A comparison of perspective in Vietnam literature

This video is a creative interpretation of a comparison between the ways in which the societies both Le Ly Hayslip and Philip Caputo were born in - America and Vietnam - affected their writing styles.

I purposefully did not include the citations for the quotations in the hopes that the tone and style of their writing would stand on its own, allowing the viewer to individually distinguish between the two distinct styles.

Caputo, an American soldier, speaks of the factual, recounting his experiences in the war with straightforward speculation. His writing, though fluid and articulate, is terse and to the point. Hayslip's, however, a girl born of Vietnam who experienced the effects of the war firsthand, writes in metaphor, speaking in language that is decorative and flowing, whilst also addressing her experiences in less one-dimensional perspective and a more transcendent, spiritual one.

These two different styles of writing can be directly linked to the impressions left by the societies in which these two authors lived. America, an industrialized country dedicated to its logical thinking, who was so inept to participate in the Vietnam War because of the ways in which they knew how to fight - face on with the enemy, two different sides, with brute strength and tactical logistics. The Vietnamese, however, were more religious and spiritual, a society dedicated to its rural origins, which manifested in the ways in which they fought - with booby traps, secreted troops, and unseen foes. Just as Le Ly's writing remains cryptic while Caputo's remains direct, so were the military approaches to the war from both sides of the conflict.

What is interesting to note, however, is the way in which, despite the differences in writing style and perspective, both writers ultimately come to the same emotional conclusions about the war. They both travel the same developmental journey in which they come to realize the atrocities of war, and, as a result, came to transcendent realizations of life in the process. Though their backgrounds drastically differ, both Caputo and Hayslip reached the same revelations through their experiences, a testament to the universality of the war's overall effect on peoples, independent of the specifics of any one person's circumstance.

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Film & Animation

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