Vietnam Literary Journalism

Question 11 • Hopkins FA American Literature (2026-2027)

Which excerpt from Dispatches uses imagery to reflect the conflicting emotions that soldiers face during a war?

Answer

Flares were dropping everywhere around the fringes of the perimeter, laying a dead white light on the high ground rising from the piedmont.

It was different with the incoming at Khe Sanh. You didn’t get to watch the shells very often. You knew if you heard one, the first one, that you were safe, or at least saved. If you were still standing up and looking after that, you deserved anything that happened to you.

Night was when you really had the least to fear and feared the most. You could go through some very bad numbers at night.

No wonder everyone became a luck freak, no wonder you could wake at four in the morning some mornings and know that tomorrow it would finally happen, you could stop worrying about it now and just lie there, sweating in the dampest chill you ever felt.

Explanation

C uses the image of nighttime to capture two opposing emotions: the soldiers feel they have the least to fear, yet they fear the most. The contrast shows how war can make a moment seem safer while still leaving soldiers intensely afraid. D also conveys anxiety, but C most directly reflects conflicting emotions through its striking contrast.

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