Essay 4 Topic

One of the main themes of this book, I found, is the lack of a sensual intimacy. Offred mentions several times her yearning for her husband Luke, and any time she is around the men, there is a forbidden desire, similar to Eve and the fruit of knowledge in the bible. She also sees, or seems to see, a tenseness in the men whenever ladies are around. Everyone is taught that sex is for procreation only and is it inferred that intimate relationships are arbitrary. The fact that they have been taught to suppress these desires out of guilt and fear makes those emotions very difficult to control. This respectfully detached relationship between the men and the women is inhuman, and fights against our very physiological and psychological well being.

The question I'm going to try and tackle, isn't whether this is healthy or not. I believe research and history already show that we need to be truthful with ourselves to lead descent lives. The question is will this way of life reach a boiling point? All these men and women, holding back their desires for one another to such a catastrophic degree, will it come to a head and we'll we see more deviant behavior, sexual misconduct, and even rape? Will this behavior be on such a scale that total anarchy would produce favorable results? Maybe I am wrong and the government will have their way where there will be a controlled emotionally dead society.

If I can find these answers and perhaps more, I will be able to have some idea where the government is coming from in this book, and more important I will have an inkling of what Offred and everyone else is going through in “The Handmaid's Tale”. If I am able to find from research what happens with people's psyches and in turn how that effects there physiology, then I'll be able to understand the text better, and not only from a third person perspective but a more omniscient one.

Michael Boyd Clark. Freud Image. http://www.michaelclark.name/opticalillusions/freud.shtml. February 18, 2010


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health. well being. November 9, 2010

Source Evaluation

Tina Chen. '"Unraveling the Deeper Meaning": Exile and the Embodied Poetics of Displacement in Tim O'Brien's  The Things They Carried.' Contemporary Literature Spring 1998, Vol. 39 No. 1: Pages 77-98. University of Wisconsin Press.

Tina Chen talks about how Tim O'Brien isn't just telling stories about war. How the The Things They Carried has several short stories all with underlying meanings and metonymic symbolism, an example includes how Vietnam is alive, as a country. Tina goes on to declare that Tim feels displaced no matter what he chooses, and how Vietnam was as much a home to him as Minnesota was before the war. Talking about the dead as though they are still alive, helps him cope with the realities he has to face. As Tim is writing these truths that are not true, telling stories to get stuff of his chest so he can live again, Tina realizes there is a them of exile in his stories. All the death, all the decisions he faces alone, fighting a war that was never his own, she cites the meaning of displacement from other sources, and says Tim has wrote about displacement and exile.

This article will help me in my essay, show how Vietnam was a hardship on soldiers. She uses multiple resources, I can pull from, to back up her arguments. The fact that she covers almost all the stories and dissects each one of them, will help me choose from several of Tim's writings. The article is long and analyzes other aspects as she makes her points, and I can pull several things like displacement and coping mechanisms of soldiers from this article.

Chen's Bio

My Cover Letter

Dear Mrs. Cline,

This has been a challenging first half of the semester. I still love to read, but dissecting and critiquing poems, and short stories is not my forte. One of the biggest things that have helped me, is when you said we aren't trying to guess the authors purpose. It's as if we are analyzing ourselves through these writers words. Looking at it this way helps me, where I usually am gun shy. Now, I can just pull the trigger and let my thoughts flow. The readings have not had a huge affect on me. I've seen all sorts of war movies, some they say are more accurate then others. I've enjoyed the realism, and the first hand experience of the writers. My admiration goes out to them; they are true warriors.

The second half of the class, I hope to keep on myself. The plan is to write as much as possible. I believe this is my weakness. Keeping a thesaurus near by (something I learned from ENG101) to hopefully make my writing more fluent and enjoyable. Who knows I might work a little on my blog. I can throw some designs on there, giving it a personal touch. By the end of the semester I want to be able to write freely, not just on any topic, but in various forms. I would like to write essays, stories, and anything else that comes to mind.

Thank You
Jacob Durant

Summary Vs. Analysis

"Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,"

Summary

“Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” is about a soldier's girlfriend getting shipped to him in Vietnam. It is told from the perspective of Rat Kiley who happened to be in this guys squad at the time. The squad starts off talking, killing time, about how they should set up a little brothel right there in camp. Since there is no high ranking officers around they could get away with it pretty easy. One man takes the conversation to heart. Mark Fossie decides to buy his girlfriend, Mary Anne, plane tickets so she could come visit him during the war. The whole squad thinks he's nuts and it won't happen, but sure enough a couple weeks later his pretty girlfriend shows up to camp.

Everyone takes a liking to her right away. She is fun loving, happy, flirtatious, and genuinely easy to get along with. On top of all this she takes an interest in the military way of life and in Vietnam. She stops worrying about hygiene as much, and wants Mark to take her into the local village. Mark starts to get a little worried and tries to slow her down telling her how dangerous it is in Vietnam. Soon though she starts coming back to the barracks late and one night she doesn't even show up. Mark finds out she was going on “hunts” with the local Green Berets. She is now an altogether different person. Her once bright blue compassionate eyes have now taken on the color of the jungle, harsh and adventurous. Mary was once infatuated with Mark possibly in love with him, and now her thrill is the jungle that's all she can think about. The thrill of firefights and silence of shadows is what she looks for, not boys.

The story ends with Mark being miserable over the loss of his love, both in the fact that she left him and she is a changed woman. Rat tells how he might even love her more now then when she first stepped foot into camp. Mary representing to him, what the jungle can do to a person. The Green Berets are even amazed at the chances she begins to take. She doesn't take her rifle and half her gear most of the time they go on hunts now. The last anyone sees of her is walking off into the mountains by herself. No trace of her is ever found.

Analysis

War get's to everyone, know matter who you are. Here is this naive, cheerleader, happy go lucky girl, that comes to a war zone. She then turns into a cold blooded killer. You see the change very rapidly from a girl that is in love with her boyfriend, “Almost disgusting, Rat said, the way the mooned over each other.” (O'Brien 90), to a predator of the jungle. No matter how innocent a person is they will go through something so horrific and some people say beautiful experience, that they will be a changed individual forever. It's inconsequential whether it be for the good or for the bad, everyone is different. Mark Fossie might never be able to recoup after what he experienced, losing the love of his life. O'brien tells time and again how sickly Mark becomes, “His voiced seemed hollow and stuffed-up, nasal sounding ...” (O'Brien 95). Then again it might be for the good. Mary found an inner peace out in the jungle. She knows exactly who she is (O'Brien 106). War changes everyone. This man could of been your local fire fighter, ain't war hell (Full Metal Jacket). Tim O'Brien was trying to show us that war changes and us that have never been there will never know how much.

Tim O'Brien. “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”. Short story in “The Things They Carried”. Houghton    Mifflin, 1990. First Mariner Books Edition, 2009.

Pink Skirt. AlleyKatsStore.com

Burnt Faerie. Warrior Woman. Inependence. Tongue Girl Photoshop Picture Contest, 2009.

War From a True Perspective

             This is a response to the short stories by Tim O'Brien. The story “The Things They Carried” was a gut check to Lt. Cross. Everyone carried the essentials and what they thought were their essentials. The essentials were guns, MREs, canteens full of water, and other survival equipment. The personal essentials to hope cope with war and life in general, ranged from bibles to thumbs and marijuana. Jimmy Cross's essentials were letters and pictures of a girl he was in love with back home. In my opinion he was down right obsessed. I would not be the one to tell him he was wrong, if I had a pretty Martha to dream about in my chaotic world, I might be doing the same thing he did. His obsession over Martha he believed led to the killing of one his squad, Ted Lavender. Jimmy's negligence and his lack of leadership led to a slack squad. They were not properly secure when Ted had his head blown off. Cross spent that night crying in his foxhole, mainly from shame. The next morning he burned the essentials that killed Ted and became the squad leader he knew he needed to be.

           “On the Rainy River” comes back to civilization. This is when Tim the author has to face the fact that he has just been drafted for the Vietnam war. He starts it off heavy saying that he has never shared this story with anyone, which he is now about to share with his readers. He is working at a job he can't stomach because he can't go to Harvard. He can't go to Harvard, because Uncle Sam want's him. This whole time he is talking about how he could fight a war he believes in, for example overthrowing a Tyrant such as Hitler. Vietnam he can't find a just cause. It is all hazy to him; which side is good which side is bad. War's should be clear cut and are musts, not maybes! This whole time I'm thinking yeah plus you're scared of dying. He decides to flee to Canada and shacks up at this lodge in the middle of nowhere, close to the Canada border. The old man that runs the place takes him and put's Tim to work. A lot is spoken in the silence between the two. The old man tells him yes you have a big decision to make, abandon everyone you love, your hopes, and dreams, or fight in a war that violates your morals and ethics. Tim knows the decision is his and his alone, respecting the old man's silent, unbiased camaraderie; he becomes comfortable around a man in a way that his own parents would be jealous of. The story comes to a climax, where I find my assumption was wrong, when the old man takes Tim to a river that borders Canada. He takes Tim right to the edge, screaming out with the force of a calm breeze “Jump!” Tim has to finally face his decision, seeing as clear as day all the people's lives involved, both future and present. He sees dead presidents, relatives, even Ho Chih Minh. Then he breaks down and cries coming to the truth that he knew all along. He can't be brave. “I went to war.”

           The third and final story I read was “How to tell a True War Story”. This is by far my favorite story. The friendship and honor that is shown in these “true” war stories makes me proud to be human. O'Brien goes into depth repeatedly on how a story is not true unless you can see it happening. You have to really believe in a story to make it true. He tells of men cracking in the Jungle and ordering massive airstrikes for nothing. He talks about his squad and of a good soldier getting blown to bits by a mine. Then his best friend Rat Kiley writes the deceased's sister a letter telling how brave her brother was and they were best friends. Rat mentioned in the letter that he would take care of the sister with honor like his best bud would of wanted. “The dumb cooze never writes back!”, a war story does not give hope or show the brighter side of things a war story tells the truth. These are men we are talking about, they don't give up. When there is no hope and you see fucked up shit every day, peeling your dead friends carcass off of trees and the guy next to you just says yep he's dead. That makes me proud to be human.

The Things They Carried

Myself

Good Reader

Nabokov thinks a good reader should read twice. Even a good reader is not going to get the full effect of a good story from the first read. Nabokov mentions imagination, attention to detail, and artistic sense, but the fact that he wants everyone to read twice means that a good reader isn't necessarily something you are just born with. I agree for the most part, but disagree on the reading twice. I mainly disagree probably because I like too. The argument I came up with is there is something special about picking up a book and reading it and getting blown away. The fact that most detail and possibly a lot of the story might not be remembered the first time it is read, doesn't negate the fact that reading gave the reader great pleasure. I think that is what makes a good reader, being able to enjoy a book. The book doesn't have to be some great work of art, it can be a dive, but if it makes the reader want to read more and more and enjoy more stories then that writer discovered a great reader!

I would consider myself to be an average reader with ups and downs. The more I read the more comfortable I become. The less I read and the less I converse, the worst reader I become. Right now, I would say I'm an average maybe even a little below average reader. I read some articles for English 101 this summer, a couple reviews online, and a little bit of Non-Fiction. I have read hardly anything over the last couple of weeks. I can tell I'm already dropping off. I lost interest a couple of times in Nabokov and had to slow my reading down a lot. When I get going I can read a novel a week. I enjoy reading which is my saving grace. Getting back into it is never hard for me.