SSRJ #3 - D.Walker

   I really wrestled with trying to identify the theme in Walker's, "I am the grass" and I still can't say with any certainty that I completely understand it yet. While it is clear the Surgeon is a man struggling to make amends with himself for past transgressions not easily lived down but I don't think the theme is really as simple as that. Obviously he feels some guilt for the past but he never fully puts aside his harsh feelings for that particular country or its inhabitants. Since he never really lets go of all that animosity I have a very hard time believing he just wants to forgive himself for what he has done. Instead, I believe he is lost. A man trying to find his way or trying to find a niche or place where he truly belongs. Not a physical place but his place in life.
   For example, he opens the story by admitting all the things he can never tell his family about the things he has done. Since most people would describe family as a group of people one can be one's self around, I have to believe that he still has not truly found a place of peace with them. He seems like he would like to come clean but cannot because he wants them to think he is a decent guy. But how can continuing a lie bring anyone peace? Secondly, in the very next paragraph when he writes about coming home from the war he says, "It was as if I were exiled in my own country" (p.326) and goes on to say he had to keep his true feelings hidden and just try to get on with his life. He sounds like he feels as if he were betrayed by his own country and does not feel welcome there.
   The third paragraph has him in Chicago, a place he calls home but still describes himself almost as if he were a man with no sense of purpose or belonging. There are a few more times in the story that he mentions similar feelings while being in different places but its not until the very last sentence where he finally states, "It makes me feel a part of the land" (p.338). But even that revelation does not come until he understands the nature of the land. The constant turmoil of Vietnam mirrors the turmoil in his heart and that has to be why he identifies with the country and the people so much by the end of the story. Therefore, it would appear Walker's theme is not without a sense of irony in that the nature of the land in which he has helped to destroy is more like his own nature than the country that he has always called home.