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What happened to Norman Bowker after the war?
Why did Bowker not go to Vietnam?
What happened to Norman Bowker's friends?
Did Bowker die in Vietnam?
What did Bowker say on the 10th go around the lake?
Did Bowker ever drive around a lake?
After the war, Norman Bowker returns to Iowa. On the Fourth of July, as he drives his father’s big Chevrolet around the lake, he realizes that he has nowhere to go. He reminisces about his high school girlfriend, Sally Kramer, who is now married. He thinks about his friend Max Arnold, who drowned in the lake.
Bowker arrives in Vietnam operating within a schema of World War II soldiering. He believes, according to O'Brien, that what marks men as courageous are medals and service awards.
After his service in the Vietnam War, Norman Bowker returns home and has difficulty adjusting to the normalcy of everyday life. In the late afternoon on the Fourth of July holiday, Norman drives around a local lake, passing time and thinking about his life before the war, as well as what he saw and did in Vietnam.
The war has ended and Norman Bowker has returned home. It's the Fourth of July and he's driving his father's Chevy around the lake's seven-mile loop. The town seems the same.
The main character of “Speaking of Courage” is Norman Bowker. Unusually for the book, this story is set after the war, and depicts Norman driving around a lake near his parents’ home on a lonely 4th of July evening in the 1970’s, longing for someone to talk to about the war.
While “Speaking of Courage” introduces the postwar Norman Bowker and illustrates how the guilt he feels in regard to Kiowa’s death follows him home to Iowa, “Notes” presents O’Brien’s perspective on Bowker, enriched by the information that Bowker killed himself fewer than ten years after the war.
"Speaking of Courage:" Follows Norman Bowker at home after he returns from the war to the Unites States on the Fourth of July. Bowker drives repeatedly around a lake in his hometown, reminiscing about the night Kiowa died.
