『파코의 이야기』: 끝나지 않은 이야기, 치유되지 않은 상처

Abstract

Larry Heinemann’s Paco’s Story is about an individual named Paco Sullivan, who is the sole survivor of the massacre at Fire Base Harriette by friendly fire. What distinguishes this text from other Vietnam War texts is that Heinemann is portraying not so much about the atrocities of war as individual’s struggles to be accepted in a community he once belonged to. For a more effective delivery of his message, Heinemann deliberately chooses the narrative voice and the names of his imaginary audience, protagonist and spatial setting. These techniques enable Heinemann to present his story not as the one about one specific individual’s but as the one about Everyman’s. The Americans Paco has met during his long journey is either ignorant of the war or incapable of understanding what the war means both to individual soldiers and civilians. Paco’s physical presence is thus a painful reminder of the war, and for this reason American public either deliberately or ignorantly fail to understand the physical and mental sufferings Paco has to endure despite Paco’s implied capacity to express what he has undergone during his stay in Vietnam. Paco’s silence is then the author’s counterattack against such attitudes of American people and society. What makes it worse is that even those who have experienced similar traumatic past are unable to make themselves heard to each other. Paco’s journey is to find home where people will to listen to his story and accept him as their member, but the home he is seeking may never be found in America as the text implicitly testifies.