O’Brien employs different strategies for dealing with the very difficult subject. Discuss O’Brien’s technique from at least three different vignettes. As always pair text with commentary.  

             One instance where O’Brien shows a strategy for dealing with death is when Curt Lemon is killed.  The soldiers each have a different way of dealing with death but for Rat Kiley, Curt Lemon was his best friend.  In dealing with the death of his best friend he massacred a baby buffalo.  “…Rat took careful aim and shot off an ear.  He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its back.  He shot it twice in t he flanks.  It wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt. He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away.”  This was Curt Lemon’s way of dealing with death.  “Curt Lemon was dead.  Rat Kiley had los this best friend in the world.”  Being his best friend, Rat had been especially hurt and affected by the death.  Rat Kiley cried for his friend’s death, he was very hurt.  O’Brien says as a response to Rat’s actions, “We had witnessed something essential, something brand-new and profound, a piece of the world so startling there was not yet a name for it.”

               Another instance where O’Brien shows a strategy for dealing with death is when Ted Lavender died.  Lieutenant Jimmy Cross took his death especially hard because he felt it was somehow his fault.  He felt that his love for Martha got in the way of him doing his job as a lieutenant.  “…First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha’s Letters.  Then he burned the two photographs.”  This was Jimmy’s way of dealing with Ted Lavender’s death.  He thought by burning the things that dealt with Martha that he would somehow forget about her and focus on the war.  However Martha was still with the Lieutenant.  “Lavender was dead.  You couldn’t burn the blame.  Besides, the letters were in his head.  And even now, without photographs, Lieutenant Cross could see Martha playing volleyball in her white gym shorts and yellow T-shirt.”

                A third instance where O’Brien shows a strategy for dealing with death is the way O’Brien deals with it.  His way of dealing with Curt Lemon’s death is by telling a story about him.  Even though O’Brien wasn’t very close with Curt Lemon he still finds it necessary to talk about him.  He says, “When Curt Lemon was killed, I found it hard to mourn.  I knew him only slightly, and what I did know was not impressive…”  O’Brien goes on to tell the story of Curt and the dentist.  Memories are how O’Brien deals with Curt’s death.  He didn’t mourn it he just accepted it.

Comrades: Yet another word we use without understanding the etymological significance. Tim has comrades; Henry has comrades. Check out this definition and etymology at Dictionary.com and compare that with Henry’s relationship to his comrades in the first fifteen chapters and O’Brien’s interrelationship of characters (especially in “Friends and Enemies”). Pay particular attention to the way the characters are revealed.

A Comrade is a person who shares one’s interests or activities.  A comrade is a friend or companion and a comrade is often a fellow member of a group, especially a fellow member of the Communist Party.  In the two chapters “Friends” and “Enemies”, Jensen and Strunk start off as enemies but then change into friends.  I don’t know if I would consider them best-est friends because of their previous fight but I do consider them comrades.  They both have the same interests and activities and they are both members in the US army.  However they don’t keep their pact.  When Strunk got his leg blown off, Jensen didn’t keep his pact to kill him.  Both men did not want to stick to the pact.  I don’t think either could face the killing of Strunk.

Both novels attack the idea of traditional heroism. “On the Rainy River” and chapters 5-8 of RBC explore the idea of the traditional hero. How do our main characters stack up against the traditional norms? What is your definition of courage and heroism? What other experiences or literary works have worked to build this definition for you? How do O’Brien and Crane achieve their goals? What literary spin are they putting on the ball of words to get us to swing? Be sure use quotes from the text and commentary to support your ideas.

In the chapter “On the Rainy River” in the book The Things They Carried the main character stacks up against traditional norms.  He does this by telling us a story that is very personal to him and how he had the chance to run away from the war and do what he wants.  However, he does not.  He says, “I understood that I would not do what I should do…I couldn’t risk the embarrassment…I would go to the war-I would kill and maybe die-because I was embarrassed not to.”  My definition of courage is facing a challenge or a decision and going through with it.  My definition of heroism is a person who is courageous and does brave things for others.  O’Brien can be seen as a courageous person or not a courageous person.  He is courageous in the fact that he fought for his country and faced his fears in battle but he is not courageous because he wasn’t able to do what he really wanted and that was to not fight in the war.  He wasn’t able to face his embarrassment and therefore he made the choice of going to war.  O’Brien is heroic though.  He fought in the war and conquered his fears.  The literary spin he is putting on the ball of words to get us to swing is he is making his story very dramatic.  He gets the reader caught in his stories and he takes control and makes the reader basically believe anything he says.

“Spin” explores the idea of controlling reality and memory through story. Write a blog entry explaining how this is explored in this chapter. Be sure to explain concepts using detail and commentary.

One of the wonders of communication is how our reality and perception can be controlled by the messenger.  In the book, “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien uses his words and point of view in the story to control our reality and perception.  In the chapter “spin”, O’Brien uses his writing techniques to get the reader to basically believe everything he says.  His point of view changes from 3rd person to 1st person.  He tells the story as if he was actually there and this makes it more believable.  He uses the spin technique to capture his reader.  He says, “On occasions the war was like a Ping-Pong ball.  You could put fancy spin on it, you could make it dance.”  This is kind of what O’Brien does to his own story.  He adds to his story by making up that he was there when he actually wasn’t.  This technique is very effective to capture a reader into reading and keeping on reading a story.

The Things They Carried 

• List and explain 5 tangible things and five intangible things the soldiers from you stories carry.

Tangible Things

1. All the soldiers in the story The Things They Carried, carried steel helmets.  “By necessity, and because it was SOP, they all carried steel helmets that weighed 5 pounds including the liner and camouflage cover.”  The necessity of the steel helmet is an example of an object they needed to help them survive.  It protects their heads in war situations and could save a life.
2. Specific soldiers found own personal things they felt they needed.  One soldier, Kiowa, found it necessary to carry the New Testament.  “Kiowa, a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father…”  To Kiowa the New Testament brought something special that helped him with his time at war.  It could have been the fact that it was from his father or that he felt the book had faithful meaning to him.  Either way it was a necessity specific to himself
3. Ted Lavender carried tranquilizers.  “Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head…”  Lavender felt that having the tranquilizers provided extra safety and protection for him in Vietnam.  He seemed to be a scared soldier and perhaps the extra weapon gave him security.
4. Rat Kiley carried medical supplies.  “As a medic, Rat Kiley carried a canvas satchel filled with morphine and plasma and malaria tablets and surgical tape and comic books and all the things a medic must carry…”  The medic carried these supplies because they were necessary for his job.  He is supposed to treat wounded soldiers and the supplies he has made it possible to do that.
5. Almost all of the soldiers carried photographs.  Photographs bring good, joyful memories to soldiers.  The pictures provide an escape from the world there in now which is filled with killing and bad things to a world of peace and happiness.  The pictures give the soldiers faith and idea that there is a better place than the one they are in now.

Intangible Things

1. “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die.  Grief, terror, love longing….”  Throughout war the soldiers see things no normal human being would ever want to see.  They see their friends and fellow soldiers being killed right before their eyes.  With this experience of war brings things like grief and terror.  The fear of dying and of not knowing when the war will end is brought upon all these soldiers
2. “They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing.”  One of the soldiers’ greatest fears was being embarrassed.  They would rather die nobly and courageously than stay alive because they chickened out of a battle.  The idea of being seen as someone who is a coward and fearful is the worst thing to the soldiers.  They want to be brave men and not be ashamed of themselves.
3. “Some carried themselves with a sort of wistful resignation, others with pride or stiff soldierly discipline or good humor or macho zeal.”  Some soldiers had a prideful way about them.  They carried their pride with them throughout war and didn’t allow people to see their fear.  They carried their pride to cover up their fear of dying.  Their pride was necessary to them to stay alive.
4. “They carried their own lives.”  The soldiers had to carry their own lives to protect themselves.  They had to watch their own backs and be cautious at all time.  It was their own responsibility to look out for themselves and keep themselves safe.  The weight of their lives was on their own shoulders.
5. “They carried the sky.  The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.”  The soldiers had to carry these things in order to keep living.  They had to deal with everything that was going on around them to stay alive.  They had to be alert and able to handle whatever obstacles were thrown their way.

·              Answer this question:  “What do you carry?”  List and explain what you hump around life, both tangible and intangible.

One of the tangible things I carry around is my wallet.  I find this to be a necessity in my daily life for it contains such things as my license and money.  It is very useful and important in my daily life.  Another tangible thing I carry around is my chapstick.  It may not be a life saving necessity but I use it all the time and it is part of my daily life to carry it around.  Some intangible things I carry around is worry, stress, and pressure.  I worry about my family and friends because I would never want anything bad to happen to them and I don’t know what I would do if anything ever did.  I carry around stress caused by school, college, and sports.  Having so much to think about and so much going on causes great stress.  Pressure is also an intangible thing that I carry.  It isn’t so much about the pressure other people put on me but it’s the pressure I put on myself.  For example, I feel very pressured by myself to do good in athletics as well as school.  I feel if I don’t succeed in these I have not accomplished any great thing that’s worth anything.

Song 

1.  What is the occasion of the poem?  What literary device does the poet employ?  Describe what you know of the speaker, the listener, and the “she” referred to in the poem.

The occasion of the poem is the speaker who is a man is courting a shy young woman.  The rose is personified and he uses this device to be his envoy.  He wants to go to the woman and plead his case for him.

2.  Paraphrase each of the four stanzas.

Go pretty Rose, tell the young woman that I love and who will accept or reject my proposal.  Tell her I think she is as sweet and fair as you are.  Tell her the young woman that is shy and hides form men that no one can appreciate the roses beauty if it had been in a dessert.  There fore, ask her to come out an show herself rather than being embarrassed bye my admiration.  Then die rose so she can see how rare beauty is and how little time it lasts.

3.  Describe the prosody, including stanza form, rhyme, meter and notable metrical substitutions(spondees), as well as the structure of the poem.  How do these choices help to reinforce the poem’s content?

There are four stanzas.  The rhyme scheme is ababb.  The structure of the poem reveals the message very well.  Each stanza is a complete sentence.  The rose is personified and is meant to deliver messages tot he young woman.  Each stanza tells her something different.  “Tell her…”  “Bid her…”  The speaker wants to tell the woman of her beauty and not to waste it by hiding from life and people.  Using a rose is a perfect object and personifying is a great method of developing the structure and meaning of the poem.

Virtue

1.  Consider first Herbert’s use of metaphor and personification.  In each case, what tow unlike things are being compared, and what do they have in common?

The first metaphor compared the marriage of earth and the sky to the day and how they are both brought together by light.  The dew is being personified, “dew shall weep thy fall tonight” saying the dew is crying.  The rose is also being personified, “sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave / Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye”.  This describes eyes being burned from staring directly at the sun.  Spring is compared to a box of perfumes.  Spring is a wonderful, beautiful smelling season but however the poem points out that it doesn’t last.  The last metaphor compared the soul of a virtuous person to seasoned timber.  The poem points out that when all else is corrupt the virtuous soul lives on.

2.  How is the poem structure, and how does this structure support its meaning?  Consider parallelism, order, and the turn in the poem.

The poems structure first personifies three different objects.  Day, rose, and spring are all personified.  Each is in a different stanza and all are called “sweet”.  The repetition of “must die” at the end of each stanza describing these objects lets the reader know that these “sweet” things all come to an end.  The order in which these object are presented is also significant.  They go in order of their length of life.  The day is the shortest which is the first  stanza, then the rose which lasts longer than a day, then spring is last because it lasts a few months.  This structure supports the poems meaning by giving the idea that good things come to an end.

3.  How does the prosody reinforce the poem’s meaning?

The prosody reinforces the poem’s meaning by using each stanza to show different examples of how things “must die”.  The idea is to show how nothing beautiful can last forever.  The speaker uses differ objects that don’t last forever to prove his point.  The rhyming in each stanza provides further support and creates a mood for the poem.  The last stanza is different from the first three ending with the word lives and reinforces the idea that sometimes things can live on if they are strong enough.

1.  Describe the subtle changes in setting and analyze how these shifts reveal Eve’s fall from grace.

The subtle changes in setting lead to Eve’s eventual fall by starting off with her innocence and than eventually leading to her disgrace-which ends up being a trap by Satan.  At first Eve is alone picking fruit in the garden.  Disguised as a serpent, Satan is awaiting Eve’s arrival alone.  He then persuades her to the second setting which is “Down the dark path to / the Blasphemous Tree”.  Here, Eve eats the forbidden fruit.  The next setting Eve is crying outside the orchard because she ate the forbidden fruit.  The last setting Satan is celebrating under the hill.

2.  How does the poem’s diction contribute to tone and meaning?  Consider the use of adjectives, verbs, and participles.  Look for patterns, contrasts, and surprising juxtapositions of words.

The poem’s diction contributes to the tone and meaning by using words such as “wading, whispered, pitied, crying” and the way Eve is described when she wades, picks fruit, wonder, and listens.  By using these specific words for Eve we can see her innocence and naiveness.  The reader pitties her for not being able to overcome Satans control over her.  Words such as “dark, Blasphemous, hated, and haunting” are words that can be used to describe Satan.  Satan is evil and and corrupt and the reader can see that through his evil ways and manipulations over Eve. 

3.  Consider the poet’s use of figurative language.  How does the choice of comparisons influence tone and meaning?

Comparisons such as “Mute as a mouse in a / Corner the cobra lay” which compares Satan to a mouse shows that he appears to be harmless and quite but he is really evil and has bad intentions on his interaction with Eve.  Eve is easily persuaded and Satan takes advantage of that.  The mood created is that of the sweetness of Eve but then Satan the seducer who intends on ruining sweet Eve.

4.  Describe the meter, line length, and pattern of enjambment.  What does the rhythm continue to the mod of the poem?

The meter is dactyllic.  The enjambed lines are mostly the short lines.  Each stanza contains just one sentence.  The enjambment and rhythm of the poem create a mood that is sort of the opposite of the meaning of the poem.  The structure of the poem has a dancing beat which would make one think that every thing is going well but in fact the meaning of the poem is quite the opposite.

5.  Describe the use of repetition and rhyme.  Look for patterns.  What does the repetition contribute tot he mood of the poem?

The repetition and rhyme of the poem provide extra details to the poem as a whole.  The poem repeats key words such as sweet and grass shows the qualities of Eve and creates an effect on what Satan does to her.  The repetition contributes to the mood of the poem that Eve is manipulated by Satan and her innocence shows through while Satan’s evil shows.

1.  Describe the form and structure of the poem.  What is the occasion of the poem?  What two reasons does the speaker give for refusing to promise a committed love?  What compromise does she suggest at the end?

The poem consists of three stanzas with eight lines in each of them.  It is in iambic tetrameter with every other line rhyming.  The occasion of the poem is the speaker is talking about marriage and commitment with someone.  She is against the commitment because she feel’s that they can never know each others past and she doesn’t know what is to come in the future.  The compromise she suggests at the end is instead of the commitment they can just be friends.

2.  Analyze the effect on meaning of such devices as syntax, repetition, parallelism, and paradox.

The syntax in the poem creates the tone the speaker is trying to give.  She doesn’t believe in committed relationships and thinks they are a waste of time.  The repetition of the word “promise” provides support to her claim.  She thinks promises are made to be broken like pie-crust.  The parallelism for example in the third stanza where it begins with starts off by saying, “If you promised” and then continues with “If I promised” shows that both people may regret the marriage commitments.  The paradox in line 22 saying “Nothing more and nothing less” show the strength and weakness of the friendship.  She doesn’t want to be committed to the person but rather just good friends. 

3.  Analyze the effect on meaning of the imagery and figurative language. 

The effect the imagery has is that it provides support to the speakers claim about marriage and promises.  She says, “Fades the image from the glass/ And the fortune is not told.”  The imagery used here describes the past of peoples lives being unknown and their future being untold.  The speaker doesn’t know what is to come in the future so she uses this as support to her claim of commitments being overrated.  The figurative language used such as in line five which says “the die uncast” refers to promises and marriages are all vulnerable under chance and fate.  No one knows if the marriage will work out and if promises will really be kept.   

1.  What imagery does Shapiro use in the first three lines to evoke sound and sight?  How do these images become increasingly significant in the context of the entire poem?

The imagery Shapiro uses is the image of an ambulance charging down the road with it’s sirens on.  He says “soft silver bell beating, beating” which makes me think of someones heart beating as the rescuers in the ambulance try to save it’s life.  “Pulsing out red light like an artery” also makes me think of a heart fighting for it’s life and again the ambulance is coming to save it.  These images become increasingly significant in the context of the entire poem because it leads to the other events and it builds up the poem to what is going to come next.

2.  On a literal level, what contextual significance do the following words and phrases have: mangled (line 9), “tolls once” (line 11), “terrible cargo” (line 12), “rocking, slightly rocking” (line 13), deranged and composed (lines 15 and 16)?

Mangled in line 9 refers to the bodies of the victims being mutilated or disfigured.  Tolls once in line 11 refers to the ambulance bell ringing and also referring to a funeral bell.  Terrible cargo in line 12 refers to the bodies being like cargo and not human anymore.  Rocking, slightly rocking in line 13 is referring to the ambulance rocking to try to save the bodies and derange and composed in lines 15 and 16 refers to the cops and witnesses.  The cops see things like this everyday so they are composed but the witnesses ware deranged with the horror of the accident.

3.  Analyze the metaphors in lines 3, 18, 22, and 29-30.  What pattern do they create and why is it appropriate to the poem?

In line 3 the light on top of an ambulance is being compared to a pulsing artery.  This creates a horrifying image of a pulsing heart fighting for it’s life.  Line 18 is comparing blood to a pond.  This creates an image of tons of blood that need to be cleaned of the streets.  This adds to the terrifying meaning of the poem.  Line 22 compares throats to tourniquets which tells us how horrified the witnesses are and what effect the accident has had on the people around.  Line 29-30 refers to the witnesses not being able to recover from the horrors they have just seen and they cannot heal the wound created by it.

4.  What is added to the theme of the poem by the metaphors in lines 20-21 and the simile in 24-27?

The theme of the poem is that death is not always peaceful and expected.  It can be sudden and horrifying.  In lines 20-21, “lanterns on the wrecks that cling” are compared to “empty husks of locusts, to iron poles”.  This adds to the theme of the violent nature of death and adds goriness of the poem.  The simile in lines 24-27 witnesses are compared to “convalescents intimate and gauche” saying the witnesses are so shocked and effected by the accident that they lose their senses and act as the victims themselves.  They are in great fear and have many questions that are left unanswered.

1. Describe the form called rime royal: meter, rhyme scheme, stanza form.

The rhyme royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c. The stanza can be constructed either as a tercet and two couplets (a-b-a, b-b, c-c) or a quatrain and a tercet (a-b-a-b, b-c-c). This allows for a good deal of variety, especially when the form is used for longer narrative poems and along with the couplet, it was the standard narrative metre in the late Middle Ages.  I got this from wikipedia.