Anonymity
Francis is ashamed of his facial injuries and has experienced people staring at him. He therefore decides to wear a disguise while visiting Frenchtown. This disguise represents his shame about his appearance, but also his deeper shame regarding what happened to Nicole.
He describes his disguise in the following passage: "I wear a scarf that covers the lower part of my face. The scarf is white and silk, like the aviators wore in their airplanes during the First World War over the battlefields and trenches of Europe. I like to think that it flows behind me in the wind when I walk but I guess it doesn't." This passage illustrates how warfare for Francis did not live up to heroic expectations.
War Heroes
Larry LeSalle is depicted as being a typical hero in this text, from his good looks to his confidence and his enthusiasm for warfare. Although Larry is publicly recognized as a hero, we later hear of his immoral actions and his manipulation and abuse of vulnerable children. As such, Cormier is inviting us to question what we might think is heroic.
The idea of this superficial image of a heroic soldier is referred to many times in the novel, perhaps most poignantly by Arthur Rivier: "We weren't heroes. The Strangler and his scrapbook. No heroes in that scrapbook, Francis. Only us, the boys of Frenchtown. Scared and homesick and cramps in the stomach and vomit. Nothing glamorous like the write-ups in the papers of the newsreels. We weren't heroes. We were only there."
The impact of war
When Arthur is drunk in the alleyway, he is described as being slumped over and intoxicated. This description shows us the impact that warfare and traumatic experiences have on veterans.
Francis' disfigurements
At the beginning of the text, Francis introduces himself by describing his facial deformities sustained during warfare. He says: "The war is over and I have no face." He uses graphic imagery to describe his injuries, giving a clear picture of what it is like to live with them. For example, the following passage: "Oh, I have eyes because I can see and eardrums because I can hear but no ears to speak of, just bits of dangling flesh."
