The Sympathizer: Chapter 17 Summary & Analysis

The next morning, Bon soothes the narrator with a bottle of scotch. Drinking turns out to be the best cure. The narrator thought that he would feel better after a night with Lana. He went back to her after leaving Sonny’s apartment, but even “an unforgettable evening with her” didn’t help him forget. The next day, he and Bon are set to leave for Thailand. In a message to his Parisian aunt for Man, he acknowledges that he’s disobeying Man’s order to remain in the U.S., but he’s returning to save Bon’s life. On the plane out of the country, the narrator feels that he’s sharing space with the crapulent major’s ghost on one side of him and Sonny’s on the other. He thinks about all of the things he’ll miss about America. Bon, on the other hand, is relieved to go.

Bon tells the narrator that they’re going back to the land where everyone looks like them. The narrator points out that he doesn’t look like anyone in Vietnam. Bon grows irritated with him and says that his problem is that he lets everyone know what he’s thinking. The narrator agrees to keep quiet. After a sleepless twenty-four hour trip, including a plane change in Tokyo, they arrive in Bangkok. Bon and the narrator have brought little with them. They gave the keys to their apartment to Reverend Ramon and told him to sell everything. Claude and the admiral in charge of the base camp will handle their needs. It’s Claude, too, who greets them at the airport.

Claude ushers the narrator and Bon into a van. He tells them that he’ll keep them awake to help them get over their jet lag. Claude, the narrator, and Bon arrive at an establishment with a huge, bright, yellow vertical sign that says “Golden Cock.” Bon abstains and the narrator decides to stay with him while Claude goes inside. When the narrator asks where Bon wants to go, he points over the narrator’s shoulder to a movie poster advertising The Hamlet.

They go to see the movie and the narrator notices that the audience is enjoying themselves. The narrator watches the only scene that he hasn’t seen filmed—Mai’s rape scene. The audience remains silent while the character screams “Mama!” repeatedly. As the credits begin rolling, the narrator feels shame for having been associated with the movie but pride in the extras’ great work. He waits for his name to appear in the credits, but he never sees it. His “grudging acknowledgement” of the Auteur is replaced by “boiling murderous rage.”

The narrator asks Bon what he thinks of the movie. Bon says that it was the narrator’s job to ensure that Vietnamese people came off well, but they didn’t even come off as human. As they get into a taxi, the narrator insists that, if it weren’t for him, no Asians would’ve had any roles at all; they would’ve been “target practice.” Bon says that the narrator tried to play the white people’s game and lost because they run the game. He insists that when you’ve got nothing, you can only change things from the outside. They don’t speak anymore for the duration of their ride. When they get to the hotel, they fall asleep almost right away.

Before falling asleep, the narrator thinks back to his and Bon’s departure from Los Angeles. The General and Madame saw everyone off at the airport. The General presented his four volunteers, including Bon and the narrator, with bottles of whisky, and he took photos with them. He pulled the narrator aside to have a word with him. The General talked about how he and Madame regarded the narrator as an adopted son, but there were rumors that the narrator tried to seduce Lana, and the General was disgusted. The narrator lived in their house and treated Lana as a younger sister. The General admitted that the narrator’s relationship with Lana was part of the reason why he was letting him go to Vietnam. He concluded by saying that he’d never approve of his daughter being with a “bastard.” The General “stuffed” the narrator’s mouth with the one word that could silence him.

The next morning, back in Thailand, Bon and the narrator awake before sunrise. Claude drives them to the camp near the Laotian border. There, the narrator sees the last men standing for the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam. They bear little resemblance to the clean-shaven, disciplined men in the General’s posters. They look like peasants fighting in the bush. Their eyes are as “dull as coal.” They look more like Viet Cong. One of the guerillas leads them to a hut to meet the admiral, who looks no different from his soldiers. Like Ho Chi Minh, he calls himself “uncle.”

The admiral talks about how, after the Americans had abandoned the South Vietnamese, he appealed to his Thai friends. The Thai would fight Communism because it was pressing up against their border with Cambodia. He realized that he didn’t need to be saved by Americans. He and his men could fight for decades, if necessary. In God’s eyes, he concludes, this is “no time at all.” Bon asks if he really thinks that they can get their country back. The admiral says that they have their faith, and God is on their side. If they die on the mission, those they save will be grateful to them. Bon confesses that he has no faith in anything; he just wants to kill Communists. The admiral says that this desire will suffice.