50 pages • 1-hour read
The World Played Chess
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Symbols & Motifs
Vietnam
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses depictions of post-traumatic stress disorder and wartime atrocities that feature in the source text.
In this novel, Vietnam is both a setting and a symbol. To William, the danger of communist takeover that Vietnam represents to American policymakers means nothing, and he comes to understand that the narrative that the United States has used to sell this war to the public is a travesty. But the narrative itself and the mere possibility that the so-called domino theory would begin to be played out in Vietnam are enough to send William and thousands like him to the place in which he sacrifices his moral code in order to survive. Vietnam robs him of his innocence and dehumanizes him. In Vietnam, he is reviled as a destroyer of lives not praised as a hero saving people from the evils of communism. Thus, Vietnam is a physical and symbolic space of otherness in which governments use humans to play chess.
William’s Journal
William’s journal is a symbol of the power of narrative and storytelling. It captures the traumas of his past through the act of recording the day-to-day horrors of war, while the act of sharing the journal with Vincent exposes his vulnerability and is a way to ask for empathy. Vincent learns more about William’s trauma, which helps him understand not just William better, but all concepts of mortality, power dynamics, and trauma. William sends his journal to Vincent because he remembers Vincent from decades earlier and knows that Vincent will treat his journal with empathy.
However, the journal is controlled by William and also withholds information. William’s journal is incomplete; it doesn’t reveal everything that William had endured. William cannot bring himself to write down the truth of his killing an innocent Vietnamese boy. That dark secret comes out only when William feels sure enough of himself and of Vincent to tell him. That and the journal itself recall Vincent to his former aspiration to be a journalist and prompt him to consider writing William’s story.
Dreams
Dreams are an important motif throughout the novel, which explores how the side effect of growing up often means sacrificing your dreams; William gives up his dream of becoming a college wrestler when he volunteers for Vietnam. However, dreams can also rehumanize people and put them back in touch with their true selves. When Vincent was a teenager, he wanted to be a writer, but he gave up this dream in favor of financial stability as a lawyer. However, throughout the years, Vincent wonders what would have happened had he pursued his dream. He reestablishes this dream after reading William’s journal because he is reinspired to see the value and meaning of narrative power. It is notable, though, that while both William and Vincent are constrained by circumstances, they choose to give up their dreams in their formative years and thereby demonstrate maturity.
The novel thus checks the power of dreams to dictate reality even as it acknowledges the importance of having dreams for a future. This possibility itself is denied William as he goes off to war, and for a brief time, Beau loses a capacity to dream for himself when he loses his best friend in a drunk-driving accident. Chris’s death leaves Beau adrift, and he takes on Chris’s dream to play college football because he feels he owes that to Chris. Yet football is not Beau’s authentic dream. Pursuing dreams that aren’t your own is a way of forcing yourself into a life that is not your own. That is William’s tragedy and the tragedy of those who fought and died in Vietnam for a cause to which they were not committed.
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