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Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Rest and Relaxation
Rest and relaxation (R&R) is a term for periods of enforced vacation intended to help ease the psychological and physical burdens of war on US soldiers. Because taking R & R is compulsory and periodical, these vacations from the warzone appear throughout the portion of The Women. Moments where they are relieved from duty provide Frankie, Barb, Ethel, their friends Coyote and Jamie, Rye, and the other soldiers with a brief respite from the constant terror and violence. Visits to the Officers’ Club and beach outings featuring waterski lessons and “Ski Vietnam” souvenir T-shirts offer moments of happiness and normality, however brief. These breaks help morale, even if the relief Frankie feels is temporary and the prospect of return to combat always looming.
Frankie often struggles to fully relax, knowing that while she’s away, people are getting injured who might die without her help. Even during her mandated R&R trip to Kauai with Rye, she feels uneasy about stepping away from her responsibilities despite the glow of love around everything they do together.
Dishonesty
Characters lie with alarming frequency in The Women. Rye’s repeated dishonesty with Frankie breaks her heart. He conceals his marriage to Melissa and his child from Frankie, first promising to break off the “engagement,” and then to leave Melissa for Frankie when they begin their second affair. Rye knows he can keep Frankie on the hook, fantasizing about a future with him, despite knowing he won't deliver one. His empty promises to leave his wife have no bearing on reality.
Frankie’s father also deceives her by erasing her service from their family’s history. Instead of boasting about her bravery and skill as a nurse in Vietnam, he tells family friends that she was studying abroad. This denial strips her of the recognition she feels she deserves, and makes her feel that her parents are ashamed of her.
The motif also appears in the lies told by the government about the Vietnam War, which affected the people at “home” in the US as much as the soldiers in Vietnam. Cover-ups of issues like Agent Orange harmed not only those who served—as exposure to it caused cancer, miscarriages, and birth defects among other issues—but also their families. False reports of progress and about the real purpose of the fighting also kept volunteer numbers higher than they would have been, and were an attempt to justify the unpopular use of the draft.
PTSD
Many veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and Frankie McGrath is no exception to this. Her struggles with PTSD begin during the war itself, when she first starts to try and process the stress and unpleasantness of everyday life as a surgical nurse. As she faces the stress of attacks on the hospital and the emotional weight of treating severely injured soldiers, Frankie has no time to address her issues. She also has no one with any psychological training to talk to in order to process them. She represses her feelings, hoping they will go away.
However, the symptoms of her repressed fear and shock follow her home. Back in the US she shows very identifiable symptoms of the disease, including a desire to numb the pain through any means necessary. This only worsens as she absorbs society’s dismissal of her service. Because everyone tells her so, she starts believing her experiences do not justify her pain. This belief isolates her and makes it harder for her to seek help.
