The Yellow Birds

"War is the great maker of solipsists: how are you going to save my life today? Dying would be one way. If you die, it becomes more likely that I will not. You're nothing, that's the secret: a uniform in a sea of numbers, a number in a sea of dust." 

Solipsism is the belief that the self is the only thing that can truly be known, and everything else in the universe could be a figment of one's own imagination for all one knows, leading to a literal self-centeredness. Bart and Murph obsess over, and take comfort in, the number of U.S. soldiers dead remaining under 1,000. This obsession leads to a form of magical thinking: anyone else's death means they (Bart and Murph) have not died, which becomes almost celebratory. In order to remain alive and sane, one must be self-centered during war. This passage takes on a different light once Murph is the person who has died, however, and the "number in a sea of dust" becomes much more sinister.

"It was hard to believe that we'd be OK and that we'd fought well. But I remembered being told that the truth does not depend on being believed." 

This passage, falling near the end of the first chapter, sets up one of the novel's main themes:the notion of "truth.” Here, the question of whether or not one is believed as ultimately not affecting the truth foreshadows Bart's later conversation with the captain from C.I.D., who essentially tells Bart that the truth of what happened matters less than the truth that someone must take the fall for what happened. It doesn't matter whether the captain believes Bart or not: "it's lies like this that make the world go 'round" (189), as the captain says The official version of events—right, wrong, or somewhere in between—will become the “truth” that is remembered by the majority of people. 

"It had dawned on me that I'd never have to make a decision again. That seemed freeing, but it gnawed at some part of me even then. Eventually, I had to learn that freedom is not the same thing as the absence of accountability."

In this passage, Powers foreshadows Murph's death and the consequences that follow. Here, Bart is feeling the relief of "Mother Army" (182) taking responsibility from his shoulders. However, he is still in training at this point, and has yet to feel the different weight of not having to make decisions again, but still sometimes finding oneself deciding to anyway. He and Sterling make a fateful decision in the climactic scene of Chapter 10, and accountability follows close on the heels of the decision, causing Sterling to kill himself and Bart to be imprisoned. 

"I understood. Being from a place where a few facts were enough to define you, where a few habits can fill a life, causes a unique kind of shame. We'd had small lives, populated by a longing for something more substantial than dirt roads and small dreams. So we'd come here, where life needed no elaboration and others would tell us who to be." 

One of the reasons Bart feels so conflicted and guilty after Murph's death is he is not sure about whether or not they truly are friends. In Chapter 8, shortly before his death, Murph says he doesn't "want to be tight with anyone because of this," meaning the war, and Bart assures him they would "be tight anywhere" (166). But right after that, Bart thinks, "I don't even know if we were actually close" (166). After being thrust together by Sterling, Bart is annoyed by Murph's naivete. This passage is the first moment of a sort of shared understanding that hints at a closeness between the two that the reader can feel, even if Bart can’t always feel it.

"I wasn't sure who 'they' were." 

This is what Bart thinks in response to Sterling saying, "It was their idea [...] Don't forget that. It's their idea every time. They ought to kill themselves instead of us" (42). Bart's response has a number of different possible interpretations and meanings, as does what Sterling says. Sterling seems to be speaking about the Iraqis, though whether he means just the insurgents or if he means all Iraqis is hard to tell, which is possibly the point that Bart's response is getting at. On another level, Bart's response could be interpreted as a failure to understand the culture and history of the region, which is ideal for the Army, as it makes it easier for soldiers to dehumanize all Iraqis, thereby making it easier to kill them.

"I realized, as I stood there in the church, that there was a sharp distinction between what was remembered, what was told, and what was true. And I didn't think I'd ever figure out which was which." 

This passagebecomes almost the guiding principle of the novel, tracing as it does the interwoven nature of Bart’s own memories with the various recountings of the events surrounding Murph’s death. The novel itself can be seen as Bart’s attempt to "figure out which is which," despite his fatalistic attitude in this quote.

"I felt an obligation to remember [Murph] correctly, because all remembrances are assignations of significance, and no one else would ever know what happened to him, perhaps not even me." 

Closely related to the previous quote, this passage solidifies the other main motivation behind Bart's choice to tell this story as the narrator. He wants to "remember [Murph] correctly" because of how twisted the various versions have gotten in the intervening period, between Murph's death and the present, from which Bart is narrating in his cabin in the mountains several years later. He feels an obligation due to the guilt he feels, but also because it is important to understand the significance.

“I felt like a self-caricature, that we were falsely strong. When we spoke, we spoke brusquely and quietly and deepened our voices.” 

This passage brings into the narrative a senseof the performativity of war. Here, they are performing for the colonel, who is coming to give them his “half-assed Patton imitation” speech, which is itself being filmed by a journalist film crew. All of this posturing brings up questions of the motivations behind war, and what is right and “real,” versus what appears to be both right and real.

“We’d go back into a city that had fought this battle yearly; a slow, bloody parade in fall to mark the change of season. We’d drive them out. We always had. We’d kill them. They’d shoot us and blow off our limbs and run into the kills and wadis, back into the alleys and dusty villages. Then they’d come back, and we’d start over […].” 

This passage, relying as it does on the seasons as a metaphor in the opening sentence, presents the reader with the futility Bart feels in the cyclical nature of this war, with the cyclicality making the conflict seem unending, and with nothing truly gained. This is the beginning of Bart’s and Murph’s disillusionment, when they both begin to lose a handle on their sanity, though it is compounded by later factors as well.

“The usual had become remarkable, the remarkable boring, and toward whatever came in between I felt only a listless confusion.” 

This passage arrives just as Bart returns to U.S. soil for the first time since he shipped out. The quote illustrates the confusion Bart feels as the structure that had become normal for him has suddenly been removed. For him, the things he once thought of as remarkable became routine, and now that he is back, the ordinary things, such as being left to his own devices, have become strange, and he idles in a “listless confusion.” 

“I was disappearing. It was as if I stripped myself away in that darkened bedroom on a spring afternoon, and when I was finished there would be a pile of clothes neatly folded and I would be another number for the cable news shows […] I was gone.” 

This passage serves as a complement to the scene later, in Chapter 10, when Murph has lost it and removes his clothes and disappears off the base in Iraq. Twice in that chapter, Powers writes that Murph “was gone,” which we see echoed and foreshadowed here (193). Murph being gone also becomes synonymous with his death, once they find his body, and here, symbolically, Bart is enacting and wishing for his own death, although he never acts on this impulse.

“I could have gone to Murph, but I did not. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be responsible for him. […] I was disintegrating, too. How was I supposed to keep us both intact? It is possible that I broke my promise in that very moment, that if I’d gone to comfort him a second earlier, he might not have broken himself.”

This moment, close to halfway through the novel, represents a turning point in the narrative. The mention of the promise recalls Chapter 2, and will return at the end of the novel as well, as more and more of what actually happened is revealed. This is also where we see a necessary glimpseof Bart’s own “disintegration,” which could otherwise be overlooked due to the novel’s focus on Murph in the Al Tafar timeline. This brings in the theme of responsibility as well, and the ideas of fate and the unchangeability of the past, despite any amount of regret. Some things only take on significance from a retrospective point of view.

“Grief is a practical mechanism, and we only grieved those we knew. All others who died in Al Tafar were part of the landscape, as if something had sown seeds in that city that made bodies rise from the earth, in the dirt or up through the pavement like flowers after a frost, dried and withering under a cold, bright sun.” 

In this passage, Powers juxtaposes the horror of war (bodies scattered throughout the city) with flowers (albeit “withering” premature flowers), highlighting the strange intermingling of death and beauty war can sometimes produce. We also see the necessary limits of empathy soldiers possess during wartime.

“It’s as if your life is a perch on the edge of a cliff and going forward seems impossible, not for a lack of will, but a lack of space. The possibility of another day stands in defiance of the laws of physics. And you can’t go back. So you want to fall, to let go, give up, but you can’t. And every breath you take reminds you of that fact. So it goes.” 

The simile Powers presents here of the cliff is one of the clearest explanations of how both the war and Bart’s experiences with Murphy and Sterling have affected Bart. The simile is important since, without having experienced it oneself, the post-traumatic stress caused by wartime experiences is essentially unknowable, and cannot be readily explained to people who have not experienced it. Here, however, by putting it in spatial terms and comparing the feeling to absolutes, like “the laws of physics,” which are being “defi[ed],” Powers is able to get closer to the feeling than a more straightforward description. This line also helps set up the end of the chapter, where the idea of falling returns. 

“To say what happened, the mere facts, the disposition of events in time, would come to seem like a kind of treachery. The dominoes of moments, lined up symmetrically, then tumbling backward against the hazy and unsure push of cause, showed only that a fall is every object’s destiny. It is not enough to say what happened. Everything happened. Everything fell.” 

In the final line of Chapter 7, Powers leaves the post-Iraq branch of the narrative at a cliffhanger, having just revealed that the Criminal Investigation Division is looking for Bart. This leads into the remaining chapters, where the events after the battle of Al Tafar will be revealed. The metaphor of the dominoes falling recalls the quote above, from earlier in the chapter, and brings a sense of resolution even as it ratchets up dramatic tension. We return here as well to the theme of truth and what it means, with Bart contending that the truth amounts to more than “the mere facts.”  

“‘If you get back to the States in your head before your ass is there too, then you are a fucking dead man. I’m telling you. You don’t know where Murph keeps going, but I do.’” 

Here Sterling is speaking to Bart, after Bart has noticed he hasn’t seen Murph around the base recently. This is a key scene that reveals, despite Murph’s objections to the contrary, one possible root cause of Murph’s coming breakdown, which will lead to his death. In Sterling’s mind, Murph has given up on the war and returned home in his mind, thereby no longer paying enough attention to get himself back from the war in one piece. This passage also foreshadows the events of Chapter 10.

“We were unaware of even our own savagery now: the beatings and the kicked dogs, the searches and the sheer brutality of our presence. Each action was a page in an exercise book performed by rote. I didn’t care.” 

Because there are relatively few instances of the brutality of war depicted outside of the battle scenes, this almost offhand mention of “savagery” stands out. One of the clearest indications of the way war can bring out the brutality in everyday people, this passage, and its mention of “an exercise book performed by rote,” illustrates the profound effect the war has had on Bart and his personal sense of right and wrong. Apathy has eroded his moral compass.

"Well, see, I was no hero, no poster boy, I was lucky to get out upright and breathing. I'd been willing to trade anything for that. That's what my cowardice was: I accepted the fact that a debt would come due, but not now, please not now, anything for a little more time." 

This quote recalls an earlier passage in the novel, relating when Bart and Murph are first introduced to Sterling by a captain saying, "Sergeant Sterling will be put on the fucking recruiting posters, men. Mark my words" (35). This subtle connection shows Bart contrasting himself with Sterling, in both positive and negative ways. Where Sterling is seen as brave, Bart sees himself as a coward, not fit for posters. However, this is further complicated by the brutal image of Sterling that comes through in previous passages, as well as in passages to come. This also illustrates the unflinching self-reflection Bart exemplifies in the novel, while attempting to understand himself and his experiences.

"His life had been entirely contingent, like a body in orbit, only seen on account of the way it wobbles around its star. Everything he'd done had been a response to a preexisting expectation. He'd been able to do only one thing for himself, truly for himself, and it had been the last act of his short, disordered life." 

The character of Sterling comes into clearest focus in this passage, as Bart relates the way Sterling’slife ends via suicide. The defining feature of Sterling’s life, Bart concludes, was his self-denial, giving up his freewill to the larger entity of "Mother Army," as Bart calls it a few pages earlier (182/185). This passage parallels the later passage in Chapter 10 (see Quotation 22 below), bringing to mind questions of culpability. Ultimately, the portrait this quote paints of Sterling is an empathetic one, showing Bart trying to understand at the end, rather than simply judge. 

"The eyes of the two men followed Murph as he walked clothed in nothing but the soft wattage of the streetlights, his form seemingly blinking as he passed from darkness into wan and flickering circles of light, then back into darkness." 

This passage reveals the more lyrical qualities of Powers' prose. The image of Murph "flickering" in his last hours alive foreshadows his coming death, as he appears to be both in the world (alive) and not, almost a ghost already. 

"We didn't have the chance to take it back. We had never had the chance, not really. It was as if we had already done it in another life I could only vaguely remember. The decision had been made."

Taking place after Bart and Sterling find Murph's body, this quote highlights the lack of volition and power that Bart seems to have over his own actions. The sense of inevitability Bart imbues this passage with, via his retrospective position, complicates the narrative, prompting the reader to question Bart's motives, both then and now, since if there was no possibility to do anything differently, then that could be seen as absolving him of some of the guilt. However, we can also take this passage at face value, and as a true account of the weariness Bart felt at this point, so that he actually was being carried along by events beyond any semblance of his own control.

"[...] her friends began to smile at her with condescension, saying, 'LaDonna, you just gotta find your truth in all of this.' That's what she told me anyway. 'As if mine's supposed to be different from yours, like you got one and I got another. What the hell's that mean, your truth?' she said." 

One of the major themes of the novel is truth, and the requisite difficulty of identifying a single, absolute version of events, given the fallibility of memory and the subjectivity of the various participants and/or witnesses. Here, Murph's mother vocalizes the frustration this difficulty causes, especially when one is neither a participant nor a witness. Moreover, she seems to push back against the idea of subjective truth being the only possible truth, suggesting there is an objective truth that is being consciously obscured. 

"It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn’t much in the way of comfort, but everything has a little failure in it, and we still make do somehow." 

Much of the novel revolves around Bart trying to make sense of his wartime experiences and the feelings of guilt and despair that have accompanied them, well beyond his return to the United States. The novel itself takes the form of Bart trying to explain what happened and why. This line, near the end of the novel, shows Bart finally coming to peace with the fact that this is an impossible goal. Bart’s thoughts and the truth of what happened will never be fully, perfectly expressed; nonetheless, Bart realizes that there is still value in the attempt.