53 pages • 1 hour read
Joe HaldemanThe Forever War
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Sex
Sexual intimacy is a recurring motif in The Forever War. From the very first chapter, Haldeman’s army is a gender-integrated fighting force, the military encouraging platoonmates to “sack” together, for morale purposes, presumably. The troops swap partners easily with little moral reservation, although once Mandella realizes he loves Margay Potter, he becomes monogamous. Sexual preference in the novel is fluid and flexible, adapting to meet the demands of a civilization in crisis. When government authorities try to control overpopulation, declaring heterosexuality a psychological disfunction, the world’s population complies. Most of the world in the 26th century is gay, Mandella’s temporal orientation officer informs him. Mandella, however, proves reluctant to embrace the new directive. Sex and sexual orientation are relative and variable in this new world, but Mandella, a relic of the 20th century, can’t see beyond his own rigid assumptions. Sex in this context is more than the physical act of intercourse. Living under the constant threat of death, sex becomes a way for the recruits to reclaim their tenuous grip on life, to share their own mortality with a partner who lives under the same threat. It allows them to find a brief moment of communion and intimacy, necessary fuel to carry them through the battles that lay ahead.
The Stasis Field
The stasis field, an impenetrable dome that offers soldiers protection against all weapons, is both a blessing and a curse. When the Sade-138 base is destroyed in the Tauran attack, Mandella’s surviving troops retreat to the stasis field for cover. While it shields them from Tauran weaponry, it is also a prison, keeping them trapped while the Taurans simply wait for them to run out of food or go stir crazy. The stasis field, like the military in general, is a double-edged sword for Mandella. On the one hand, it represents financial security (his first retirement is at age 25) and, despite the dangers, familiarity and even excitement. The adrenaline rush of combat makes civilian life seem boring by comparison, initially at least. When Potter becomes more important that the thrill of a firefight, he reorders his priorities.
On the other hand, Mandella is trapped by his own career advancement. When life on Earth is no better than battling Taurans in space, Mandella opts for the familiar, taking promotion after promotion, unable to break the cycle and find a way to adapt to civilian life. Mandella is one of the very few survivors of the Forever War, and, like the stasis field, the military both saves and imprisons him.
Linear Narrative
Haldeman’s narrative runs in a straight line, with no detours or backstory to interrupt the linear flow. Beginning with Mandella’s basic training and his first combat mission to his promotion, his first retirement, and ultimately to the end of his career, the story walks the reader through Mandella’s military experience and, by extension, the entire war. This approach allows Haldeman’s audience to feel time as Mandella feels it: the grind of basic training, the fear of death during those early weeks in space, the boredom of cruising through space at one gee punctuated by the heightened alarm of any approaching vessel, and the frustration with the bureaucracy that holds his life in its hands. By the end of the story, a tale of 1,000 years’ worth of death, loss, and love, readers can empathize with Mandella’s physical and emotional fatigue, having gone through the process right alongside him.
Portal Planets
Portal planets, bodies orbiting collapsars, are the symbolic San Juan Hill of The Forever War. The battle of San Juan Hill, one of the decisive battles of the Spanish-American War, is mythologized in military lore despite the heavy casualties suffered by American forces. Securing a hill or a rice paddy or a small village while absorbing losses disproportionate to the value of the territory perfectly captures the tragic waste of war. While UNEF throws countless bodies into an endless conflict for the bragging rights to insignificant, interstellar rocks, humans and Taurans die for reasons no one can understand. Only when more evolved minds assume control does the carnage end.
