TIM O'BRIEN

Tim O’Brien

I read, How to tell a true war story, it was really graphic. It amazed me how O’Brien and the other soldiers were so comfortable with all the death they were around in Vietnam. They did not really mourn their lost comrades there was no time for it. I thought it was horrible to imagine having to pick up a fellow soldiers body parts and how they could sing while doing it. I got some what sick thinking about it. They way Curt Lemon and Rat Kiley where always messing around it seemed like they did not pay attention to what they were doing. They were horsing around when Curt got killed it made me wonder if they had not been playing with the smoke grenades, would Curt have died on the land mine? I really thought the story about the baby buffalo was cruel. I did not understand why Rat would want to hurt it for no reason. Then I thought that maybe he was taking out his anger and frustrations from Curt’s death out on the animal. What I thought was cruel was how the other soldiers did not try to stop him and did not question him about torturing the buffalo. They were too comfortable with death that they did not think twice about saving the innocent buffalo and let Rat kill it. I liked how O’Brien said that war stories are not about war, but about the relationships soldiers had and about the camaraderie

summary vs. analysis

SUMMARY VS. ANALYSIS


I read, On the rainy river by Tim O’Brien, it was a story from the author’s own life experience. In the story a young man, Tim, was drafted into the Vietnam war and did not know what to do and was filled with anger and shock. He describes his life in 1968 in his town of Worthington, Minnesota. Tim tells about his job in a pig slaughter house as a “declotter”. Tim dissolves blood clots on the pigs head and neck with a water pressured gun and he despises his job and always smells of pig grease. He then receives a draft letter and does not no what to do, he contemplates whether to go to war or run away.
Tim later is filled with cowardice and drives towards the Canadian border, he does
not go across though. He ends up at The Tip Top Lodge, where he meets a man named
Elroy Berdahl. Elroy has an idea why he is alone away from home, but never question
Tim, he just gives him a room and his daily meals. Tim starts doing odd jobs for Elroy
they become good acquaintances. Elroy then takes Tim on the Rainy River towards the
Canadian border. Elroy knows that is where Tim wants to go, but Tim cannot force
himself to run away. Tim goes through a series of flash backs and memories and begins
to weep. Elroy understands that Tim will not go and they return to the lodge. The next day
Tim knows that he must return home and eventually goes to war in Vietnam.
When doing my analysis on this story I found that Tim O’Brien has had to go
through quite a bit in order to make his decision on desertion. He was shocked by
the draft letter. “I remember a sound in my head. It wasn’t thinking just a silent howl. A million things at once-I was to good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, to everything”(O’Brien 41). Tim thought he had done everything he could to avoid the war, he had scholarships to Harvard and was a smart but he still was drafted. This showed how, no matter how educated people were they could not escape the war. He goes on to say that the people who support the war should be the ones to fight it. I think that would be a great idea so that those people could get a taste of what war is. O’Brien was able to convey all the emotions and all the shame he felt when he was planning to run away. He described how all the people in his town would talk about him being a coward, it was sad to know that to run away from something that was unjust was to be more of a coward than to fight for it. “I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. I would not be brave”(O’Brien 57). To me this means that only certain draftees were brave enough to stand up for the right thing and not go to war by whatever means.Overall, this was a good story to make me understand all that went through ones mind if they got drafted for Vietnam and a good example of how people made the big decision.

Sam Hamill Response

Sam Hamill Response


The necessity to speak was a very moving piece of writing. Hamill was very adamant about changing our societies’ idea about violence and acceptable violence. His words were very true in my opinion. Our society has come to accept violence and sees it as a part of everyday life. We see it on television and movies and do not think twice about it, we believe it is normal and are blind to it in real life. Our society tries to justify violence and make us believe that it is deserved to those who oppose our ruling over them. Hamill’s main idea was, that through writing, we can make people aware if what is really going on and try to stop the horridness of our world.
Hamill spoke of being in prison and how people are either victims or executioners. Hamill said he has been both and through his personal experiences he has grown. He wrote that men in prison are “sick men” who never learned to show their emotions and grew up thinking that it was weakness to do so. I believe that this is true for most men. Men are taught from a young age to not cry or allow anyone to dominate them. These men then turn into the dominators, or bullies, either over woman or others. The executioners were once victims and they learn to gain power. “The mother that was battered typically understands that the only condition worse than being a victim is to become the executioner”(Hamill 547). The women Hamill speaks of think they are better off being a victim than the executioner. But I believe that if the stay in bad situations they become their own executioner. Abused children learn how to abuse of others, it is a vicious circle. Children learn to accept violence as justice but it is false justice. Hamills’ piece relates to Immigrants in our own land by Jimmy Santiago Baca. They both have the idea that poor people or minorities go to prison. Also the idea thatsome people will never overcome being the victim or executioner. Battered women will go back to the man who hurt them, abused children will grow up to do the same, and criminals will go back to prison over and over.
I also thought it was interesting how Hamill mentioned that our society wants
to hold on to its innocence. By not educating our children and young people we help
the ones who can hurt them. "We lend a helping hand to the mugger when we don't
educate our children (of both sexes) about self defense; we lend a helping hand to the
rapist when we don't readily discuss rape. Our silence grants permission to the child
molester"(Hamill 553). These lines show how our silence on certain topics with children
could backfire.
Another topic that caught my atention was how he refered to the military as
recruiters of death. I never thought of it that way before, the military are allowed to go into high schools to bribe kids with money for college and benefits, in order for them to join. But little do they know there life could be taken from them if they had to go to war.The facts Hamill presented were alarming on how much death and violence there is in the world. He did as he said in expressing what he thought the world should know even if the world did not like what they read.

respond to a poem

RESPONDING TO A POEM



The poems I chose were, Immigrants in our own land by Jimmy Santiago Baca and The woman hanging from the thirteenth floor window by Joy Harjo. Both of these poems are telling a story, and are very descriptive and filled with details. It is easy to picture the settings and emotions. Both of the poems are some what depressing but in my opinion the one by Harjo has a happy ending. I related to Baca’s poem more because he described how in prison certain races stick with each other to feel like they have to feel alone. This reminded me of high school, how every one was in a certain group. “My cell is crisscrossed with laundry lines my t-shirts, boxer shorts, socks and pants are drying just like it used to be in my neighborhood”(Baca 2). This line reminds me of my childhood when we had to use a clothes line.
Harjos poem starts out with a description of a woman who has hung herself, the title caught my attention right away. It was more metaphorical then Baca’s poem. I the woman was her. In my opinion she was talking about her life and all the hardships she had to escape. “She thinks she will be set free”(Harjo 1). In this line I feel she is talking about how people think that committing suicide will stop all of their problems. Saying that the woman hears voices and wants to jump could also mean that she wants to run away from her problems instead of dealing with them. But in the end Harjo writes “as she falls from the 13th floor window on the east side of Chicago, or as she climbs back up to claim herself again”(Harjo), she conveys that the woman deals with whatever the problem is. The woman reclaims her life and keeps on living. Both of these poems were very interesting to me because they told stories and had good details.

good readers- Nabokov

WHAT MAKES A GOOD READER


A good reader enjoys reading books more than once to evaluate what could have been missed the first time reading. When one is reading a book for the first time, each word is read one by one and it may be difficult to understand what is going on. The process of reading is mostly physically looking at the words and then having to process them. According to Nabokov, readers need to enjoy details and stay open minded about the author’s thoughts and ideas in their story. The reader should not identify himself with the characters of the book they are reading. If this occurs and the reader compares himself to characters, the author’s intended personality or emotions might get misconstrued.
Imagination is very important when reading. “One should notice and fondle details”(Nabokov 613). If readers could not picture in their minds the details, settings, personalities and emotions, they could never enjoy the book. Good readers must have a good vocabulary and be able to decipher situations of the story in different points of view.
I consider myself an adequate reader, I have an imagination ,most of the time, in order to picture the story I am reading in my mind. It is sometimes hard to not connect with a character or compare them to myself or someone I know. I will only read a book once unless I absolutely love it. I have experienced finding details that were missed in reading material initially by reading them again. That is what the process of reading is all about, to evaluate the author’s work of art.

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