I- Cohn's Motivation

I think Cohn's motivation for acting throughout this novel is his upbringing. He was a shy, nice boy who because of his religion had to take up boxing as a way to overcome those who persecuted him. He also had to overcome probably the most difficult thing for someone to overcome as well: his own feeling of inferiority. This made him an awkward combination of a ruthless fighter and naive, mostly moral man. Thus, he is socially inept and verbally attacks those who hurt him and, as seen, will resort to violence when he is angry and thinks he was wronged. He has been controlled by women, especially his mother, which is also a possible reason for his naivety and motivation for his need to get women and then leave them until one of them, Brett, reduced him to a lovesick little boy. I think that because he is so awkward, the other characters take out their insecurities on him because his are so apparent. His behavior throughout the novel is, like most of other people's behavior, caused by his upbringing. His motivation for finding a girl and protecting himself is caused by the opinions and persecutions he faced as a young man.

XVII- Climax

I think the climax of the novel is when Cohn learns that Brett has gone off with the bullfighter and hits Jake. The entire novel to this point has been an escalating feeling of hatred towards Cohn by Jake. Jake is the only character in the story who actually is Cohn's firend and has a friend to lose if the hatred gets too far out of hand. I think the entire time before the fight Jake was hating and forgiving and hating and forgiving and Cohn did nothing to deserve Jake's friendship and the forgiveness. I find it ironic that Mike is the one who actually riles Cohn up, but Cohn goes for his only friend. It probably has to do with the fact that while Mike is Brett's fiance, no one will have the friendship and love with Brett that Jake does and Cohn is jealous of that. The climax was the breaking point where Cohn lost the only perosn who could stand to be around him since he sent Francis away. It is quite pitiful actually I think, and I think that is what it took to get Cohn to see the light. The falling action takes place quite rapidly three pages later when Cohn cries and begs Jake's forgiveness although I believe they will never be "friends" again.

This has nothing to do with the climax and it might be just a coincidence, but Cohn came from a wealthy banking family, and Mike is bankrupt and while Cohn has the money, Mike has Brett most of the time.

XIII- Racism

In this chapter, Mike makes a comment about Brett going off with men before, but never Jews. This seems like quite a antisemitic comment and while the Jewish people had not been persecuted in the Holocaust yet, it still struck me hard. Were Jewish people considered that badly by American people too and what caused them to have such discrimination towards them? I do not know if Hemingway was antisemitic, but I wonder if Robert Cohn being described as the instigator had anything to do with it. Cohn seems to cause tensions not only as a result of his feelings for Brett, but also with the feeling of emptiness in his life and his wavering loyalty to his friends. The narrator also doesn't seem to know what to think about Cohn because he is his friend. Cohn is also described as self-centered, shady with his intentions (mostly towards Brett, especially in San Sebastian), and an angry person. I may be missing something, but I have not seen a part yet where Cohn decided to do something for Jake that didn't benefit himself. So I come to the conclusion, which is quite possibly wrong, that Hemingway harbored some small feelings of antisemitism or racism that wound their way up in one of his characters. While Cohn seems to be a pig headed man with wavering loyalty, I do feel sorry for him and his plight.

The Title Is the Theme... whoa

I think the theme of the Sun Also Rises is that well, the sun also rises. In this novel, the characters have been hit with some pretty horrible things. Robert Cohn is connected to a girl he only partially love because he is afraid no one will except her, and then he falls in love with Brett. Jake Barnes, the author, has a bullet wound that plagues him even after the war and he cannot be with his love, Brett. Frances loves Cohn and wants to marry him but he sends her away. These are only a few of the characters whose lives have become miserable. So, I think the theme is that while the characters have had some pretty cruddy lives, all hope seems lost, the sun has set, and they are is a dark patch, the sun will rise and the characters will be able to finally move on to new and better things. Also, while I feel sorry for the characters and their unfortunate events, I thinks a lot of their pain was brought on by their unwillingness to move and their affinity of being drunk 99% of the time. I do hope, though, that in their "story world" they found happiness.

Desperate Measures (Ch. 21)

I was very surprised when I read that Rat Kiley shot himself in the foot. I am not surprised, however, that the war pushed him so far over the edge. Humans do not have a very high pain tolerance, and I think that only a very desperate man would go so far as to shoot himself. From personal experience, I am afraid to get shots still as a seventeen year old and I am afraid to use a needle to pull ticks out. Rat Kiley decided to shoot himself in the foot to escape from the Vietnam War which says a lot about the conditions he had been living in. For a person to shoot himself, the war must have been more terrible than the pain and the fight between his senses. Also, the decision must have been more difficult for Rat Kiley because he was a medic, someone who knew the chances of a deep infection that could potentially cost him his foot. Another scenario for Rate Kiley's situation I think is closer to the truth. I think Rat Kiley was so far gone from his senses, that he was not thinking like a human, soldier, and especially medic. I think he just wanted to be free from the suffering and from the land that was haunting his dreams. I don't think that he rationalized at all; I think he just did.

Communism (Ch. 19)

I learned a lot about the Vietnam War form U.S. History last year, and I think the author's daughter hit on something when she said, "This whole war, why was everybody so mad at everybody else?" It reminded me of the U.S. view on communism which is what started the whole war really, that and a treaty. Now for a short history lesson, the Viet Cong were a small communist party from S. Vietnam that joined with N. Vietnam to take over non- communist S. Vietnam. Now, the U.S. joined in because they were worried about a communist domino effect. They wanted to defeat all communist areas because they were afraid that communism would reach the U.S. and take over. I might have gotten a biased lecture from my teacher, but this is how I understand the start of the war. I think Kathleen was right. Why was the U.S. mad when the fight had nothing to do with them and is on the other side of the world? Many U.S. soldiers died in a war that the U.S. didn't even win. I think that the U.S. should have stayed out, but then again that is my opinion from the history lesson I got. Why was everybody mad? They weren't really, everybody just had their own agenda.

I Want the Truth, Nothing but the Truth (Ch. 18)

"I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth." This sentence caught my attention because mostly because I had to reread it ten times before the words came out right in my mind. It was quite confusing for me and I am still not sure I understand it completely or even half way. To me, I think it means that sometimes to really get people to understand something, a truth or a moral, one has to make up a story. I think it is kind of like Aesop's fables, The Tortoise and the Hare, or one of Jesus' parables. The author hadn't been brave enough, I guess, to look before, so he had to make up a story. But, making up a story was even more true I think. The ones who are reading the novel but have not experienced the horror need a face, need a person, need a life to mourn for and to think about. We were not there to see a life extinguished like the soldiers were, so the story-truth is more true for us, while the happening truth is true for the soldiers because they are still haunted in their dreams by the faceless deceased.

Too Abstract (Ch. 16)

When I read this chapter, I don't think I was too surprised that Norman Bowker took his own life. From his flashbacks in a previous chapter, I could see the PTSD working and his need for release. I am sad that medication and help was not available then for him because no matter what he said about the Silver Star, he was still a hero. What stuck out most to me was how Bowker could not hold down a job after the war. I do not know if that was the PTSD or whether nothing could capture his attention as the war had done. I thought about all of our enlisted soldiers now who are not fighting oversees and I wondered if there was anything like that after Vietnam. I think it would have helped Bowker tremendously to be stationed at a place like Camp Atterbury so he could still feel the military influence. Now, maybe there was something like that and Bowker was too tired of war to re-enlist, but I think that it would have kept him from taking his life if he felt like he still held a military purpose.

The Talisman (Ch. 10)

I thinks it shows a lot about the war when a person still believes his girlfriend's pantyhose are still good luck even when she dumped him. It also says a lot about the person and how he has been affected. I wonder if having faith in Jesus is a little like having faith in those pantyhose. I know that I am automatically comforted when I pray and that I feel that everything will be alright. The author has told us previously that the only religious soldier was Kiowa, so its safe to assume that Henry Dobbins was not. I think the pantyhose were his comfort, his "religion" while he was out in the bush. While I do not believe in putting that much trust in well, pantyhose, I believe that it is what kept him alive. It wasn't the pantyhose's magic persay, but I think it was his strong belief that kept him from putting himself in dangerous situations. I also think that another defining factor was his hope to return home to his girlfirend and start a life with her that gave him the push to stay safe and not put himself out there.

Changes (Ch. 9)

I was surprised by the story of the Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, be it true or false. I think I was surprised most by the complete 360 that this girl completed in Vietnam. I did not think it was possible for such a change to be made, that someone goes from being a happy, bubbly person to being a... a monster, is what comes to mind. To change someones very nature is what this reversal would take I believe and I am sure that I would never want to go through what that young woman went through even if she liked it. I also wonder what the difference between the soldiers and the woman was that she had been affected so in a shorter time period than the soldiers who had been fighting for months. What caused her to flip, and more importantly, what kept the soldiers from flipping? I think it might be that need and desire to go home. They had been forced over as a result of a draft, so their efforts were on surviving long enough to go home. The woman had wanted to come, so I don't think she was as immune as the men were. All I can say is that I hope the story is made up because the woman reverted to cannibalism and voodoo crud which is weird (pardon my judging).

Hero Cycle (Ch. 4)

This is out of order, but I forgot about this chapter when writing blogs.
When I read this chapter, I remembered the Hero Cycle from World Lit. I remembered that in the cycle, the Hero is called, then refuses the call at first, and then gets "supernatural" help form a mentor. I think the Hero Cycle fits in particularly well with this chapter and with Tim O'Brien as the Hero. He is drafted by the board in Minnesota and spends the summer cursing the war he was too good for. He doesn't think that he should have to go to war, after all, he is a smart kid and a liberal to boot. So, he refuses his draft and considers fleeing to Canada to escape his draft. Enter stage right our mentor, Elroy Berdahl, who does not say much, but is who helps our Hero through his difficult time. Eventually, Tim O'Brien returns home to go off to war because he realizes that he must because he would be too embarrassed not to. Thus completes the Departure Stage of the Hero Cycle.
I must say I was quite proud of myself for putting two and two together. =D

Courage or Stupidity? (Ch. 8)

The men fighting in Vietnam must have had some courage because no person without it would last that long in a war torn area. This comes to mind when I read this chapter because Curt Lemon, a soldier, let his lack of courage in one small area that did not matter in war override his judgement. I think that maybe he found his fear of dentists emasculating or something because he let that poison him. He fainted, but that was too much for him. The embarrassment he faced from fighting squashed his phobia of dentists and he went in to have a perfectly good tooth yanked out. Now is that courage, the courage to face his fear again and go through with it? Or, is that stupidity, the stupidity to let embarrassment cloud his judgement and possibly allow an infection to take hold in a perfectly healthy spot? I am not sure because I have faced my fear of heights many times to try to cure my phobia, but I do think harming healthy tissue is stupid.

Frenemies??? nah thats too grade school... (Ch. 5 and 6)

The relationship between Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen kind of reminded me about the tension between my best friend Julia and me in the beginning. We were probably four years old, but we had it out for each other and we still don't know why. Anyway, we hated each other as much as any four year old could hate someone until my friend at the time moved away. I think that caused us to get over our problems, and we have been best friends for thirteen years now. While we did not get into a fist fight like Strunk and Jensen over a stolen jackknife, I think the fighting brought us closer together. When we did decide to be friends at that great age of four we realized, in our little minds, that the worst was behind us and that we could trust each other indefinitely. This is what I think happened with Strunk and Jensen and I think that camaraderie is only forged when one realizes that it can only get better. They made a pact and the pact needed to be upheld because it is the most concrete thing for those two men.

Young or the Old (Ch. 3)

I can't help but realize that the Alpha Company form the novel is made up from mostly young men form nineteen to mid-twenties. I think that maybe the fact of them being new to war and innocent coming in caused them to be less hardened. The audience is told stories of Norman Bowker and Henry Dobbins playing checkers every night before bed. This shows that they are young and need a release from the war. It also portrays the game as a ritual, which shows that with all of the inconsistencies and nasty surprises of war, the young men need something that is consistent. The men also seemed to be kinder to the natives when they were young. I think that the war had not affected them as much as it had the older soldiers. They hugged the old poppa-san after he led them safely across the mine field and how they gave him a lot of food. I think most of the soldiers would have been to worried about staying alive than thanking the man who kept them alive. The small shred of innocence left in the Alpha Company made them better soldiers I think in times and better people too.

Colloquialism-- kicked the bucket (Ch.22)

Colloquialisms are phrases that are used in everyday conversations but are inappropriate for formal situations, and I can't help but think that sometimes they are inappropriate in conversation as well. The last chapter is a chapter of mourning. The author is mourning his dead comrades, his dead girlfriend of age nine, and the dead citizens of Vietnam. He says that everyone has their own way of dealing and unfortunately during the war they became immune to the loss of life. I think that when he brought up Linda, the little girl, he was telling us about how mourning should be, rather than the shaking of the dead's hand in Vietnam. Mourning should be respectful, not disrespecting a life. I think that colloquialism was used to show the lack of respect, of how people describe death. "She kicked the bucket" seems so mean compared to "she passed on" or even "she died." It has become okay for someone to describe death in such a way, and since the author experienced death so closely, he found a way to slap the hands of the people without class.

Hyperbole-- just a side wound (Ch. 20)

As I read this chapter, "just a side wound" stuck out at me because of how okay it seemed. It reminded me of Monty Python's In Search of the Holy Grail when the knight says "It's only a flesh wound" in his ridiculous British accent as his legs and arms are being chopped off. I guess it was free association on my part. There is a point to this though and the phrase is a hyperbole because the author has been shot but it is just a side wound. I think it shows that in Vietnam, the soldiers had to be okay, the wounds were just this or just that because they needed to survive. Soldiers and friends were being cut down in the jungls everyday and were dying. I think that the author is saying that the wounded felt that they owed it to their fallen comrades to just have "small"wounds. I mean, who else is going to fight the war if they do not? I also think that the author felt guilty for being injured because he left his friends and brothers in a fire fight while he got flown to a hospital. They had to be okay because they would die if they were not.

Metaphor-- The rain was the war (Ch. 17)

I think one of the hardest things about the Vietnam War was the terrain upon which the U.S. soldiers were fighting. The dense jungles, continuous rain, mountains, and heat wore them down enough for guerrilla war tactics to be used by the North Vietnamese. Kiowa, one of the soldiers form the Alpha Company, had been literally killed by the rain as he was swept under in a river. The soldiers fought with the rain as it added to the mud caked on them as the trudged along and the never-ending rain did nothing for the morale of the company. Almost as much as the war itself, the rain poured down on the soldiers and beat them down. They had to fight the rain because it was the war. Therefore, if you didn't fight it, well then there was no use fighting the actual men who had machine guns and grenades. O'Brien quotes a thought from Lieutenant Cross, "The filth [rain and mud] seemed to erase identities, transforming the men into identical copies of a single soldier..." The rain made the men not themselves, and they had to fight an element that did not care whether they had lives or families, just like the Vietnamese did not care.

Flashback-- Norman Bowker (Ch.15)

In chapter 15, the author depicts a scene after the war where Norman Bowker, an old war friend, drives around his home town obcessed by a flashback. In this particular flashback, Bowker is plagued by the time he almost won the Silverr Star award but didn't. I think this flashback was incorporated into the novel because it shows that the war never quite leaves you. He imagines telling everyone in his town about his failure, the failure in which his friend died. I think it also shows that this soldier suffered from PTSD before it was studdied by phycisians. He cannot get over a mistake and cannot get it out of his head. I am not sure whether it is like that for all of the soldiers, but I think that it is quite likely that most soldiers have scenes that wake them up at night or hit them unexpectadely. Unfortunately for Bowker, his flashbackk was not a simple or random scene, his hit him everyday and hurt him everyday. The author's flashback was the man he killed. I researched PTSD and as I assumed, the modern understanding of PTSD resulted from the Vietnam War.

Static Character-- Azar (Ch. 14)

The U.S. soldier Azar is a friend of the author and also a fellow soldier in the Alpha Company. However, the purpose he serves in the novel is as a static character. He does not change at all throughout the story and his characteristics bring out the characteristics of his fellow comrades. Azar does not exhibit compassion like some of the other soldiers, nor does he show respect for the native people. In chapter 14, he is shown to be mocking a young girl who was dancing after her whole family was badly burned and killed. In contrast, Henry Dobbins is shown to stand up for the girl, even though she is oblivious to the situation. I think Azar is there to bring out the good qualities of the soldiers by demonstrating his crass nature. He is there to show that even though there are U.S. soldiers dying all around them, some of the soldiers have enough heart to stand up for a girl who is clearly dealing with her pain in the only way she knows.

Anecdote-- Ambush (Ch. 13)

The author tells a story to the audience about the time his nine year old daughter asked if he had killed anyone. He had told her that he hadn't but it brought back memories of the young Vietnamese scholar. He also said that he hoped she would ask again one day so he could tell her the truth. For the second chapter in a row the author has written about the man and I think that his daughter's question brought back that memory. I think the author writes war stories because he cannot tell his daughter about his experiences and the men he killed. I think that his stories are a type of therapy for him. Therefore, this anecdote is to demonstrate to the readers the author's feelings and memories. An anecdote is often used to show the character of an individual and I think it shows a lot about the author and the Vietnamese veterans in general.

Epistrophe-- ... a scholar, maybe (Ch. 12)

When the author is describing the man that he killed, he portrays him as a harmless young man. I do not know whether the man looked as the author said or whether it was a guilty conscience, but the way that he writes suggests a conscience that, after three decades, is still affected by the man. The author repeats "a scholar, maybe" twice after the description of the young man to stress the fact that the man does not belong in the war, not unlike some of the American boys. The author is slightly distraught in seeing that he killed this man and I believe that he sees it more as murder because of the looks. The author, Tim O'Brien, imagines a whole life for this man with a family, and a girlfriend, and as a student. I think that he sees himself a little in the man. He is more muscled and experienced, but he graduated summa cum laude and was excepted into Harvard for graduate school. The author was a scholar, just like the man, but he was hardened, experienced, but still did not, in his heart, belong.

Vernacular-- didi mau (Ch. 11)

In Chapter 11, the soldiers set up base in an abandoned pagoda except for two monks. The men and the monks ignored each other for the most part. However, after a day or so, Henry Dobbins befriended the two over the seven or eight days. There was a language barrier between them but they became friends anyway. Henry Dobbins did not know much of the language, but he did say one phrase to the monks after they helped him clean his weapon and after he gave them fruit and chocolate- didi mau- which means go quickly. I think that that simple display of trying to communicate with the monks in their own language really shows something about the U.S. soldiers who were fighting a war they could never win in the conditions. They are appreciative of the monk's hospitality if you will, and it is proven that in other countries that if one makes an effort to communicate with the native people in their own language that makes a difference. Henry Dobbins says at the end of the chapter, "All you can do is be nice. Treat them decent, you know?" It shows that even though the men are only nineteen and twenty years old and fighting in a war, they are not hardened to the point that they terrorize the natives like some U.S. soldiers did in My Lai massacre.

Curt Lemon's Eulogy (Ch. 7)

This is not a speech it's a letter, but in this case I think the term fits it anyway. The soldiers in Vietnam become closer than family in the bush, I think, because they trust their lives to their comrades. They march through the muggy jungles, the swampy fields, and bug-infested country together. They huddle in foxholes and are under fire together and reminisce about what it was like before the war. This is why I think the death of a soldier hits his comrades harder than they expect especially in a war zone. The author describes a letter, eulogy, that his friend Rat Kiley sends to the sister of his best friend who died. He tells stories of how he was a "soldier's soldier" and one who volunteered for the most dangerous stuff. He author describes his friend pouring his heart into this letter because he wanted his friend's only sister to really feel the love he had for this guy, the respect he held for him, and to really get how much he missed him. Rat Kiley sends the letter and the sister never writes him back. I think that "sin of omission" really shows how separated the soldiers were from the rest of the United States. This soldier wrote a beautiful eulogy mourning his friend and the girl could not even bother to send a grieving soldier who was protecting the U.S. from communism, as the politicians said, a letter.

Motif-- "The things they carried were..." (Ch. 1)

This has nothing to do with the book, but I was quite frustrated with all of the terms that had to do exclusively with poetry especially since The Things They Carried does not have poetry in it as far as I can tell. Ok, now that I have that off my chest, on to the blog!

-- Vietnam War Memorial

The things they carried is not only the title of the book and the title of chapter 1, but it along with the word "carried" is used over 38 times in chapter 1 because I counted until page 8. I think that the author used the word "carried" to encompass all of the soldier's fear, love, homesickness, and, of course, necessary equipment. I was interested by the author's use of carried in "On their feet they carried jungle boots..." page 3 because one would normally wear boots. The things they carried were there to comfort them, to save them, to protect them, and unfortunately to inhibit them like in the case of Ted Lavender and his heavy

load. I think that the author, being a veteran in the Alpha

Company himself, brought home some of the things they carried after the war. He brought home his stories, his memories, and his fears and published a book to demonstrate what they carried. Later in the book, the author explains how he writes about Vietnam because the sights, the smells, the experience never left him, and I believe these are the most important things the soldiers carried. While the soldiers dumped their weapons, their equipment, and decreased the quantity of daily items, they never forgot their stories and memories and they still carry them today.