Nineteen - Night Life

This lovely chapter details the mental adventure of a fellow who gradually goes insane. goody. In this situation, I don't really think the manner of his insanity matters too much. What O'Brien is trying to point out here is who finally ended up cracking. It was Rat Kiley, the medic, and the fellow who we haven't heard too much about so far. The one thing that seems to be missing from Kiley is his own personal method of coping. So far, there's been a bit of a recurring theme with several of the characters of how each one takes a different method to make the horrors of war seem more bearable. Perhaps it's a motif. I don't know, I've never understood that silly word. What the heck, let's label it anyway. There has been Azar and his tasteless jokes, Lemon and his tough-guy act, Sanders and his morals, O'Brien and his writing, Lavender and his drugs, Kiowa and his religion, et cetera. However, Kiley has no such ward to protect himself, and thus during the night, he is the only one who "couldn't make the adjustment" (p. 208). He was the only one who had absolutely nothing to hold himself up with, nothing to fall back on. And eventually, in the dark, there was nothing to keep the terrible things he had seen, especially as a field medic, from coming back and driving him insane. So I guess what O'Brien is saying is just that everybody really just needs something to help them cope with hardships in life, and if you don't...well, you can always just put a bullet in your foot.

This is a foot.