, when he writes, “names shimmer on a woman’s blouse/but when she walks away/ the names stay on the wall,” is beyond compare and truly commendable.
This, again, also alludes to the sense of guilt and psychological fear of being deserted. The reference to the names “shimmering on a woman’s blouse” seems to convey a sense of a female loving a soldier, while “when she walks away, the names stay on the wall,” seems to communicate the contrasting reality that when a wife deserts her soldier husband, his name remains relegated to the mere status of a symbol on a memorial’s wall.
Moreover, the strength of imagery and symbolism in the poem are also evident in the lines where the author mentions a plane, obviously a bomber and the loss of a white vet’s arm. The narrator then becomes a window, something the other can use to look at things. The allusion is obvious to a discerning reader that sometimes the white will see through only a black’s eye, when they are made to suffer the actual pain as humans.
When he loses an arm the person essentially gains an eye to see the pain of others and the black protagonist becomes the window through which the former gets the opportunity to look at a world he has so far chosen not to see, one which he had failed to acknowledge.
The author carefully chooses his words to deftly bring the post-traumatic condition to life. The author’s diction helps to allow the reader to feel as lost and out of place as the narrator feels in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Another area where Yusef employs symbolism in the poem is when he demonstrates the change in the protagonist’s mood by referring to his action: “I turn this way – the stone lets me go/I turn that way – I’m inside…”
This seems to allude to the fact that people go there only with a purpose, or only on certain occasions. Otherwise, the granite stones and the encrypted names remain there, lonely and abandoned. The symbolism here underlines once again the protagonist’s psychological fear of being left alone. Or, on the other hand, remaining himself aloof from the society as he himself feels a sense of guilt when he sees the encrypted names because he may be considering a possibility of his being there instead of others and as a survivor he may be feeling this essential guilt that others had died to save him.
“Facing It,” is written in first person narrative form to create a emotional and more personal connection between the author and reader. The style of writing used by Yusef is very simple, and the author makes use of several slang terms which influences the formality of the poem. This gives the feel that this veteran is a close friend, and provides the audience with a sense of closeness to the writer as if the latter is confiding to them about his inner fears and traumas like a person telling about his feelings to a close friend.
The poem, on a broader specterWW, can be seen as the portrayal of the sense of guilt and the psychological fear of the protagonist. Rather than telling things in a straightforward manner, the author has chosen subtlety, which makes the poem even more profound in its meaning and the message it strives to convey. By using the literary devices of symbolism and imagery the author makes the reading of the poem a tangible experience for the readers.
Throughout the poem, Yusef contradicts himself as the protagonist battles between overcoming the reality of the present and reliving the hardships of the past. He is aggressive in describing the vivid flashbacks he sees and feels as he visits the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and then quickly shifts back to what is going on around him in the present moment and the memorial he is observing. The reflection, and consequences of the Vietnam War, is seen through the author’s wounded conscience, his sense of guilt and the resultant distraught words. Thus by the effective use of imagery and symbolism, Yusef Komunyakaa strongly depicts the sense of guilt and psychological fears of his protagonist.
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