The Enemy Within Summary and Analysis

In Chapter 5, Marlantes writes about the shadowy "enemy" within each person who embodies the traits that a person tries to suppress. This shadow-self can sometimes emerge, or cause a person to lash out at people he thinks are similar to his shadow-self. Marlantes describes one of his alter-egos he calls "Sarge," who is lazy and smokes marijuana. When he would see his own son lying on the couch being lazy, he sometimes began screaming at him, as if he was screaming at "Sarge" himself.

The shadow self can also emerge to cause a person to commit atrocious acts, Marlantes claims. He categorizes three kinds of atrocities: "white-heat" atrocities that are committed while a person has full command of his logic and reason, "red-heat" atrocities where a person is so filled with rage that he loses all logic...