Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition that often occurs after a person experiences a traumatic life event. One of the more common causes of PTSD is the experience of active combat during a time of war. There is wide a range of common symptoms associated with PTSD, including nightmares, flashbacks, depression, sleep disturbances, and a “fight or flight” response in certain situations. The symptoms of PTSD can be divided into four broad categories: reliving, avoidance, negative beliefs, and hyper-arousal (U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs). In Bao Ninh’s novel, The Sorrow of War, the protagonist, Kien, shows signs of PTSD symptoms throughout the novel that match each of these four categories.
The first category of PTSD that is evident in the novel is the sense of reliving the traumatic experience. One of the criteria for PTSD, according to the DSM-5, is the presence of flashbacks, where a person returns to a vivid, life-like memory of a traumatic event (U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs). In The Sorrow of War, the author describes one of Kien’s flashbacks: “The air in his room felt strange, vibrating with images of the past. Then it shook, shuddering under waves of hundreds of artillery shells pouring into …show more content…
The protagonist, Kien, has frequent flashbacks even while wide awake, and suffers from persistent depression and negative feelings or beliefs. Kien also isolates himself avoiding close interaction and engagement with other people and finds himself unable to follow through with his creative project of writing a novel. Additionally, Kien shows a clear pattern of hyper-arousal through sleep disturbances, aggression, and substance abuse. Considering these examples the main character Kien meets all of the criteria specified for post-traumatic stress
The first category of PTSD that is evident in the novel is the sense of reliving the traumatic experience. One of the criteria for PTSD, according to the DSM-5, is the presence of flashbacks, where a person returns to a vivid, life-like memory of a traumatic event (U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs). In The Sorrow of War, the author describes one of Kien’s flashbacks: “The air in his room felt strange, vibrating with images of the past. Then it shook, shuddering under waves of hundreds of artillery shells pouring into …show more content…
The protagonist, Kien, has frequent flashbacks even while wide awake, and suffers from persistent depression and negative feelings or beliefs. Kien also isolates himself avoiding close interaction and engagement with other people and finds himself unable to follow through with his creative project of writing a novel. Additionally, Kien shows a clear pattern of hyper-arousal through sleep disturbances, aggression, and substance abuse. Considering these examples the main character Kien meets all of the criteria specified for post-traumatic stress