Vietnam Literary Journalism

Question 1 • GA-GSE English Language Arts 11 B

Which excerpt from Dispatches contains sensory language to describe the geography of Vietnam?

Answer

There would be the muted rush of illumination rounds, fired from 60-mm. mortars inside the wire, dropping magnesium-brilliant above the NVA trenches for a few seconds, outlining the gaunt, flat spread of the mahogany trees, giving the landscape a ghastly clarity and dying out.

It was awesome, worse than anything the Lord had ever put down on Egypt, and at night, you’d hear the Marines talking, watching it, yelling, “Get some!” until they grew quiet and someone would say, “Spooky understands.” The nights were very beautiful.

Once in a while—I guess I saw it happen three or four times in all—there would be a secondary explosion, a direct hit on a supply of NVA ammunition. And at night it was beautiful. Even the incoming was beautiful at night, beautiful and deeply dreadful.

Nights were when the air and artillery strikes were heaviest because that was when we knew that the NVA was above ground and moving. At night you could lie out on some sandbags and watch the C-47’s mounted with Vulcans doing their work.

Explanation

Choice A uses sensory details to describe the landscape itself: the rounds give the “mahogany trees” and the “flat spread” of the land a “ghastly clarity.” These visual images convey the geography of Vietnam. The other choices focus mainly on the beauty, sounds, or military activity of nighttime combat.

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