How we cite our quotes: (Poem.Paragraph)
Quote #1
When the sergeant told them to kill all the Japanese soldiers lined up in front of the cave with their hands on their heads, Tayo could not pull the trigger.
Tayo's actions in the war tell us a lot about his character. He rejects the violence of warfare and feels empathy for his enemies.
Quote #2
When Tayo prayed on the long muddy road to the prison camp, it was for dry air, dry as a hundred years squeezed out of yellow sand, air to dry out the oozing wounds of Rocky's leg, to let the torn flesh and broken bones breathe, to clear the sweat that filled Rocky's eyes. (IV.13)
Aside from giving us a really gruesome picture of some of the circumstances of war, this line also lets us know that Tayo is on his way to a prison camp and provides a hint that he's a participant in the infamous Bataan Death March. Yeah, that certainly doesn't sound like a very fun experience.
Quote #3
In the old way of warfare, you couldn't kill another human being in battle without knowing it, without seeing the result, because even a wounded deer that got up and ran again left great clots of lung blood or spilled guts on the ground. That way the hunter knew it would die. Human beings were no different. (V.123)
Old man Ku'oosh's traditional understanding of war is a good way of illustrating the difference between Laguna culture and white culture. In Laguna Pueblo culture, people and animals are connected to one another, even in warfare or hunting.
Quote #4
But the old man would not have believed white warfare—killing across great distances without knowing who or how many had died. It was all too alien to comprehend, the mortars and big guns; [ . . . ] the old man would not have believed anything so monstrous. (V.123)
This is one of Tayo's biggest critiques of white culture: in inventing nuclear warfare, white people have developed a completely "monstrous" and inhuman way of killing.
Quote #5
Ku'oosh would have looked at the dismembered corpses and the atomic heat-flash outlines, where human bodies had evaporated, and the old man would have said something close and terrible had killed these people. Not even oldtime witches killed like that. (V.123)
Tayo thinks old Ku'oosh would describe atomic warfare as "something close and terrible," though it's actually a way of "killing across great distances." Is the medicine man just confused, or is there something "close" about this remote way of killing?
Quote #6
"We were the best. U.S. Army. We butchered every Jap we found. No Jap bastard was fit to take prisoner. We had all kinds of ways to get information out of them before they died. Cut off this, cut off these." (IX.16)
Emo really seems to relish warfare because it gives him a legal and socially acceptable outlet for his violent tendencies. We get the feeling he'd enjoy killing and torturing people outside of wartime too.
Quote #7
"We blew them all to hell. We should've dropped bombs on all the rest and blown them off the face of the earth." (IX.20)
Emo fantasizes about genocide here. In case it wasn't obvious by now, he's not a nice guy.
Quote #8
"Strongest thing on this earth. Biggest explosion that ever happened—that's what the newspaper said. [ . . . ] Now I only wonder why, grandson. Why did they make a thing like that?" (XXV.219)
Old Grandma can't fathom why anyone would want a bomb as powerful as the nuclear one she saw detonated at Trinity Site. If you think about it, her naive questions are actually pretty profound. Why would anyone want to use a bomb like that? This whole novel is sort of an attempt to answer that question.