What is the effect of the tone and structure of the story, including its use of listing/organizing and its ordering and repeating of events, and how this could relate to an attempt to comprehend the soldiers’ experiences? What is signified with Ted Lavender’s death as the central event in the story? How do Jimmy Cross and also his platoon soldiers view Lavender’s death? What is the significance of Jimmy Cross’ infatuation with Martha back home? What is the significance of the idea of existing “separate-but-together” throughout the story? What role does the setting of the story play, particularly the Vietnam War and its general American reception? Is there a question of (a)morality and general violence in the story’s portrayal of wartime? What is said about the notion of purpose and direction or guidance in the story’s war? What is the significance of the items the soldiers carry concretely and abstractly? Of the motif of weight, both heaviness/lightness? Where do we see the soldiers’ coping mechanisms and acts of distancing through language and behavior, in their minds and with each other? Where do we see the power of words within the story? A sense of depersonalization in the story? A sense of loss and grief in the story? The presence of humor? What can we make of the comparison of wartime living to a script in the story? Where do we see the ideas of survival and comradery in the story, and how are these juxtaposed to traditionally expectations for acts of bravery and nationalism in wartime?
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