A Soldier's Fugue Summary

In 10/Fugue of Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue, Hudes conveys the disconnect between Elliot and his family members during his desperate time of need for their help (Hudes).
Throughout the scene, Elliot is gravely injured and falls apart. By using short, simple sentences, Hudes expresses the urgency of Elliot’s situation. Grandpop, Ginny, and Pop take turn stating these different sentences, almost like the waves of an ocean. Pop says, “The boy was standing guard;” Grandpop says, “He saw an incoming car;” then Ginny says, “The headlights approached” (24). Although each individual is a different person, they each continue to tell the same story, like a hivemind. As the scene continues, Elliot’s emergency grows direr, and the family members’ narrative sentences become shorter and choppier. Words and fragments are separated on different lines: “Stay / Calm / Put / Tourniquet / Lay / Back / Drink / Cup / Water” (25-26). This creates a faster tempo and more frantic rhythm, showing Elliot’s hysteria. Mutilated and alone, Elliot is in an utter state of distress.
Not only this, but the narrators―Grandpop, Ginny, and Pop―are the people who harm Elliot. The scene begins with “Grandpop, Ginny, and Pop [wrapping] Elliot’s legs in barbed wire. They entangle

Although they are on stage and narrate the entire scene, Elliot does not see them. At the same time, there is no indication that Grandpop, Ginny, and Pop show any empathy towards Elliot. Grandpop states that Elliot’s “hand enters the warm meat of his calf,” an alarming sign that Elliot is gravely injured, but no stage directions express that Grandpop rushes over to aid Elliot. Instead, Grandpop, Ginny, and Pop only specifically interact with Elliot when they tie him in the barbed wire. Afterwards,, there is an invisible barrier between him and them that serves to represent the detachment between Elliot and his