In Country

The house where Emmett and Sam live is old, worn down, and filled with junk. The basement is wet and moldy. Early in the novel, Emmett begins digging a ditch around the foundation so that he can identify why it is leaking. He is concerned that without shoring up, the entire house might collapse. As Emmett tells Sam, “You take a structural weakness. One thing leads to another, and then it all falls apart” (60). Emmett could be talking here about the house, or he could be talking about himself. Mason draws a clear connection between Emmett and the house. Not only is Emmet obsessively working to fix the literal foundation, but he is also working one day at a time to fix his own emotional and psychological foundation, damaged by the time he spent in Vietnam.

Mason also sends the signal that through engagement with the veteran community, Emmett can begin to heal. When Jim Holly comes to talk to Emmett about the veteran’s association he is forming, he digs in to help: “Jim took Emmett’s trowel and smoothed the cement on the face of the foundation […] ‘I think it’ll hold, Emmett. The house hasn’t started to shift yet. Don’t worry, good buddy’” (61). Jim expresses faith that Emmett will be able to hold himself together and eventually repair his own emotional foundation.

Mason is well-known for the use of popular culture allusions in her work, and throughout In Country, the characters of the television series M*A*S*H are so present in the story that they are almost secondary characters. One reason Mason uses this series is that although it is set during the Korean War, it is clear that the show comments on the Vietnam War. In addition, the show serves as one of the frameworks Sam uses to structure her reality. Finally, by including a television series to such an extent throughout the novel, Mason echoes the existence of the Vietnam War as the first televised conflict in US history. Reporters and cameramen joined US troops and filmed live battles, which were then broadcast with the evening news across the United States. The combination of fictional television shows such as M*A*S*H, often rerunning just after the news showing actual war footage, serves to blur the distinction between fiction and reality. Thus, it contributes to Mason’s depiction of Sam as sometimes finding M*A*S*H more real than reality itself.

Mason also uses Bruce Springsteen as an important icon of the times. The epigraph to the novel is from the lyrics of “Born in the U.S.A.” and Springsteen’s tour in support of the album marks the temporal setting of the novel. Moreover, although “Born in the U.S.A.” sounds like a patriotic anthem, its lyrics are about a disenfranchised and disremembered soldier returning from the war who is unable to get a job or reintegrate himself into society. Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” was also the subject of a highly rated and viewed MTV video. The words to “Dancing in the Dark” tell the story of a young man living in bad housing without much future, “getting nowhere.” Furthermore, in Sam’s personal development, Springsteen’s raw voice and good looks serve to signal her sexual awakening as she connects Springsteen’s video with Tom.