Hurt Locker

Brian Turner

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2005

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Mental and Emotional Consequences of War

In “The Hurt Locker,” the speaker describes war experiences with a readership that might not understand the emotional toll of war on those who live through it. The speaker utilizes the landscape of war to communicate with the audience, but they must call up images of war that affected and presumably still affect their mental and emotional states. The speaker uses “the hurt locker” (Lines 15, 17) as a place to keep their painful memories and emotional distress, but their attempt to share the images means opening this locker. The speaker conveys not only the actual conflicts endured during combat deployment, but they also convey the figurative and metaphorical conflicts they carry with them internally when they transition from military life to civilian life. In recent years, society has placed a larger focus on not only the mental and emotional well-being of veterans, but also on other individuals. The speaker’s shared experiences communicate that wounds are not always visible and that many veterans carry mental and emotional scars they are hesitant to share with others.

War Affects Individuals and Communities on Both Sides

“The Hurt Locker” examines how war and the ensuing violence it creates impacts people on all sides of the conflict. Loss, grief, and suffering belong to both solider and civilian. The poem does not designate a hero or a winning side. Like other poems in the collection, “The Hurt Locker” examines not only the speaker’s momentary involvement in one of history’s many violent moments, but it also examines those on the opposing sides. Essentially, the speaker asks, “who will be remembered, and for what?” This will change depending on the perspective of the person recounting the events, or those with the power to affect events. The common thread, however, is the violence endured by everyone involved. The poem draws on the universality of war, but it also examines the gaps between people and the failed attempts to cross those gaps. More significantly, the speaker does not lapse into the white-male gaze or the nationalism that is traditional in military poetry. Instead, the speaker approaches the experiences not only introspectively but also altruistically, showing how trauma is no respecter of persons.

Individual and Public Character

“Hurt Locker” not only investigates the public and private spheres of trauma, but it also attempts to connect them. The speaker must contend with their own interiority and the society from which they come, and they must also navigate the individual characters and societies of “the other side,” and all while navigating mercy, cruelty, power, personal sacrifice, and heroism. To do so, the poem carefully dissects images of war recalled by the speaker, images that affect the speaker on a personal level. These images may or may not have appeared in news stories about the Iraq War, meaning that these images may also belong to the public sphere. Even if the images are in the public sphere, though, and even if they stir public interest and political fervor, the public remains separated from the actual violence experienced on such a private level.

The speaker also addresses the West’s isolation from war and the daily violence conflicts and war mean for civilians. The poem portrays fulfillment of one set of ideals as these ideals conflict with the degradation and destruction of another set of ideals, which is again representative of the internal and socio-political conflicts that soldiers carry. The poem portrays war as a societal, community event and challenges whether the soldier’s voice and character outweigh the socio-political voices and characters driving the war as well as the opposing side’s socio-political voice and character.