Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Nicholas Rinaldi and His Works
Nicholas Rinaldi is an American novelist and poet. He was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1934, and presently lives in Connecticut. His literary works include three collections of poems and four novels. His poems and novels have brought him quite a few awards and great honors, and most recently, he was honored as the 2007 Artist of the Year by the Fairfield Arts council.1 As a young boy, he showed great enthusiasm for literature. During his high-school and college years at Fordham, his interest in literature augmented and his doctoral dissertation on study of allusions applied by William Faulkner in his works spawned several articles in literary journals. He published his first collection of poems in 1977, called The Resurrection of the Snails, and two more collections of poems respectively in 1982 and 1985, namely, We Have Lost Our Fathers and The Luftwaffe in Chaos. These works brought him the initial fame as a poet. In the same year along with his last collection of poems, his first novel came into being. Entitled Bridge Fall Down and centering around a young American soldier’s growth during the Vietnam War, this book drew many critics’ attention as well as recommendation. In the subsequent years, three more novels were in print: The Jukebox Queen of Malta (1999), with a cover endorsement from Joseph Heller, is a book about an American soldier on the island of Malta in World War II. Between Two Rivers (2004) was generally considered as his masterpiece. Centered on the residents of a fictitious condo building in lower Manhattan, the novel gracefully weaves together the extraordinary matrix of human lives in New York. His latest work, The Remarkable Courtship of General Tom Thumb, was published in 2014 is a stunning work about the American Civil War. Richard Bernstein once numbered Nicholas Rinaldi among the names of Joseph Heller, William Styron, and Norman Mailer. Although he is younger than those celebrated giants, Rinaldi is more than pleased to be numbered among them.
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1.2 Literature Review
Novels about the theme of growing-up have a deep root in American literature, from Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage and to J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and so on so forth. Although different in settings and plots, they all deal with maturity and transformation of inpiduals, and these stories often share a generally similar structure: temptation, leaving, test, confusion, epiphany, transformation, loss of innocence, maturity, understanding of life and/or self, etc. Although not all stories proceed in the same way, nearly all initiation novels contain such similar experiences as the protagonist’s growing-up background, his/her growing-up confusion, leaving home, encountering danger, getting into trouble, being enlightened and saved. That is to say, writers always consciously or unconsciously adopt a similar structural mode, sometimes this mode appears in a variant form (Rui, 2004: 80).
In Bridge Fall Down, the protagonist Simon joins the army and goes to Vietnam not long after graduating from college. He is a young man of universal fraternity and believes in the benevolence of human nature. Being patriotic and green to war, he wishes to be a hero and to serve his country. Similarly, throughout the whole journey, he has undergone the stages of setting out, being tested, questioning what he believes in, confusion, and transformation. What is different is that the setting is put to a postmodern battlefield, Vietnam, which adds new implications to this transformation process.
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Chapter Two Beliefs Established: Departure for the Mission
2.1 Indecision of Leaving for the Mission
Unlike most protagonists who are resolved to leave the original place, whether tempted or self-motivated, or in some cases, forced in other growing-up stories, Simon shows his hesitation and indeterminacy in his departure. There are mainly two reasons about his indecision, namely, his unwillingness to destroy good things and the “suicide” nature of the mission. This indecision is important in that it sows the seed of Simon’s questioning of the mission.
2.1.1 Unwillingness of Implementing the Mission
he setting of the story is the Vietnam War where the Americans are involved deeper and deeper into Southeastern Asia. Beginning in the 1950s, American military advisors arrived in Vietnam (then French Indochina). U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop level tripling in 1961 and again in 1962. U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tokin incident.7 It is in such background that the story begins.
During his stay at Camp Alpha in Vietnam, Simon is called in by the higher officers and is designated to blow a bridge. They tell him “Simon, this one is yours, you’re going to blow this bridge” (Rinaldi, 1985: 16). Plain and definite, it is an order rather than a consultation. The officers do not explain anything about the mission, such as the strategic significance of the bridge, the whereabouts of the bridge, the deadline of the mission, nothing. Simon asks “Do I have to do this?” (Rinaldi, 1985: 16) After receiving the positive answer, he says “Then I will” (Rinaldi, 1985: 16). Obviously, he accepts the mission not out of the dedicatory passion, but out of duty. And he asks nothing else because it is a mission from the higher officers, so it is natural for him to think that the mission is well-demonstrated and well-arranged, and it is supposed to bear military and strategic significance. All he needs to do is to obey the order.
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2.2 Formation of Beliefs
Despite the hardship of the mission and the fact that Simon is unwilling to destroy the bridge emotionally, he accepts the mission and sets out anyway. More importantly, he has high expectations from this mission, both for himself and for a nobler purpose. For one thing, as far as Simon is concerned, accepting the mission is the right thing to do, to bring peace and democracy to the Vietnamese and it is also a good opportunity to serve his country. For another thing, he is keen to prove himself and to be a hero. After Simon establishes his beliefs in humanity and heroism, consciously or unconsciously, his indeterminacy turns into determinacy. Belief’s purpose is to guide actions and not to indicate truth.8 So even though Simon has established his beliefs, they are not helpful for him to recognize the true purpose of the war. Simon’s beliefs set his mind and determine his actions, leading him to the battlefield, a place where all his current ideas will be renewed.
2.2.1 Formation of Belief in Humanity
For Simon, being patriotic is part of human nature, which is a fairly important concept in his understanding of humanity, and the idea is deeply rooted in his mind and is externalized in his actions and speeches. Under any circumstance, the interest of the country counts most. Therefore, nobody can weigh his/her own interest over the interest of the country. Simon is willing to serve his country no matter how much he does not want to enforce a mission or how difficult the mission is, even when it means to sacrifice his life. This is actually true to many young people who joined the army and went to Vietnam. The soldiers who fought the war in Vietnam, especially those who went there in the initial stage of the war, went to the battlefield with excitement and high morale (Isserman, 2005: 75).
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Chapter Three Beliefs Challenged: Sufferings during the Mission Enforcement ........................... 17
3.1 Painful Experiences of the War ........................ 17
3.1.1 Victim of Physical Harm ............................. 18
3.1.2 Sufferer of Spiritual Loneliness ......................... 21
Chapter Four Beliefs Shattered: Maturity after the Mission Accomplishment ................. 31
4.1 Discovery of the Conspiracies of the Mission .............................. 31
4.1.1 “persion” for Another Greater Mission .......................... 32
4.1.2 Tool for Personal Commercial Profit .................. 33
Chapter Five Conclusion ..................... 40
5.1 Findings ............................ 40
5.2 Limitations and Further Studies .................... 41
Chapter Four Beliefs Shattered: Maturity after the Mission Accomplishment
4.1 Discovery of the Conspiracies of the Mission
Wobbling between the ambiguous state of believing and suspecting, Simon eventually reaches the bridge. It is a splendid bridge, but what makes Simon feels strange is that the bridge seems unguarded. Sparing no effort, Simon, Thurl and Falling Stone successfully take it down. Having witnessed the breaking up and falling down of the bridge, Simon feels relieved and acquires a sense of accomplishment. But it only lasts for a while, before long “He felt nothing, blank.…and what he felt was loss, waste, depletion, as if he had witnessed, caused, the destruction of something whose meaning he could not fully grasp, and now the meaning was permanently gone. He felt contaminated, infected, as if he had consciously cooperated in something that was unclean” (Rinaldi, 1985: 249-250). Though Simon eradicates the bridge, vaguely he still feels a sense of uncertainty, about the importance of the bridge, the significance of the mission and the correctness of holding steady his beliefs. Therefore, the description here paves the way for the later exposure of the truth of the mission. Soon, the “monkeys” swarm out and the guns, mortars wildly blast away at them from the other side of the gorge, during which Trask, Emma Sue and Schlumn are killed, and more are dead. Simon and Tess are the only two that are left and are saved by Meyerbeer. In the helicopter, Simon learns the truth and the conspiracies of the mission from Meyerbeer, knowing that the mission bears no strategic value at all. What they do, by risking their lives, is only an insignificant persionary maneuver, and more cruelly, is the material needed for Meyerbeer to make a film. He feels a deep sense of betrayal and desperation, and witnesses the dark side of human nature. With the falling down of the bridge, his beliefs in humanity and heroism also shatter.
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Chapter Five Conclusion
5.1 Findings
reference(omitted)