Essay: Analyzing Mo Yan's 'The Old Gun' and Bob Hicok's 'In the Loop'

This essay provides a comparative analysis of two literary pieces: Mo Yan's short story "The Old Gun" and Bob Hicok's poem "In the Loop." The essay delves into the narrative of "The Old Gun," where a young man, Dasuo, driven by hunger and poverty, attempts to use an old gun, leading to a tragic outcome. The analysis explores the story's themes of violence, poverty, and the cyclical nature of tragedy. Conversely, the essay examines "In the Loop," a poem reflecting on the aftermath of a mass shooting incident, focusing on the feelings of emptiness, futility, and the inadequacy of words in the face of such events. The essay contrasts the differing styles and undercurrents of the two pieces, highlighting how "The Old Gun" builds suspense towards a tragic end, while "In the Loop" captures the immediate shock and meaninglessness. The essay concludes by emphasizing the shared ability of both pieces to evoke a sense of heaviness and compel readers to contemplate the futility and meaninglessness of life.

Essay on “The Old Gun” by Mo Yan & “In
the Loop” by Bob Hicok

The two pieces of literature to be analyzed in this paper are – the story “The Old
Gun” by Mo Yan, and the poem “In the Loop” by Bob Hicok.
The story, “The Old Gun” is about a young man, of 16 years of age, named Dasuo,
who had been watching flocks of birds land near a water pool for days, and out of extreme
hunger and poverty, he wanted to kill a bird or two as he hadn’t tasted meat for a long time.
His family, had the possession of an old gun, which he was not allowed to touch, and which
had killed both his grandfather and his father, much before their times, and Dasuo took it
down and brought it to kill the ducks for his dinner. He waited patiently in the sorghum
enclosure and tried to operate the gun but it failed him. He repeatedly pressed the nozzle,
and no shots rolled out. He remembered the manner in which his father died, when Dasuo
was a child of 5 to 6 years, and before that how his grandfather died when his father was a
child of 6 years. Dasuo’s grandmother used it to kill his grandfather, and Dasuo’s father used
it to kill himself and had instructed Dasuo’s mother to hand the gun in their living room for
Dasuo to look at everyday but never to touch. Dasuo once touched the gun and as a
punishment his mother axed out the first stump of his index finger which eventually gave
away the second stump as well, and Dasuo was left with only one stump. After repeated
attempts, when the gun did not fire, Dasuo crept out from his shelter and held the gap in his
lap and tried to shoot one more time, and this time the gun shot out and hit Dasuo and he
gradually drifted into oblivion (Childs & Hope, 2015).
The poem “In the Loop” by Bob Hicok, speaks about the mass shooting
incident which occurred at Virginia Tech University, and speaks about the futility of
conversations and the meaninglessness of everything post a major crisis such as that. “In
the loop” is a poem where, the poet was focused in recording that very passing moment post
a major crisis, the birth of a thought, the connection of the thought to the next thought

(Poetry Foundation, 2018). And the poem is written as if those constellations of thoughts
when written down would give rise to a conclusive meaning, only it doesn’t, but leaves an
empty, disquiet in the readers mind. Hicok’s 200 + worded poems are basically about having
no words – the numbness which impacts everyone post such a disaster and in spite of
repeated conversations about how meaningless, how horrible, how drastic it is, there is in
reality nothing to talk about (BAP, 2012). “Because this was about nothing” is the single most
powerful line in the whole poem, and it talks about the futility of having talks, having
precautionary policies undertaken, experiencing such numb fallout from these shootings.
Hicok highlights these society’s notion and clichés about how something should be
said when all one is feeling is nothingness along with senselessness and extreme grief, and
shock. Hicok pens “A boy who felt that he was nothing, who erased and entered that
erasure, and guns ... that are good for nothing, and talk of guns… that is good for nothing,
and spring that is good for flowers, and Jesus for some, and scotch for others, and “and” for
me.. The poet depicts how something “and” is the best of what we have got, and sometimes
it is allowed to give ourselves permission to be un-profound as well as ineloquent and to be
simple and say, there are no words and I must speak them.
The main contrast between the two pieces of literature is that, where “On the Loop” is
built on a continuous, present timeline of empty conversations and leaves that hollow,
shocking, empty feeling with the readers , the short story by the nobel prize winner of
Literature in 2012 (The Guardian, 2013), “The Old Gun” starts with a gradual tempo and
slowly picks up the pace and ultimately it is as if the reader already expects such a tragic
ending is waiting for Dasuo, and the gun will do its part. Though apparently, both the pieces
are about a “gun”, and about the power of such a thing which lets people undergo tasks and

works which apparently seem incapable of them, the style and the undercurrent of the two
pieces are quite different from one another.
“On the Loop” by Bob Hicok, is a more contemporary piece which leaves readers
empty and translates that feeling of shock within the readers as well, “The Old Gun” by Mo
Yan, on the other hand, readies the reader for such a tragic outcome. The story, is
interspersed with drastic violence with that of banal description of the surroundings, but the
writer Yan effectively describes the setting so minutely that the reader also waits with a
breathlessness about what is to unfold. Both the pieces of literature chosen for this essay
have that similarity in letting the readers feel the heaviness and the sudden breathlessness
and compels them to wonder at the futility of things and the meaninglessness of life.

Bibliography
BAP. (2012). There are no words. Retrieved February 26, 2018, from Best American
Poetry: http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2012/12/
there-are-no-words-and-we-must-speak-them-by-stephanie-paterik.html
Childs, M., & Hope, N. (2015). Voices of East Asia - Essential Readings from
Antiquity to the Present. US: Routledge.
Poetry Foundation. (2018). In the Loop. Retrieved February 26, 2018, from Poetry
Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/53291/in-the-
loop
The Guardian. (2013). Nobel Prize in Literature 2012. US: The Guardian.