Rose and Lan both exhibit symptoms of mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder. Little Dog notes that Lan’s schizophrenia worsened since the Vietnam War, and she seemed to “flicker before [him], dipping in and out of sense” (16). For Example, in Part 1 Section 2, fireworks trigger Lan’s PTSD. Little Dog recalls her desperately explaining to him how he must keep quiet to avoid the mortar shells, holding him protectively until she fell asleep.

However, if Lan is often incoherent, she is just as often Lucid. While the PTSD she developed from the war causes her to be sensitive to certain stimuli, the violence Lan witnessed has also hardened her. Little Dog recalls her being unphased by a nearby shooting. Lan merely says, “In the war, entire villages would go up before you know where your balls were” (21). Additionally, she is aware of her mental illness, and she is aware that Rose suffers similarly. She tells Little Dog that “She love you, Little Dog. But she sick. Sick like me. In the brains” (122). It is a rare moment in the novel of someone other than Little Dog acknowledging mental illness in a character.