Abdullah Aluqaily
CCR-121/13C
2/21/17
A Frozen Night
1- What is the point of John Ross Thompson’s essay? What significance does he suggest---ether explicitly or implicitly ---- for his essay? How effectively does his point?
* The point of Thompson’s essay is to show how regretful he is.
* He is probably showing implicitly more than explicitly, he kind of indicates that what happened to Whimpy is his fault.
* He made his point effectively by stating the events in a way that shows both anger regret
2- What do we learn from the essay about an American soldier’s life in Korea? What feeling does Thompson create of being outside on guard duty, in the N.C.O club, and in the spare room behind Rosie’s bordello? What contrasts does Thompson set up among the three places? How effectively does he distinguish each?
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* Coldness, homesickness, and loneliness, is what he was feeling on guard duty. First when he entered the N.C.O club he was feeling cold but when he saw Whimpy talking to the recruit, he felt full of anger and hate. In the spare room behind Rosie’s bordello he felt regretful.
* It is like a roller coaster of events, little bit of sadness at the first place then a whole lot of anger at the second, and lastly, back to the sadness.
3- Characterize the narrative. What is your attitude toward him? How do the details he presents of life in Korea influence your response to him? What do you think of Whimpy? Does Thompson provide sufficient evidence for Whimpy’s motivation to commit suicide? Support your answer with examples from the text.
* The narrator, anger issues but passionate. He knew if Whimpy kept talking to the recruit, he will keep the image of what might happen to him in his head, and then, when they are in the battlefield, he might get
Although Jake was spared his life in the great war, he lost another part of his life and future. Jack tries to compensate his lack of any real future with Brett or any other women with his passion for bullfighing and other frivalties. In John Steele Gordon’s article, “What We Lost in the Great War” Gordon laments the loss of hope and future the generation of the war felt. The characters of the novel, and especially Jake, exemplify the lack of direction felt after the war. Their aimless drinking, parties and participation in the fiesta is an example of the absence of focus in their life.
Most war novels center on themes of valor and heroism. Some concentrate on the opposites of these virtues in an attempt to display raw realism. Harrison, right from the beginning of his novel, shows us both. The narrator of this first-person narrative paints a picture of a totally un-heroic bunch of soldiers preparing for debarkation. The drinking and debauchery are followed the next morning by a parade that the suffering soldiers must march through, while the people watch their ‘heroes’ leaving to bravely fight the good fight. While this clearly demarcates the innocent civilians from the savvy soldiers, it also shows the reader that the narrator is going to try to tell the real story.
Ever since the snowball accident Dunny has been preoccupied by worrying over Mary Dempster, and now her son Paul. At the age of sixteen the small town of Deptford becomes too much for Dunny to handle so he decides to drop out of secondary school and join the Army. Dunny needed a change in his life, something to get his mind off Mrs. Dempster and the guilt he felt for her. Leading up to his departure to the War he never really saw much of Mary, mainly because Mr. Dempster told him to stay away, but also because every time him saw her he couldn't hold back feelings of guilt and remorse. This troubled Dunny, much more then he would ever let on. On the other hand, Boy was doing as well as ever, possibly due to the fact that he knew that much of the responsibility of Mary and Paul was securely on the shoulders of Dunny. Dunny knew this as well but it was too late to do much about it except leave.
O’Brien, Tim. “How To Tell a True War Story.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2003. p. 420-429.
To him, there is more to our lives. “He is reacting to the river; in that reaction he discovers someone important to himself; and now he’s fashioning the structure of the piece so it is even clearer to himself and to his reader” (Cool Plums). He knows the mistakes that he has made, but does not regret any of the decisions he made.
Consequently, Andy’s soul withered further into hopelessness as each and every person who came to his rescue, turned their backs on him. Through a final desperate ambition, Andy broke free of the bonds that were pinning him down: “If it had not been for the jacket, he wouldn’t have been stabbed. The knife had not been plunged in hatred of Andy. The knife only hated the purple jacket. The jacket was a stupid, meaningless thing that was robbing him of his life. He lay struggling with the shiny wet jacket. Pain ripped fire across his body whenever he moved. But he squirmed and fought and twisted until one arm was free and the other. He rolled away from the jacket and layed quite still, breathing heavily, listening to the sound of his breathing and the sounds of rain and thinking: Rain is sweet, I’m Andy”. In these moments, Andy finally overcame his situation, only in a way not expected by most. Such depicted scenes are prime examples of human nature at it’s worst, as well as the horrors that lay within us. However, these events, although previously incomprehensible by his limited subconscious, led to a gradual enlightenment of the mind and heart. Furthermore, the experiences taught him
...erspective to view America’s history from. She does this again when discussing manifest destiny or as she calls it “a doctrine that served to justify expansionist violence by means of intrinsic racial superiority”. in the following paragraph Martinez makes her strongest point saying, “Today’s origin myth and the resulting concept of national identity make for an intellectual prison where it is dangerous to ask big questions about this society’s superiority”. She shows her reader in a sense what the word choice, repetition and examples were meant to have them question, which was superiority in this society, and where did it all start. Through the use of historical events Martinez shows alternative views that oppose the sugar coated tales presented by society, and in so many words ask her readers to question history and motive of what the American Identity actually is.
...ting in the war is not a tragedy, a victory, a win, nor a loss but that it is no better then the real world. It is discriminatory, dishonest, and inefficient. He then notices that war is in some way unethical and irrational and that dying and living is just pure luck. Ultimately, Richie understands that there is no distinction between bad or good in the heat of battle, which caused him to realize that war taught him to him to reevaluate the understanding between life and war on his way back home from Vietnam.
This contrast in style affirms that the soldiers are human and provides emphasis to the weight these intangible objects have on the soldiers. An emotional burden that the men must carry is the longing for their loved ones. The Vietnam War forced many young men to leave their loved ones and move halfway across the world to fight a questionable war in an unfamiliar land.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Today, we have a lot of veterans who are coming home from war that are being displaced. In this chapter it talks about a Vietnam War soldier named Norman Bowker who arrives home from the war. In the chapter, Speaking of Courage from the book ‘The Things They Carried’ written by Tim O’Brien, Norman feels displaced from the world and everyone there. A returning soldier from the Vietnam War is driving around a lake on the 4th of July in his fathers big chevrolet, but then realizes he has nowhere to go. He starts to reminisce about his father, ex-girlfriend, and his childhood friend. Norman talks about all the medals he had won. He starts to think about his fathers pride in those badges and he starts to have a recollection about how he had almost own the silver star but blew his chance. He continues to drive around the lake again and again. He continues to imagine telling his father about the story of how he almost won the silver star, but failed to do so. This paper will analyze Speaking of Courage with the new criticism/formalism lens.
This story, as a whole, possesses both strengths and weaknesses. This book has two strengths. One of those strengths is that the book contains pictures. The pictures add a visual context to the story, which is quite useful and helpful to those in the audience that are visual learners. For example, in the eight pages in between pages 138 and 139 contain pictures along with descriptive captions. Some of these pictures include the famous picture or painting of the Boston Massacre, John Burgoyne, Major-General Sir Henry Clinton, Charles Lee, a political cartoon named “Six-Pence a Day”, a self-portrait of Major John Andre, a British drummer and fifer, General Burgoyne’s camp and German mercenaries of the Prince Carl Regiment. Throughout the book, there are also pages that contain various maps. By including these pictures in the book, as well as many others, readers are able to visualize the American Revolutionary War and its events as they read through the text. By doing this, they are able to better understand the book’s content and storyline. The second of these strengths is its organization. By putting the events in chronological order, the audience is able to create a mental timeline of war’s happenings and helps them
One of them is about the crimes that they committed while they were over there with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. Second main point is the feelings that these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. How country doesn’t know what monsters they created for nothing. Third main point is how they don’t consider themselves heroes, America’s best men, because they were ashamed of and hated for what they were called to do in Southeast Asia. The last main point is how veterans don’t get the support that they deserve when they came back to the States after the war. They can’t find jobs and the hospitals across the country won’t or can’t meet their demands. Each main point and sub-point is supported by facts, testimony, and examples. He talked how they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, and a lot more that they did. He talks how angry they were when they came back, because they committed crimes because of the war that didn’t even supposed to happen. Because there was nothing in Vietnam which could happen that could realistically threatens the United States of America. He talked how some veterans died while they were in the VA hospital because there was no personnel to help
In the real life, it is hard to judge our personal identity: we are aware of who we are every second and minute, we also are able to check our appearance that we have known since we were born from looking at mirror. We know “I am myself” all the time.
...is interactions with his wife are filled with tension and he is saddened when he reflects upon the men lost during war and the death of his brother.
The moment he felt Curley¡¦s wife moving away, he acted on his inner feelings and he was frightened. The scene portrayed a good example of the interaction of two complete strangers, it was interesting to see how they shared things and opened up to each other.Part Two:This scene is related to the theme in different ways. I think that it incorporates three main aspects of the theme. It is related to belonging, loneliness and dreams.