"The Difficulty in Facing It"

An Analysis of ìFacing Itî Using New Criticism

Yusef KomunyakaaísÝ ìFacing Itî gives a strong impression just with its title.ÝÝÝ The term ìfacing it,î insinuates that somebody must face something that they would rather turn their face away from or avoid.Ý The immediate question that must be answered is this:Ý what does the speaker in the poem wish to avoid?Ý This becomes clear after reading the remainder of the poem, which is filled with images surrounding the Vietnam War Memorial.Ý From these images it can be discerned that the speaker in the poem desires to face the war memories that the memorial brings forth, but is having trouble doing so.Ý There is a clear sense that although the speaker wants to be brave, he cannot help but wish that the war never happened.Ý

In line one the speakerís ìblack face fades, hiding inside the black graniteî of the memorial wall.Ý This is important because the next few lines make it clear that he desires to face the wall and everything it means:Ý ìI said I wouldnítÖno tears.Ý Iím stone.Ý Iím fleshî (3-5).Ý It is significant that it is his face that disappears.Ý If his face can disappear, then he cannot face the permanence of the wallís meaning.Ý Yet line six reveals that although ìcloudedî, his reflection is still there, flaunting its permanence back at him.Ý The speaker then accepts that heís ìinside the Vietnam Veterans Memorialî (10-11).Ý This is the speakerís first step towards acceptance: he realizes that his experience is a part of the war experience memorialized in the wall.

Although he then sees other images as being ìinsideî the memorial with him, he still desires their disappearance.Ý This shows his mental effort to avoid facing the wallís reality.Ý In line 19, ìnames shimmer on a womanís blouseî as if those names of those dead soldiers could be transferred to cloth and removed, thereby removing the fact of their deaths.Ý Throughout the poem, the images that the speaker hopes are disappearing always reveal their permanence.Ý Therefore, when the woman ìwalks away the names stay on the wallî (20-21).

Further along in the poem, the speaker sees in the wall ìa white vetís imageî reflected in the black granite.Ý This vetís face, being white, does not disappear into the wall as the speakerís black face does.ÝÝ Yet he mentions that the vet has ìlost his right arm inside the stoneî (28-29).Ý This is yet another attempt to avoid ìfacing itî.Ý The contrast between the white face and dark granite is too much for the speaker to face, so he adjusts his perception of the white vetís arm so that it seems lost inside the stone.Ý Yet even the image of a missing limb is a reminder of the violence of war and the permanence of its consequences.

Death is often the hardest thing for people to accept.Ý As the speaker previously wished for the etched names to be carried away on a womanís blouse, he does so again at the end of the poem using a different image.Ý In the last two lines, the speaker believes that he sees a woman ìtrying to erase namesî but then realizes that sheís only ìbrushing a boyís hair.îÝ Since the names signify the death of soldiers, the erasure of the names would undo the ultimate permanence: death.Ý The speaker does not want to face death, the ultimate consequence of war.Ý The realization that sheís only brushing a boyís hair recalls the impossibility of erasing death.Ý This last image of youth, growth, and tenderness contrasts sharply against the harsh reality of the soldiersí deaths and makes it impossible for the speaker not to face reality:Ý the names on the wall belong to soldiers that died.

The images in the poem symbolize a kind of psychological process by indicating the speakerís mental and emotion conflict as he views the names of the dead on the wall.Ý He desires the images to disappear because he does not wish to face their permanence.Ý These images of disappearance and permanence work together to give a sense that although the speaker wants the consequences of war to disappear, he must ultimately face their permanence.