Analysis Of Equivocation By Yusef Komunyakaa

Since becoming an independent country in 1776, the United States has only been at peace for 21 of those years. With many of these wars being fought overseas, citizens back home relied heavily on television broadcasts, newspapers, and other media outlets to keep them updated on the events and status of these wars. However, Carolyn Forché believes, “what comes to us in newspapers and on television is not necessarily factual, nor is it cogent…neither never true to objective truth or subjective reality” (Forché, 36). Following the end of the war, an entirely new perspective on the events of the war emerged through the poetry written by some of these soldiers such as Yusef Komunyakaa. The personal experiences of these soldiers allowed their poetry

Komunyakaa uses it to blur the line between the reader and the poem. This becomes apparent as Komunyakaa transitions from first person to second person point-of-view towards the end of the poem. Following this transition, the pronouns “you” and “your” are used seven times within the last five stanzas. As a result, the reader feels as if they are a witness to the scene, which forces the empathy of the soldier to become communal (Hill 316). Considering the situation in this manner highlights the kind of moral ambivalence soldiers often experienced during the

Even though “modernity has established the norm of individual integrity…it should be obvious…that the experience of [the 20th] century has done much to undermine this norm” (Forché 44). All of the previously discussed examples elude to this aspect by showing the disparity between the soldier’s actions and his morality. However, it is most prevalent when considering the soldier’s need to achieve moral dissonance in order to carry out his duty. Even though he knew killing was morally wrong, his particular circumstances forced him to disregard his morality in order to