Notes

"Eight months later he hanged himself" (pg 154).



I hate to say it, but I totally saw this coming. Norman Bowker drives around the lake by himself 11 times or more, retelling war stories in his head, imagining people's responses. He doesn't know how to live in the regular world anymore. It would have most benefited him to go back into the army, even if there is no war going on at the moment. It would make him feel like he had a purpose. He didn't even know how to interact with people anymore. It was as if he expected the world to have paused when he went into the army, and when he came back, he could press play and just jump back into his old world. Unfortunately, that's not how things work. Life goes on. His inability to cope with life after war allowed me to foreshadow him killing himself in the future.