Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 67

Bom on the Fourth of July

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thrown out of the bar. Later, after an argument with a taxicab driver,
they are left stranded in the desert. Charlie begins a venomous
tirade against the government. President Nixon and the Vietnam
war. He verbally assaults Kovic, suggesting that his "soul" was
never invested in the war. The confrontation becomes a shouting
match over who killed more babies. Their exchange escalates into a
shoving match, and the two end up lying alongside a deserted road,
their wheelchairs left standing as the only evidence of their
presence.
Lying at the base of a hill symbolizes the depth of despair
Kovic has reached. In mythic terms, Campbell explains that "at the
bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is
the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come.
At the darkest moment comes the light."^^ Kovic's value
transformation begins in this scene, where he longs for the "things
that made sense," the things you could "count on...before we all got so
lost."^® Kovic's experience with Charlie at Villa Dulce is the
catalyst for the transformation described by Campbell. He begins to
confront the anger he feels: toward his situation-being paralyzed
for life; toward the government which deceived and then abandoned
him; and toward the value system which has not rewarded him for
playing by the rules.
The first step in his transformation to a moralistic value
system is to admit his guilt to the family of the soldier he killed
while in Vietnam. When he faces the soldier's family to explain the
circumstances of the young man's death, Kovic is overwhelmed with
grief. As he leaves the family's home, the song "When Johnny comes
marching hom e" plays in the background. This symbolically
foreshadows Kovic's return home, where he is guided by a different
value system. Kovic's values are transformed, from embracing both
the myths of materialism and moralism, to an affirmation of
moralism and subversion of materialism. He no longer assumes that
hard-work and persistence will always be rewarded. Vietnam
demonstrated to Kovic that success in life is not always within one's
own control. Kovic recognizes the priority of restoring human digni ty
and self worth, which were taken from the soldiers who were
permanently disabled in Vietnam.