Contrasts between the Movie Rambo II and the book In Pharaoh's Army by Tobias Wolff - Essay Example

On the other hand, Wolff, in his book, does not try to portray himself as a wartime hero. Instead, he tries to narrate the details of his experiences in an objective fashion. Wolff takes the readers to a journey to Vietnam through naturalistic, old-fashioned methods. Wolff tells the story of his decision in joining the army as well as his Southeast Asian tour of duty. He was sent back home after one year. However, after reading the book, one could say that the book’s title has nothing much to do with the specific emotional gravity of the Vietnam War no matter how evocative the book’s title might sound.

Personally speaking, it is a story that talks about the coming-of-age of an individual that could easily happen even in non-Vietnam specific wartime setting. To better understand the vast differences of the book and the movie to the historical event, one should first learn the emotions that filled America during the post-Vietnam era. It has taken several years before the Americans were able to start to accept the consequences of the Vietnam War. The U.S. legacy lingers on at the mental hospitals, drug treatment clinics, shelters for the homeless, and the rural wilds where some war veterans escaped to in order to avoid the realities of going back to their native land.

These are apart from the generation of limbless and maimed civilians and the Vietnamese landscape poisoned with munitions, mines, defoliants. Aside from the negative consequences to the Vietnamese landscape, the Vietnam War left a deep scar in the cultural landscape of the Americans. It can be seen in several expressions and outlets such as underground press, anti-war songs, fiction, and films (Kellner 161-3). To link these statements above to the context of the movie Rambo, one can begin by looking at how Rambo is transformed into a superhero rescuer of