Okay listen here, Mr. O'Brien. This whole book is diminishing before my eyes. He just spent an entire novel describing "his own experiences" in Vietnam to turn around and tell the reader that all of them weren't true. Was that really necessary? I feel like the book would have been better if he would have kept that little detail to himself. Now the book feels different to me, like it doesn't mean as much. Granted, I understand his point that all of these incidences very well could have happened, but the central point of why I liked this book is now gone - the fact that it was a personal story. This is an exemplary illustration of ambiguity. O'Brien is completely contradicting himself this entire chapter. Honestly, I don't see where his logic is going at all. He may think he convinced his readers of some greater point of "story-truth" and "happening-truth", but he didn't at all. What I took from this chapter was that he lied and has convinced himself it was some method of channeling his personal guilt through writing.
"Here is the happening-truth. I was once a soldier. There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces, but I was young then and afraid to look. And now, twenty years later, I'm left with faceless responsibility and faceless grief... What stories can do, I guess, is make things present. I can look at things I never looked at. I can attach faces to grief and love and pity and God. I can be brave. I can make myself feel again." (page 172)
Like I said, he convinced himself that this helps but seeing as how he took this long to inform the reader, I feel like the book is a fabrication.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Tone
The tone in this chapter is relatively pronounced in my opinion. I took it as a tone of guilt. There seemed to be several different characters who felt partly to blame for Kiowa's death. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, for starters. He felt bad for following orders and setting up camp in a giant muck-infested river when he had the instinct to move somewhere else in the first place. It kept flooding at night and there was no protection around them leaving his entire troop vulnerable to attack. He continuously beats himself up about his mistake, and spends much of the chapter debating on how best to write a letter to Kiowa's father and explain his remorse for his death. Another man who feels guilty is the "young soldier" who is not mentioned by name throughout the chapter. To me, he is the one who should probably feel the most guilty in the encounter. Because of his flashlight, he was what gave their location away and put them under attack.
"He remembered switching on his flashlight. A stupid thing to do, but he did it anyway, and he remembered Kiowa leaning in for a look at the picture - 'Hey, she's cute,' he'd said - and then the field exploded all around them. Like murder, the boy thought. The flashlight made it happen. Dumb and dangerous. And as a result his friend Kiowa was dead." (page 163)
Maybe I wouldn't hold him so accountable if he had shown a little more emotion in the aftermath. The thing that appalled me the most was how the next day, while the other soldiers were searching for Kiowa's body, he was by himself looking for the picture of his girlfriend that he had lost instead. Seriously? For Christ's sake, it's a picture and he is at war. Shouldn't he be more concerned about the fact that he is partly responsible for the death of his own friend? He said they were close, so why isn't he acting like it? What I also realized later on was that O'Brien never mentioned his own whereabouts during this chapter... Does that mean that he himself was the "young soldier" but was too ashamed to mention his own name? There's some food for thought.
Yet another who feels some guilt is Azar for making jokes about the way that Kiowa died. Granted it wasn't kind or compassionate, but I think that he was only attempting to deal with his own grief. I don't think he honestly meant anything hurtful by it because he apologized later. As for Norman Bowker, I don't see how he felt guilty at all. He didn't do anything wrong at whatsoever. In fact, he did the man justice by finding his body and working to dig him out so that he could be sent home. Those are my observations at least.
As a sidenote that has nothing to do with tone, did this catch anyone else's attention?
Azar smiled and said, "Classic."
Maybe it's just me, but I immediately thought of Alan in the Hangover. haha :)
"He remembered switching on his flashlight. A stupid thing to do, but he did it anyway, and he remembered Kiowa leaning in for a look at the picture - 'Hey, she's cute,' he'd said - and then the field exploded all around them. Like murder, the boy thought. The flashlight made it happen. Dumb and dangerous. And as a result his friend Kiowa was dead." (page 163)
Maybe I wouldn't hold him so accountable if he had shown a little more emotion in the aftermath. The thing that appalled me the most was how the next day, while the other soldiers were searching for Kiowa's body, he was by himself looking for the picture of his girlfriend that he had lost instead. Seriously? For Christ's sake, it's a picture and he is at war. Shouldn't he be more concerned about the fact that he is partly responsible for the death of his own friend? He said they were close, so why isn't he acting like it? What I also realized later on was that O'Brien never mentioned his own whereabouts during this chapter... Does that mean that he himself was the "young soldier" but was too ashamed to mention his own name? There's some food for thought.
Yet another who feels some guilt is Azar for making jokes about the way that Kiowa died. Granted it wasn't kind or compassionate, but I think that he was only attempting to deal with his own grief. I don't think he honestly meant anything hurtful by it because he apologized later. As for Norman Bowker, I don't see how he felt guilty at all. He didn't do anything wrong at whatsoever. In fact, he did the man justice by finding his body and working to dig him out so that he could be sent home. Those are my observations at least.
As a sidenote that has nothing to do with tone, did this catch anyone else's attention?
Azar smiled and said, "Classic."
Maybe it's just me, but I immediately thought of Alan in the Hangover. haha :)
Essay
I liked how O'Brien took the time to explain his motivation for writing the chapter "Speaking of Courage". I feel like it gave some justice to Norman Bowker and explained to some extent why he had ended his own life. I'm sure there are many people who will never understand his actions, but then again I don't think it is necessary for them to have to understand. Every single occurrence affects another human being differently in life. No two people ever react exactly the same to the challenges they are given to face. For Norman, I just think that the war was too much for him. After it was over he couldn't go back to being the same person and he couldn't shake himself of his worst memories. It is unfortunate that he never got to see the revised version of his story in its' full glory before he died. I really think that he would have liked it. A part that I especially liked of the account was how the author wrapped it up at the end. I thought it was considerate of him to do in Bowker's memory.
"In the interests of truth, however, I want to make it clear that Norman Bowker was in no way responsible for what happened to Kiowa. Norman did not experience a failure of nerve that night. He did not freeze up or lose the Silver Star for valor. That part of the story is my own." (page 154)
Where O'Brien inserted clips of Norman's own letter to him, I was reminded of the use of essay. An essay in which Norman was discussing his thoughts on the topic of Vietnam.
"What you should do, Tim, is write a story about a guy who feels like he got zapped over in that shithole. A guy who can't get his act together and just drives around town all day and can't think of any damn place to go and doesn't know how to get there anyway. This guy want to talk about it, but he can't..." (page 151)
"In the interests of truth, however, I want to make it clear that Norman Bowker was in no way responsible for what happened to Kiowa. Norman did not experience a failure of nerve that night. He did not freeze up or lose the Silver Star for valor. That part of the story is my own." (page 154)
Where O'Brien inserted clips of Norman's own letter to him, I was reminded of the use of essay. An essay in which Norman was discussing his thoughts on the topic of Vietnam.
"What you should do, Tim, is write a story about a guy who feels like he got zapped over in that shithole. A guy who can't get his act together and just drives around town all day and can't think of any damn place to go and doesn't know how to get there anyway. This guy want to talk about it, but he can't..." (page 151)
Simile
Okay, so let me get this straight. In the chapter before this, O'Brien was talking about the man he killed and now the war is over? Just like that? There's no stories in between there? That seems random to me. I don't really like how he keeps skipping around all over the place because it makes the story harder to follow sometimes. I'm not sure what the significance of this chapter was, but the only character it concentrated on was Norman Bowker. To be honest, he wasn't doing anything particularly interesting either. All he did for the majority of the chapter was drive on the same 7 mile stretch of road for hours on end. What this chapter sort of showed me was how many of the soldiers probably didn't know what to do with their lives once they were back home. Lots of time had passed by while they were away, and everyone else had moved on without them. This became clear when Norman mentioned a girl he had dated back in high school who was now married. Although he kept trying to clear his mind of her, the idea of her being married to someone else seemed to really bother him.
The literary term that caught my attention in this chapter was a simile. Norman pulled into a drive-in restaurant to eat dinner and his description of the waitress was unusual.
"Her eyes were as fluffy and airy-light as cotton candy." (page 145)
It sounded like a compliment on his part, but I couldn't quite figure out what kind of eyes would remind me of cotton candy. Was he referring to the color? Perhaps they were a light blue or something of the sort. How can eyes be fluffy? I thought that maybe he could have perceived her eyes as fluffy if she was a bubbly girl but her behavior made it sound like she wasn't the friendliest.
"The young carhop turned slowly, as if puzzled, then said something to the boys in the Firebird and moved reluctantly toward him... 'You blind?' she said. She put out her hand and tapped an intercom attached to a steel post. 'Punch the button and place your order. All I do is carry the dumb trays.'" (page 145)
Like I said, she didn't seem like a character brimming with optimism and enthusiasm for her job which was why the simile threw me off.
The literary term that caught my attention in this chapter was a simile. Norman pulled into a drive-in restaurant to eat dinner and his description of the waitress was unusual.
"Her eyes were as fluffy and airy-light as cotton candy." (page 145)
It sounded like a compliment on his part, but I couldn't quite figure out what kind of eyes would remind me of cotton candy. Was he referring to the color? Perhaps they were a light blue or something of the sort. How can eyes be fluffy? I thought that maybe he could have perceived her eyes as fluffy if she was a bubbly girl but her behavior made it sound like she wasn't the friendliest.
"The young carhop turned slowly, as if puzzled, then said something to the boys in the Firebird and moved reluctantly toward him... 'You blind?' she said. She put out her hand and tapped an intercom attached to a steel post. 'Punch the button and place your order. All I do is carry the dumb trays.'" (page 145)
Like I said, she didn't seem like a character brimming with optimism and enthusiasm for her job which was why the simile threw me off.
Stream of Consciousness
While reading this chapter, I was reminded of the literary term stream of consciousness. The chapter itself was a continuation of describing the man Tim killed, but this time instead of focusing on the aftermath of the encounter it centered around what happened right before and his reasoning for killing him. As it turns out, the man whom O'Brien killed was a little more innocent than I thought. I was imagining them fighting in some big battle scene and Tim desperately throwing out a grenade to save his own life. In reality, the man was merely passing through on the trail they were guarding and probably would have continued on his way without harm if not for the grenade setback. This chapter is what makes me feel real sympathy for the author. He explained what he was thinking at the time and lets the reader get an idea of how he was really feeling.
"It was entirely automatic. I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy; I did not ponder issues of morality or politics or military duty. I crouched and kept my head low. I tried to swallow whatever was rising from my stomach, which tasted like lemonade, something fruity and sour. I was terrified. There were no thoughts about killing." (page 126)
With this insight, it becomes clear to the reader that he genuinely did not wish death upon the other soldier. He was only doing what he had been trained to do; not allowing himself to stop and contemplate the consequences. As a soldier, he did nothing wrong. As a man, I can completely understand why he still feels guilty. Although it's easy for me to say that he should not feel guilty because he did the right thing, it's a completely different situation to be the person who actually killed the man and wonder for the rest of your life if it was truly the 'right' thing. All I can say is that I'm happy I wasn't in his shoes that day.
"It was entirely automatic. I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy; I did not ponder issues of morality or politics or military duty. I crouched and kept my head low. I tried to swallow whatever was rising from my stomach, which tasted like lemonade, something fruity and sour. I was terrified. There were no thoughts about killing." (page 126)
With this insight, it becomes clear to the reader that he genuinely did not wish death upon the other soldier. He was only doing what he had been trained to do; not allowing himself to stop and contemplate the consequences. As a soldier, he did nothing wrong. As a man, I can completely understand why he still feels guilty. Although it's easy for me to say that he should not feel guilty because he did the right thing, it's a completely different situation to be the person who actually killed the man and wonder for the rest of your life if it was truly the 'right' thing. All I can say is that I'm happy I wasn't in his shoes that day.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Imagery
This next chapter was absolutely jam-packed with imagery. It was entirely about the first man that Tim killed and went over-the-top in graphic detail. That image of the man lying on the ground must have been permanently etched in his mind the rest of his life.
"His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, his clean black hair was swept upward into a cowlick at the rear of the skull, his forehead was lightly freckled, his fingernails were clean, the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was a butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that had killed him." (page 118)
It continued on further but I thought that you'd get the idea. Once again, I cannot imagine how Tim must have been feeling after killing another human being. It was easy to see that he was overcome with guilt, but the truth of the matter is that's just the way war works. If he had not acted the way he had, there was a good chance that the man who he killed would have killed him instead. It's not fair and it seems impossible to do, but in reality it's what must be done in order to survive. Last year, Mrs. Helbing told my class that a famous man (I don't remember his name unfortunately) once said to a man joining the military, "Now remember: it is not your job to die for your country, is your job to make sure that the other man out there dies for his country." To me, this seemed like a good piece of advice. When it comes down to it, war is war and nothing is fair. I feel sympathy for Tim but I hope that other readers understand that it was an action of survival. I'm sure I would have taken it just as hard if it were me in the same circumstance.
"His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, his clean black hair was swept upward into a cowlick at the rear of the skull, his forehead was lightly freckled, his fingernails were clean, the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was a butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that had killed him." (page 118)
It continued on further but I thought that you'd get the idea. Once again, I cannot imagine how Tim must have been feeling after killing another human being. It was easy to see that he was overcome with guilt, but the truth of the matter is that's just the way war works. If he had not acted the way he had, there was a good chance that the man who he killed would have killed him instead. It's not fair and it seems impossible to do, but in reality it's what must be done in order to survive. Last year, Mrs. Helbing told my class that a famous man (I don't remember his name unfortunately) once said to a man joining the military, "Now remember: it is not your job to die for your country, is your job to make sure that the other man out there dies for his country." To me, this seemed like a good piece of advice. When it comes down to it, war is war and nothing is fair. I feel sympathy for Tim but I hope that other readers understand that it was an action of survival. I'm sure I would have taken it just as hard if it were me in the same circumstance.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Metaphor & Symbol
Yet again, O'Brien changed focus and centered his next chapter around the character Henry Dobbins. I found it interesting how he opened the story with a metaphor that compared him to our country.
"In many ways he was like America itself, big and strong, full of good intentions, a roll of fat jiggling at his belly, slow of foot but always plodding along, always there when you needed him, a believer in the virtues of simplicity and directness and hard labor." (page 111)
Where exactly was Tim going with that when he compared Dobbins to America? Although I failed to see the point of his opening description, I enjoyed the chapter. I thought it was humorous how he had a strange fetish with his girlfriend's pantyhose. Weird maybe, but still humorous. He's definitely a guy I'm gonna remember because of that. Not to mention, he must be the luckiest guy in the world or his pantyhose must really be magical because he survived at least two incredibly close calls and always came out unscathed. I'd kill for luck like that!
Continuing on, the soldiers set up camp at a church pagoda for a week. Here I found it sort of interesting to hear some of the men talk about their religious views. Dobbins, for instance thought more highly of the monks than I would have guessed. There were also a few symbols that I figured had to be important to the monks helping the American soldiers. Since they did not have the ability to speak English, I got this idea due to their behavior and gestures.
"On the second day the older monk carried in a cane chair for the use of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, placing it near the altar area, bowing and gesturing for him to sit down. The old monk seemed proud of the chair, and proud that such a man as Lieutenant Cross should be sitting in it." (page 114)
My conjecture is that the chair was probably something symbolic of power or influence in their faith and they felt honored to share it. Another symbolic gesture the monks kept repeating was a washing motion with their hands. I'm still not sure as to what that meant, but I'm getting the vibe that it was a peaceful one since they always did it in a courteous manner. Perhaps these gestures were like the sign of the cross in our faith.
"In many ways he was like America itself, big and strong, full of good intentions, a roll of fat jiggling at his belly, slow of foot but always plodding along, always there when you needed him, a believer in the virtues of simplicity and directness and hard labor." (page 111)
Where exactly was Tim going with that when he compared Dobbins to America? Although I failed to see the point of his opening description, I enjoyed the chapter. I thought it was humorous how he had a strange fetish with his girlfriend's pantyhose. Weird maybe, but still humorous. He's definitely a guy I'm gonna remember because of that. Not to mention, he must be the luckiest guy in the world or his pantyhose must really be magical because he survived at least two incredibly close calls and always came out unscathed. I'd kill for luck like that!
Continuing on, the soldiers set up camp at a church pagoda for a week. Here I found it sort of interesting to hear some of the men talk about their religious views. Dobbins, for instance thought more highly of the monks than I would have guessed. There were also a few symbols that I figured had to be important to the monks helping the American soldiers. Since they did not have the ability to speak English, I got this idea due to their behavior and gestures.
"On the second day the older monk carried in a cane chair for the use of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, placing it near the altar area, bowing and gesturing for him to sit down. The old monk seemed proud of the chair, and proud that such a man as Lieutenant Cross should be sitting in it." (page 114)
My conjecture is that the chair was probably something symbolic of power or influence in their faith and they felt honored to share it. Another symbolic gesture the monks kept repeating was a washing motion with their hands. I'm still not sure as to what that meant, but I'm getting the vibe that it was a peaceful one since they always did it in a courteous manner. Perhaps these gestures were like the sign of the cross in our faith.
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