Different Personalities of Nick, Mike and Steve

Rating: 8/10 (12 December 2013)

Nick, Mike, and Steve all played somewhat archetypal characters in their roles as members of the tightly knit friend group The Deer Hunter follows. Mike plays the left brained, organized, orderly, powerful leader of the group. Mike is well respected by everyone, hes somewhat quiet, and hes the best hunter of them all. In general, what Mike says, goes. This serves him very well as a soldier in Vietnam. He is able to keep a level head when in extreme situations, such as when he was a POW and used Russian Roulette to evade his captors. Mike was the only one of the three men to come out of Vietnam whole, and that makes sense when you look at his strong personality. Steve was quite the opposite. It was evident from the beginning that Steve wasn't as strong as Mike or Nick. He married a woman who was pregnant with another mans child, which would have been a sign of shame and weakness in those times. He also seemed very uncomfortable with going to Vietnam and freaked out when he was taken captive. It also makes sense that Steve would be the one to lose his legs, given his weak personality. Nick fell somewhere in the middle of the two. Nick was gregarious, funny, very well liked, happy and charming. He told Mike that he loved his life as a steel mill worker ,and made Mike promise not to leave him in Vietnam. Nicks strengths and courage kept him alive for a while with a little help from Mike, but ultimately he succumbed to the extreme circumstances. Nick was the most psychologically damaged of the three after the war. It makes sense that Nick, the one who loved the beautiful life he lived before, would be so traumatized by all the atrocities he witnessed and took part in. The games of Russian Roulette drove Nick to the point that he didn't value his life and was willing to keep playing for money. His Heroin use also probably played a role. I know you said in class that there was an alternate ending where Nick and Mike switch roles, but i definitely prefer it the way it is. It would be out of character for Mike to be the one who goes crazy and needs to be rescued. Although the ending was terribly sad, (as was the entire movie), I really enjoyed watching it and wouldn't want to see it changed.