84 pages • 2 hours read
Walter Dean MyersSunrise Over Fallujah
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Sunrises
Sunrises are viewed as a symbol of renewal throughout the novel. Though bleak omens at times, like the sunrise that brought the two-day dust storm at the beginning of the novel, the sunrise is also symbolic of new life, new chances, and the process of death and renewal. Every new sunrise brings a new chance at death or life. The beauty of the sunrises over the desert are juxtaposed with the fierce environment of death and destruction.
Body Bags
Body bags are one of the first symbols in the novel that foreshadow what Birdy will experience throughout the novel. For the Americans and Coalition forces, taking soldiers who are killed off of the streets is their first priority. In this sense, body bags not only cover up the deceased, but they cover up the “reality” of the deaths as well. Though these deaths stay in the mind of witnesses, body bags are a symbolic cover-up to the harsh reality of death. The Iraqis that die are littered on the streets and sometimes left without aid. Soldiers often avert their eyes. Body bags cover up the reality of loss for Americans.
IEDS
IEDs are improvised explosive devices that cause major damage when detonated with remote devices such as cellphones. They become one of the biggest deterrents to many advancements in Iraq and a psychological factor that symbolizes to the Americans and Coalition forces just how helpless they are in the face of the enemy’s tactics. They are also symbolic in that the thrust of the war was about finding weapons of mass destruction. While no large caches of weapons were ever found, soldiers had to deal with the deadly reality of IEDS as weapons of mass destruction on a daily basis.
Displaced Children
War produces a variety of displaced individuals. Most notably, children are shown as victims of war. Whether murdered, kidnapped or enlisted in the killing as soldiers, children end up as mostly unwilling pawns in the war and the resulting struggle for power. In addition to the displaced Iraqi children, the thought of Birdy and his fellow soldiers—children themselves—as displaced, is another aspect of symbolism surrounding displaced children. Many of these soldiers didn’t know what to do with their lives back home and so joining the army gave them a sense of place. But in a war where the rules are changing daily, finding a secure leg to stand on is impossible. In essence, everyone is displaced due to war. The shifting power vacuum also causes constantly shifting allegiances as well.
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