Christ’s Crucifixion Symbol Analysis

O’Brien uses allusions to Jesus Christ’s crucifixion to symbolize his changing perception of his role in the Vietnam War. The story contains three allusions to Christ’s crucifixion and the events surrounding it. The night before O’Brien leaves for basic training at Fort Lewis, he states that he has a “Last Supper” with his family, referring to the final meal that Christ shared with his disciples before going to be crucified. Although O’Brien has no messianic visions of himself, the allusion represents his belief that as a soldier, he is a martyr—an innocent life sacrificed on behalf of his in a similar way that Christ was sacrificed on the cross for humanity. The second allusion to the crucifixion comes when Alpha Company ties three old Vietnamese men to trees in the middle of their encampment, leaving them bound and gagged all night to dissuade the Viet Cong from ambushing them. As O’Brien keeps watch, he calls them the “men at Golgotha,” referring to the men crucified alongside Christ. The chapter is titled “Centurion,” referencing the Roman Centurion that watched over the crucifixions and gave Christ a drink: O’Brien gives one of the Vietnamese men a drink in the same way. Additionally, this association indicates that O’Brien no longer sees himself as a martyr or a sacrificial lamb, but rather as a soldier that watches others be sacrificed and does not intervene to help them. The true martyrs or guiltless sacrifices in the Vietnam War are the powerless Vietnamese civilians, not the American soldiers. In O'Brien’s friend Erik’s final letter before leaving Vietnam, he tells O’Brien that he, too, feels like a “centurion” as he watches an American officer physically kick a Vietnamese woman off of a base. Erik writes that he sees Christ in the form of a “yellow-skinned harlot,” again suggesting that the Vietnamese civilians are the only guiltless people in the Vietnam War, sacrificed for the aims of a foreign power.