"Prime Directive" Analysis Essay

Brandon Pashby
9/24/07
Analysis Essay of “Prime Directive” by David Griffith
What does it take to properly analyze an essay? To properly analyze an essay you must dig deep and read between the lines. You have to figure out what it is that the writer is really trying to tell you. I believe that Griffith wants us to see a lot of things that doesn‘t actually print. To show us these things he uses symbols and figurative language.
“Prime Directive” illustrates connections between Griffith’s experience around Halloween and the war. It is an essay that uses a vast amount of symbols to create the theme. The theme shows us that we are responsible for making sure that political issues are not forgotten or accepted. The tone of the essay is somewhat depressed and remorseful. Griffith is constantly wanting to be surrounded by people and is reminded of his wife by nearly everything he sees. He is very descriptive and makes you feel like you are there with him. Griffith paints a clear picture of what he is seeing and experiencing. The essay jumps around and seems a little confusing at first. The writer uses some figures of speech that might offend some readers. At one point he describes some of the soldiers as “hicks from the sticks”. The writer is commenting on how brutal and relentless some of the soldiers have become.
In the essay Griffith is a school teacher that is waiting to move so he can be with his wife. In the meantime he is stuck at his house trying to find anything to keep his mind off of his wife and his loneliness. To keep himself occupied he travels with his friends, to different Halloween parties dressed as Captain James T. Kirk. No matter how many parties he goes to or how many people he sees he still never seems to be content. At the last party he has violent thoughts running through his head that he says no reasonable person would have. He finally runs into one of his old friends and ends up taking a picture with the man that is dressed as Charles Graner. In the picture, Graner gets a boy to put a bag over his head and pose while Griffith and Graner give the thumbs up. The next morning he remembers what he did and is ashamed of it. The next night he passes out candy with his neighbor to make himself feel better. He says that his neighbor gets pleasure out of scaring the little kids.
Griffith uses symbols throughout the entire essay. The fact that he is a captain and keeps moving around symbolizes a captain that is in war and moves from place to place. He moves from party to party just like soldiers do in the war. He is confused about what is right and what he should really be doing. At times he is ashamed of his actions and tries to forget them. He puts the picture out of sight so he will not be reminded of it. This is the same thing that happened with Abu Ghraib. People stopped talking about it and eventually it was almost forgotten. Halloween is another important symbol used in this essay. It symbolizes death and pranks. It makes us think of the devil and parties. These are all things that are associated with war. Catholicism is used to make us think of corruption and fundamentalism. These are two of the main things that cause war and anarchy. At one point Griffith sees a homeless man and avoids speaking to him. This represents the soldiers at war that have no home and no family to talk to. Loneliness is also shown by his being away from his wife just as a soldier is.
This essay gives us a better idea of what it is like for soldiers. It makes us realize that we need to talk about political issues and not let them be forgotten. It demonstrates how things can be forgotten or even accepted if we don’t bring them up and state our opinions on them. It reminds us that we are all responsible for what is talked about and what isn’t. It is our responsibility to make others understand the importance of political affairs.
I think that Griffith did a good job of demonstrating how corrupt the government and media can be. He used characters and costumes to paint this picture for it. Before reading this essay I couldn’t even tell you who Captain James T. Kirk was. After reading Griffith’s essay I not only know that he is a main character on Star Trek , but I know how he dresses and I can recognize him as a symbol for a leader. I believe Griffith was successful in presenting the material in a way that was easy to understand and he did a good job of giving us clues to figure out what was really going on in the essay. I also learned who Charles Graner is and learned of the incidents that took place at Abu Ghraib. I strongly believe that the incidents that took place should not be forgotten and should not be taken lightly. Overall Griffith did a great job of telling two stories at once while getting his point across.