Triage

1. Triage Krishant Goyal

2. Kurdistan (opening passage) • At the start of the novel, the reader sees Mark lying in a bunch of flowers, he has just been hit by an arterially shell. Later in the book, the flowers become a symbol of Mark’s feeling of responsibility to Colin’s death. • This is important because the reader is introduced to what happened in Kurdistan • Anderson’s narration is thought-provoking through his changes in tense, this confuses the reader as to what is actually happening

3. Harir Cave – “The Worst Hospital in the World” • Mark has been to this hospital before, to take photo’s – He can hide behind the camera lens and not relate to the pain. The next time he comes, he is a patient with head injuries • This scene is important for two reasons: • We are introduced to the thoughtful Dr. Talzani • And because we learn of Mark’s fear of disappearing – We see this through his awareness of when Talzani was coming to assess him, he tried to answer questions quickly. This was in order to not obtain a “blue tag.” • Mark learns that from Talzani’s point-of-view that war is a random thing, and that we have nom control over it • We also learn about Talzani’s beliefs – that he is a faithful man and that he does not believe in structured systems, he even admits “that in the dark of the cave, he dishes out tags even if he cannot see.”

4. The dinner party • At the dinner party, the reader learns that Mark has no emotions – he is copying the emotions of others at the table – Elena notices this. “He (mark), was laughing the loudest..” • This is very important because we see that Mark has no emotions, that he is copying others. He is no longer himself – this is due to the fact that he is in denial about what happened in Kurdistan • This is important to the reader from a wider aspect of the text as it shows the Western World’s behaviour to mentally traumatised people – they are not as well cared for compared to those whom have suffered physical trauma. This is because mentally traumatised people do not talk about their experiences, thus others cannot see them getting better.

5. Mark going to the hospital – because of his collapse in the bathtub • This shows the reader that the mental pain has finally taken over Mark’s body and he has collapsed as a result of this • This shows the reader that Mark can’t handle the Pain of what happened in Kurdistan, but he still can’t admit to what happened • The is a prime example of how mentally traumatised people are not cared for – they are just left to rot or get better by themselves

6. The Final Goodbye • In this section, Mark has finally accepted that Colin’s death was not his fault. This is only provoked by Mark learning of how Carlos Perez ‘disappeared.’ • The symbol in this section is the flowers. The flowers are at the start – Mark initially blames them for the death of Colin (this is a symbol of Mark’s belief that Colin’s death was his responsibility). At the end he lets go of the flowers – This is Mark letting go of the responsibility of Colin’s death. • We also see the change in Mark from Elena’s point-of-view. She sees that his eyes are coming back to normal. “returning from the dead to the ones that love him”. “eyes lit with longing and sad hopefulness and promise of future laughter…” [Rather than his eyes being green stones]