What?

"She died, of course. Nine years old and she died. It was a brain tumor. She lived through the summer and into the first part of September and then she was dead." Page 223 and 224

This chapter was honestly my least favorite part of the book. It even beat the buffalo torture. It just didn't make sense. War story after war story and then he reflects on the death of his childhood sweetheart. It just didn't fit. He had a few mentions of his family but it always connected somehow to the war. This story was too random. I know O'Brien was simply trying to reflect on death in general and end with a sentimental story, but for me it didn't click. It was a great story and it was very well written. If I read it in another collection of short stories I'm sure I would have liked it. However, I don't think it belongs in a collection of war stories.

Anthroporphism

"Talking about bugs, for instance: how the worst thing in Nam was the goddamn bugs. Big giant killer bugs, he'd say, mutant bugs...Whispering his name, he said-his actual name-all night long-it was driving him crazy." Page 209 and 210

Anthropomorphism, or personification, is a great literary term. However, when people start legitimately treating animals or objects as if they have human traits, their sanity should be examined. As I mentioned before, Rat was one of my favorite characters. But first he tortured a poof buffalo. Then he basically goes insane. But he makes an interesting point. In the face of war, sometimes everything can be the enemy. Bugs and insects can bite and make you uncomfortable during battle. They are a handicap. Those bugs may have not been after Rat, but they weren't helping the soldiers' situation. This use of personification was quite effective in showing the difficulties faced by soldiers.

Foil Characters

"I was shot twice. The first time, out by Tri Binh, it knocked me against the pagoda wall, and I bounced and spun around and ended up on Rat Kiley's lap. A lucky think, because Rat was the medic. He tied on a compress and told me to ease back, then he ran off toward the fighting... I kept waiting for the pain to hit, but in fact I didn't feel much. A throb, that's all. Even in the hospital it wasn't bad... Jorgenson was no Rat Kiley. He was green and incompetent and scared. So when I got shot the second time, in the butt, along the Song Tra Bong, it took the son of a bitch almost ten minutes to work up the nerve to crawl over to me. By then I was gone with the pain. Later I found out I'd almost died of shock. Bobby Jorgenson didn't know about shock, or if he did, the fear made him forget. To make it worse, he bungled the patch job, and a couple of weeks later my ass started to rot away. You could actually peel off fillets of meat with your fingernail." Page 180 and 181

Rat and Bobby are definitely foil characters. Rat is prompt, efficient, confident, and a great medic. On the other hand, Bobby is scared, unsure, and still unused to the environment of war. I have no doubt that he grew to become a great medic. He simply did not have the same experience as Rat. This passage again shows how the war changed people. The soldiers began as boys who were naive and scared like Bobby. They eventually grew to be confident and skilled soldiers as Rat did. They simply had to settle in and the rest would follow.

A Distant World

"'Billie's picture. I had it all wrapped up, I had it in plastic, so it'll be okay if I can... Last night we were looking at it, me and Kiowa. Right here. I know for sure it's right here somewhere.' Jimmy Cross smiled at the boy. 'You can ask her for another one. A better one.' 'She won't send another one. She's not even my girl anymore, she won't... Man, I got to find it.'" Page 165

I think this passage really shows the desperate morale of the men. This young soldier was extremely desperate to find this picture of his old girlfriend. It surprised me at first. I wondered why he couldn't just let her go. But then I realized it wasn't a picture he was desperate to find. He was really searching for his connection to the outside world. He could not let go of that world and who he was in it. The war may have seemed distant to those left at home, but those fighting felt even more out of touch.

Unexperienced

"Jimmy Cross did not want the responsibility of leading these men. He had never wanted it. In his sophomore year at Mount Sebastian College he had signed up for the Reserve Officer Training Corps without much thought. An automatic thing: because his friends had joined, and because it was worth a few credits, and because it seemed preferable to letting the draft take him. He was unprepared. Twenty-four years old and his heart wasn't in it." Page 160 and 161

I was shocked by one thing in this passage. Jimmy Cross was twenty-four. A twenty-four year old was in charge of an entire platoon of men. He had no experience and no military ambition. He had this huge responsibility on his shoulders. This responsibility that he had never wanted. He was just as naive as the rest of them. He didn't think he was worthy of this job and neither did his men. So, how did he end up in charge?

Local Color

"To provide a dramatic frame, I collapsed events into a single time and place, a car circling a lake on a quiet afternoon in midsummer, using the lade as a nucleus around which the story would orbit...For the scenery I borrowed heavily from my hometown. Wholesale thievery, in fact." Page 152

This passage references the previous chapter 'Speaking of Courage'. It specifically talks about the local color used in the chapter. He used this strategy very effectively. He states that the purpose was to provide a dramatic frame. I think he definitely succeeded. 'Speaking of Courage' was actually one of my favorite chapters. It was intriguing and suspenseful. I don't think I would have liked it as much if he had not written it as a single event at a specific place. The scenery kept me questioning. For a while, I was just trying to find out the purpose of the lake and scenery. With the use of local color, O'Brien really drew the reader in and made the story dramatic.

Third Person Point of View

"The war was over and there was no place in particular to go. Norman Bowker followed the tar road on its seven-mile loop around the lake..."

I found this passage interesting especially when I compared it to the second chapter entitled 'Love'. In both chapters O'Brien is telling the story of one of his fellow soldiers. Both soldiers told him the story and then gave him permission to write about it. Very similar circumstances but the final stories are written very differently. The biggest difference I noticed was that 'Speaking of Courage' is written in third person while 'Love' is written in first person. Third person was a very good choice for Norman's story. It made it more dramatic and interesting. It seemed more suspenseful. I wondered about his choice. Jimmy was living when his story was written, but Norman was deceased. I don't know if this is connected at all, but I think it is an interesting detail.

Flashback

"He was a short, slender young man of about twenty. I was afraid of him-afraid of something-and as he passed me on the trail I threw a grenade that exploded at his feet and killed him. Or to go back: Shortly after midnight..." Page 125

This passage seemed kind of weird to me. Basically the whole book is a series of flashbacks. O'Brien constantly flashes back to his life during the war. These memories are not necessarily in chronological order. But this passage is different. The chapter starts as a flashback of O'Brien talking to his daughter, but it switches to a flashback of the war. He even sets up the flashback with the phrase 'Or to go back'. This seemed odd to me. During the rest of the book, his stories had no intro. The reader was immediately engulfed in the memory. However, this memory was perhaps more sensitive and needed an intro. It still seems odd to me.

Gross!

"But the story did not end there. If you believed the Greenies, Rat said, Mary Anne was still somewhere out there in the dark...She had crossed to the other side. She was part of the land. She was wearing her culottes, her pink sweater, and a necklace of human tongues. She was dangerous. She was ready for the kill." Page 110

I thought this passage, and really the whole chapter, was in a way symbolic. I think it symbolized the transformation that all young people involved in the war experienced, to an extent. I doubt they all ended up with tongue necklaces (eww! why tongues??), but they all changed drastically. They all began as young and naive individuals. However, by the end they were permanently changed. The change could be positive or negative. The writer simply chose to illustrate the insanity the war could cause. He gave the reader a negative example. Or at least, it's negative in my opinion. But who knows, tongue necklaces could be all the rage this year.

Torture

"He stepped back and shot [the buffalo] through the right front knee. The animal did not make a sound. It went down hard, then got up again, and 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 the flanks. It wasn't to kill; it was to hurt. He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away. Nobody said much. The whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn't a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo. Curt Lemon was dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in the world. Later in the week he would write a long personal letter to the guy's sister, who would not write back, but for now it was a question of pain. He shot off the tail. He shot away chunks of meat below the ribs...Rat went on automatic. He shot randomly, almost casually...All the while the baby buffalo was silent, or almost silent, just a light bubbling sound where the nose had been." Page 75 and 76

I found this passage extremely disturbing. Before this passage, I actually really like Rat. He was one of my favorite characters, but I just didn't get this passage. I didn't understand why he was doing it. Yes, he had lost his best friend but how does torturing an innocent baby buffalo help or bring comfort? And it almost seems that the other soldiers understood. They just watched with no pity for the poor animal. They condoned this outrageous behavior because of his recent loss. I just don't understand how anyone could watch that.

Metaphor

"For example: War is hell. As a moral declaration the old truism seems perfectly true, and yet because it abstracts, because it generalizes, I can't believe it with my stomach." Page 74

The metaphor 'War is hell' is affective but the writer actually uses it in a negative way. I thought it was an interesting way to explain what he found to be untrue and unbelievable. He says it is simply a generalization and you can't always believe a generalization. I thought it was an interesting way to prove his point. He chooses a specific example and explains why it is abstract and not factual. In a way, all metaphors can be viewed in an abstract way. It was an interesting strategy. He also says that it comes down to gut instinct. I think that he was in a way talking about the whole war. A soldier couldn't stop and think. They just had to act on their first instinct.

An Unanswered Letter

"And then the letter gets very sad and serious. Rat pours his heart out. He says he loved the guy. He says the guy was his best friend in the world. They were like soul mates, he says, like twins or something, they had a whole lot in common. He tells the guy's sister he'll look her up when the war's over. So what happens? Rat mails the letter. He waits two months. The dumb cooze never writes back." Page 65

This part was pretty depressing. I think the writer was showing that the tragedies of the war hit those involved much harder than the ones back home. I was really surprised that the sister never responded to Rat's letter. Not only was he a connection to her brother but he was also desperate. He wanted a connection to his best friend. He was reaching out and he got no response at all. These kind of situations probably did nothing to help the soldiers' morale. This distant war was only a reality to those called to serve.

Internal Conflict

"...Dave Jensen started to worry. It was mostly in his head. There were no threats, no vows of revenge, just a silent tension..." Page 59 and 60

In contrast to the previous external conflict, O'Brien next describes an internal conflict of one of the previously mentioned characters. Dave Jensen became paranoid. The writer states that it was mainly in his head. This is a perfect example of an internal conflict. I'm sure an argument was constantly raging in Dave's head. Lee was his fellow soldier and duty came first. He wouldn't try anything. But then again, Dave hurt him so badly that he had to be choppered away for medical attention. The circumstances were split. I doubt that Dave was in any danger from Lee, but he convinced himself that an attack was possible. He didn't know who he could trust. O'Brien utilizes this to show that war made people insane at points. It messed with their heads.

An External Conflict

"... Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen got into a fistfight. It was about something stupid-a missing jackknife-but even so the fight was vicious." Page 59

This passage is a perfect example of external conflict. Two characters have an altercation. In this case, it is a violent and physical fistfight. I found it interesting that the fight was so violent when it was over something so minor and 'stupid'. The soldiers must have been tense. Tension can cause anger and overreactions. I think that was definitely the case in this instance. The war was stressful and it caused this external conflict within the troops. I believe that the writer was trying to show the reader that violence and hardship wasn't always directly connected to the war but war was the cause just the same.

A Different Set of Shoes

"And I want you to feel it-the wind coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier. You're at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You're twenty-one years old, you're scared, and there's a hard squeezing pressure in your chest. What would you do? Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry as I did?" Page 54

This passage intrigued me. At the beginning of the chapter, the writer says he has never told this specific story before. I think this excerpt explains why. O'Brien was obviously very embarrassed of his cowardice. He was scared and tried to run away from the responsibility to serve his country. In this passage, he is calling out to the reader with the hope that someone will understand. He asks the reader to step into his shoes. All he wants is to have someone understand that young man's point of view before judging his actions.

Ignorance

"I felt no personal danger; I felt no sense of an impending crisis in my life. Stupidly, with a kind of smug removal that I can't begin to fathom, I assumed that the problems of killing and dying did not fall within my special province." Page 39

This passage really stuck out to me. I feel as though young people today have a similar attitude to that which O'Brien demonstrates in this section. I feel as though many young Americans think about our current war as a distant problem that doesn't affect them. This is of course, if they think about the war at all. I know that personally I am not as interested and informed about the war as I should be. We support our troops but I doubt that many teens rush home from school to watch the news for recent updates. I do wonder how a draft would affect this ignorance. The war might seem more real and close if young people were faced with the possibility of being chosen to fight it.

Checkers

"I remember Norman Bowker and Henry Dobbins playing checkers every evening before dark. It was a ritual...The rest of us would sometimes stop by to watch. There was something restful about it, something orderly and reassuring. There were red checkers and black checkers. The playing field was laid out in a strict grid, no tunnels or mountains or jungles. You knew where you stood. You knew the score. The pieces were out on the board, the enemy was visible, you could watch the tactics unfolding into larger strategies. There was a winner and a loser. There were rules." Page 31

I found this paragraph very insightful. It showed, without directly saying it, what the soldiers' feelings towards the war were. This passage discusses the structured game of checkers. Honestly, the game is not very interesting. However, the men watched because the game was comforting. The description O'Brien gives seems to highlight certain details because of their opposition to the structure of the war. There are no sneak attacks or lurking enemies. These soldiers were living in an unfamiliar world and they had no idea what to expect from their opponents. This classic game was a small escape from reality.

First Person Point of View

"Many years after the war Jimmy Cross came to visit me at my home in Massachusetts, and for a full day we drank coffee and smoked cigarettes and talked about everything we had seen and done so long ago, all the things we still carried through our lives." Page 26

This passage, and really the whole chapter, was an important shift in the novel. In the first chapter the writer was simply a third party observer who reflected on the feelings and actions of the soldiers. In contrast, chapter two is written from the writer's perspective in the first person. This was an effective strategy. It identified the writer as not just an observer but a soldier himself. He shows this especially in the phrase "...everything we had seen and done..." The 'we' shows that the author had taken part in the action of the story. By revealing this part way in, O'Brien sparks the reader's interest. These stories that he has already begun to tell are seen as personal because of this shift.

A Pointless Flame

"...Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha's letters. Then he burned the two photographs...it was only a gesture...the letters were in his head." Page 22

I thought this passage was very interesting. I was surprised when Jimmy started burning the letters and photos. They were his only physical connection the the world outside of the war. The whole passage still confuses me a little. The gesture seemed pointless to me. He admits it was only a gesture but I don't understand the importance of the gesture. It didn't change anything which he did admit but it also didn't seem to fit the situation to me. It seemed a gesture to show rejection and disregard of the outside world not necessarily a commitment to the world of the war and his men which was his intended purpose. It was supposed to symbolize a renewed effort to protect his men and their best interests but it didn't seem to connect at all.

Simile

"...Kiowa kept explaining how you had to be there, how fast it was, how the poor guy just dropped like so much concrete. Boom-down, he said. Like cement." Page 6

I think O'Brien utilizes this simile very well. He compares death to both concrete and cement. He emphasizes the comparison to cement by separating the phrase 'Like cement' into a distinct sentence. I think the purpose of this simile was to illustrate the finality and abruptness of death. He shows this in a couple of ways. The first is the comparison to the hard, heavy, and harsh objects concrete and cement. Cement and concrete are difficult to remove or destroy just as death is irreversible. The syntax also illustrates the abruptness of death. The last two sentences are short and sharp. They end the passage harshly just as death ends a life quickly and sharply. These details help to show the shock experienced by these soldiers. Of these details, I believe the use of a simile is the most important and effective.