SOURCE: Morrissey, Thomas J. “Mason's In Country.” Explicator 50, no. 1 (fall 1991): 62–64.

In the following essay, Morrissey analyzes the bird metaphors in the novel In Country.

Birds and images of flight help to elucidate the psychological states of the principal characters of Bobbie Ann Mason's compelling post-Vietnam War novel, In Country. Sam Hughes, posthumous daughter of a Kentucky farm boy killed at Quang Ngai, and her Uncle Emmett, a veteran whose life is stalled, struggle to come to terms with a war that has been banished from public consciousness.

Emmett's quest for an egret, a heron-like bird similar to a species he saw (or imagined he saw) in Vietnam, opens a channel of communication between him and his niece and serves as a symbol of the survivors' questions about the war. Although Emmett, like the other vets, is reluctant to discuss the fighting, he will talk about the birds that...