Fiona Banner’s “The Nam”

In my close reading of this week texts, I focus my study on depicting the psychological status of the captain Willard, a major character in Fiona Banner’s The Nam, alongside to the realism that resulted from an honest and accurate description of the omniscient narrator. In her depiction, which makes the reader familiar with events exactly just as the spectator, Banner provides accurate descriptions through her words in the film scenes. She focuses her description on repeating dramatic words such as blood, black, shadow, mystery, explode, pistol, invisibility, and death. While reading, these words indicate the enigmatic scene, which she is watching and transcribing; she succeeds in conveying her sensations. Not to mention, the orange color is recurrent in her description. Even though orange indicates endurance, determination and enthusiasm, it is the color of fall and harvest; it represents an approaching disastrous end. The fading fire, which is the source of this color, is a motif in the film transcription. This kind of description gives the reader a complete and comprehensive imaging of what she is watching. She describes the hysterical and psychological state that soldiers suffer in wars.

In the case of Captain Willard, all of his body movements and his situation refer to his worse psychological status; he believes that “. . . When I was here I wanted to be there. . . . When I was there all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. . . .” (Banner 61). In the camp, he prefers going home, and at home, he wants to go back fighting. In conveying such status, Banner’s transcription never neglects the attention to minute descriptions and minor details. Therefore, a reader finds Captain Willard’s status worsens to the degree that he considers sitting in the bush is a source of power; sitting there, “you might say haunted,” (Banner 61) leaving the battlefield or waiting for battles is considered as a source of weakness because he wants to engage himself in war. He is haunted by going to wars. However, some transcriptions suggest defeatism from the inside. For instance, the representation of drinking alcohol heavily is to avoid hurting reality. The captain laughs alone, then he suddenly dances; he sits then stands, then he does martial exercises in a closed room, then he lays on the ground and talks to himself; the precise description of all this stuff portrays his situation. It seems that Banner refers to the curse of his intended action. He does stunt movement of his body, punching himself to hurt it, punishing himself for committing something. Incidentally, in her narrative, Banner shifts from present simple to present continuous back and forth during her narrative; this kind of shift in narrative refers to her constant presence in the transcription. She describes the film as if she is with the director, and her eye sees completely through the camera lens. She convinces the reader that she is not affecting the film plot, that she only conveys what she sees. That experience adds realism to the details and events.