Kovic opens his memoir with a description of his severe combat injury and medical treatment before returning home. This chapter differs dramatically from the other chapter you read. In your response, discuss one way in which the two chapters differ from each other.
March 10, 2019 at 9:17 pm
In the two chapters we read of Ron Kovic’s Born on the Fourth of July, you can see that they are told differently, and that Kovic does not use one voice to tell his entire story. Rather, the two chapters are very different in the tone they use and the story they are telling. Chapter one is very intense and graphic. It is told in first-person and uses the present tense to detail a specific moment in Kovic’s war experience. In the chapter, Kovic has been shot and critically injured in the line of duty. It is during this time that he is fighting for his life and experiencing something surreal. He is in the hospital waiting for surgery and doing everything he can to keep himself alive, even when a priest comes to visit him to read him his Last Rites. Also, in this chapter, Kovic takes the reader through his mind as if you are with him and experiencing this horror alongside him. Not only are you right there with Kovic, but it is clear that he can recall the intracicies of this moment in incredible detail, which just adds to the power of the story.
However, as this is only the first chapter, the reader is unaware of the person Kovic was before his time in Vietnam. The third chapter paints a completely different picture of Kovic. While told in the first person, it does not occur in the present tense. Instead, the third chapter is Kovic recounting his childhood and upbringing. You learn about his naivety and the genuine pleasures he experienced growing up. Kovic reflects on the “journey” that lead him to the marines and how his original life goal was to play for the New York Yankees. The reader learns that Kovic has also dreamed of being a hero and about the environment he grew up in. This chapter is much happier than the first chapter, but in a way, that seems like this part of his life is over. Unlike the first chapter, he is telling one story in great detail, but rather he is painting a broad picture of something that was a long time ago. In fact, the two chapters are so different, it is almost as if they come from different books. The main connection between the two chapters is that they are both Kovic’s story. They allow you to see two very different experiences that Kovic has had and understand the intricacies of his life.