Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Exploration 6- Jireh White

The story that meant the most to me so far is "The Man I Killed". This story made the biggest impact on me because while he staring at the corps he is imagining the mans past and the future he could've had if he didn't kill him while also putting himself in the dead mans place. This stands out to me because in my eyes this one dead man represents all of the fallen soldiers throughout the Vietnam War. In the text. Tim O' Brien says that "In the presence of his father and uncles, he pretended to look forward to doing his patriotic duty, which was also a privilege, but at night he prayed with his mother that the war might end soon. Beyond anything else, he was afraid of disgracing himself, and therefore his family and village (O'Brien, 127)." To me this quote represents the feeling of many soldiers from both sides during the war. A lot of them feared going to the war but they feared being a disappointment to their family, themselves, and village/country more than anything.

The character that I connect to the most so far is Kiowa. I connect with him the most because he seems to be the voice of reason in many situations. Throughout the story he seems to be a good friend and is a rational person. In the story "The Man I Killed", Kiowa was there for O'Brien and was trying to help him move on from what he had done. At times his words could come across as rough, however in the end I think he was just displaying a type of tough love that O' Brien needed at the time. Kiowa was patient with him when it happened and allowed him time to himself but at the same time did not let him dwell on it too long.

From active reading, I have noticed that the author uses amazing sense details. His use of sense details help set a scene the helps readers imagine the surroundings. Not only do the sense details help create an image of surroundings, it also helps readers image the other characters and what they are going through.

A passage that I've marked in my reading that stood out to me comes from the first chapter "The Things They Carried". The part that made the biggest impact on me was when he said
 "They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. they died so as to not die of embarrassment (O'Brien, 21)." 
This quote impacted me because its amazing how soldiers only wanted to fight because they didn't want their reputation to be trashed. As a soldier, I believe that you should want to fight and defend your country because you genuinely desire to. In war you should be passionate about what you are fighting for and not go to war solely because you did not want to dishonor your family.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with you that O'Brien uses a lot of sense emotions. I think that he uses these sense emotions to appeal to the reader and help them understand what war is really about. I enjoyed the sense emotions because it helped me be able to put myself in the place of the soldiers it also helped me understand the horrors of war. One of the best examples that O'Brien used was in the chapter of "The Man I Killed" this chapter has the best example of sense emotions because the author talks about the mans future and that really appeals to the emotions of the reader.

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