Dispatches

Herr is the narrator in the story, and even though he shares the name of the author, Michael Herr, the narrator should be viewed as separate from the author because of Herr’s assertion that much of Dispatches is fictional. Even though Herr’s name is only mentioned once in the book, every moment in the narrative is filtered through his perspective. He is the one that assigns meaning to the encounters with the Marines, the Vietnamese people, and other war correspondents.

The core question of Dispatches is what compels Herr to cover the Vietnam War. It is a question that never gets an answer. There are hints that Herr feels there is something lacking in his background or makeup that Vietnam can fill. Toward the end of the book Herr says, “I think Vietnam is what we had instead of happy childhoods” (244). Later, however, he suggests that the experience of war did not succeed in filling what was empty, or fixing what was broken: “I hadn’t been anywhere, I’d performed half an act; the war only had one way of coming to take your pain away quickly” (251). Whatever demons drove Herr to Vietnam were not dissipated there, only put on hold.