AP English Language 2015-2016

The AP English Language and Composition course is designed to enable students to become skilled readers and writers in diverse genres and modes of composition. As stated in the Advanced Placement Course Description, the purpose of the Language and Composition course is “to enable students to read complex texts with understanding and to write papers of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate effectively with mature readers” (The College Board, May 2007, May 2008, p.6).

Thursday, September 27, 2012

"The Lives of the Dead"

QUIZ

Group DISCUSSIONS

Chapter 22: “The Lives of the Dead”
1.    How does the opening paragraph frame the story we are about to read?
2.    Why is O'Brien unable to joke around with the other soldiers? Why does the old man remind him of Linda?
3.    What is the function of the Linda plot in “The Lives of the Dead”? Consider in particular what it teaches him about death, memory, storytelling.
4.    What is the “moral” of the dead KIAs? Consider Mitchell Sanders' view.
5.    In many ways, this book is as much about stories, or the necessity of stories, as it is about the Vietnam War. According to O’Brien, what do stories accomplish? Why does he continue to tell stories about the Vietnam War, about Linda?
6.    Reread the final two pages of this book. Consider what the young Tim O’Brien learns about storytelling from his experience with Linda. How does this knowledge prepare him not only for the war, but also to become a writer? Within the parameters of this story, how would you characterize Tim O’Brien’s understanding of the purpose of fiction? How does fiction relate to life, that is, life in the journalistic or historic sense?

Overall:

1. Assume for a moment, that the writer, Tim O’Brien, created a fictional main character, also called Tim O’Brien, to inhabit this novel. Why would the real Tim O’Brien do that? What would that accomplish in this novel? How would that strengthen a book about “truth”?

2. Finally, if O’Brien is trying to relate some essential details about emotional life – again as opposed to historic life – is he successful in doing that? Is he justified in tinkering with the facts to get at, what he would term, some larger, story-truth?

3. On the copyright page of the novel appears the following: “This is a work of fiction. Except for a few details regarding the author's own life, all the incidents, names, and characters are imaginary.” How does this statement affect your reading of the novel?

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Booker's Plots and The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried as Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis Plot

Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.

Plot Type : Voyage and Return

Anticipation Stage and 'Fall' into the Other World

In "On the Rainy River," Tim is drafted to go to Vietnam.

Before he's drafted, Tim has a totally abstract view of politics. He knows that he doesn't like the war, but for political reasons, not because he's afraid he might have to go. And then, suddenly, he's drafted and it gets personal. He gets a summer job at a meatpacking plant, and all the blood and slaughter just make him more afraid and sickened by what he's going to have to go do. He thinks about running away to Canada, but chickens out, afraid of the social stigma – just an anticipatory taste of the issues with reputation and weakness he's going to have once he's gets to the war.

Initial fascination or Dream Stage

In "How to Tell a True War Story" and "Spin," Tim talks about the more compelling parts of the war.

Even when things seem like they're really not all that bad – the weather is nice, and even though they're carrying a lot, they're really just marching together – someone will step on a mine, or get shot, and Tim is abruptly reminded that they're indeed still at war. Even the funny, light-hearted things have an element of the weird about them, like Kiowa doing a rain dance in a Vietnamese village or a tranqued-out Lavender talking about how mellow the war is.

Frustration Stage

In "The Man I Killed," Tim stares at the body of a dead man.

We've seen some gruesome things, but this is the first time we've dealt with the guilt over killing. For some reason, this lends the story an extra darkness that we've not yet seen. Sure, "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" was super creepy, and "How to Tell a True War Story" was very sad and also gross, but in neither of them did the main characters take another human life. In "The Man I Killed," we have that shadow appear for the first time.

Nightmare Stage

This starts at "Speaking of Courage" and lasts pretty much all the way to the end of the book.

You don't get much more nightmarish than an exploding, boiling field of poop that drowns your best friend. That particular nightmares stretches out over four stories – "Speaking of Courage," "Notes," "In the Field," and "Field Trip." But the nightmare doesn't end there. In "The Ghost Soldier," Tim gets obsessed with vengeance and ends up having a bizarre and unpleasant hallucination in which he turns into the war itself. And in "Night Life," Rat goes slightly insane, laughing and calling the war "Just one big banquet. Meat, man. You and me. Everybody. Meat for the bugs" (Night Life.22). Ay caramba.

Thrilling Escape and Return

This kind of works with Tim in "Notes" and "The Lives of the Dead." It's subverted with Norman Bowker in "Speaking of Courage" and "Notes."

This is the stage that doesn't quite fit. The intensity of the nightmare that the soldiers deal with in the nightmare stage is such that they don't ever really come back from it. For Norman Bowker, his voyage ended with the nightmare stage. He even says, in "Notes," that "That night when Kiowa got wasted, I sort of sank down into the sewage with him… Feels like I'm still in deep shit" (Notes.3). Tim, on the other hand, does get to escape a bit through his stories. He pours the nightmares onto the page, he brings his dead comrades back to life with words, and the act of doing this is his thrilling escape, his return. But he needs to keep doing it, because the escape only lasts while the story is alive. It's not a permanent escape or return; he's perpetually escaping, even twenty years later.

The Ghost Soldiers and The Night Life

Chapter 20: “The Ghost Soldiers”
1.    What does “The Ghost Soldiers” add to the book that we have almost completed? Does it provide any new insights, perspectives, or experiences about any of the characters? What do you think its function in the overall narrative might be?
2.    Does your opinion of O'Brien change throughout the course of the novel? How so? How do you feel about his actions in “The Ghost Soldiers”?
3.    “The Ghost Soldiers” is one of the only stories of The Things They Carried in which we don't know the ending in advance. Why might O'Brien want this story to be particularly suspenseful?
4.    Explain the significance of the title of this chapter.

Chapter 21: “Night Life”
1.    How did Rat Kiley get out of active duty in the Vietnam? 2.    Consider the placement of this story in the novel. What is O’Brien’s purpose in including this story so late in
the novel and immediately following “The Ghost Soldiers”?

Some larger questions:

1. Assume for a moment, that the writer, Tim O’Brien, created a fictional main character, also called Tim O’Brien, to inhabit this novel. Why would the real Tim O’Brien do that? What would that accomplish in this novel? How would that strengthen a book about “truth”?

2. Finally, if O’Brien is trying to relate some essential details about emotional life – again as opposed to historic life – is he successful in doing that? Is he justified in tinkering with the facts to get at, what he would term, some larger, story-truth?

3. On the copyright page of the novel appears the following: “This is a work of fiction. Except for a few details regarding the author's own life, all the incidents, names, and characters are imaginary.” How does this statement affect your reading of the novel?

Booker's Seven Basic Plots

The Basic Meta-plot
Most of the meta-plots are variations on the following pattern:

Anticipation Stage
The call to adventure, and the promise of what is to come.
Dream Stage
The heroine or hero experiences some initial success - everything seems to be going well, sometimes with a dreamlike sense of invincibility.
Frustration Stage
First confrontation with the real enemy. Things begin to go wrong.
Nightmare Stage
At the point of maximum dramatic tension, disaster has erupted and it seems all hope is lost.
Resolution
The hero or heroine is eventually victorious, and may also be united or reunited with their ‘other half’ (a romantic partner).

There are some parallels with Campbell’s Heroic Monomyth, but his pattern is more applicable to mythology than to stories in general.
Overcoming the Monster (and the Thrilling Escape from Death)
Examples: Perseus, Theseus, Beowulf, Dracula, War of the Worlds, Nicholas Nickleby, The Guns of Navarone, Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven, James Bond, Star Wars: A New Hope.
Meta-plot structure:

Anticipation Stage (The Call)
Dream Stage (Initial Success)
Frustration Stage (Confrontation)
Nightmare Stage (Final Ordeal)
Miraculous Escape (Death of the Monster)

Rags to Riches
Examples: Cinderella, Aladdin, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, David Copperfield
Dark Version: Le Rouge et Le Noir (1831), What Makes Sammy Run? (1940)
Meta-plot structure:

Initial Wretchedness at Home (The Call)
Out into the World (Initial Success)
The Central Crisis
Independence (Final Ordeal)
Final Union, Completion and Fulfilment

The Quest
Examples: The Odyssey, Pilgrim’s Progress, King Solomon’s Mines, Watership Down
Meta-plot structure:

The Call (Oppressed in the City of Destruction)
The Journey (Ordeals of the Hero/Heroine & Companions)
May include some or all of the following:
a. Monsters
b. Temptations
c. The Deadly Opposites
d. The Journey to the Underworld
Arrival and Frustration
The Final Ordeals
The Goal (Kingdom, Other Half or Elixir won)

Voyage & Return
Examples: Alice in Wonderland, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Orpheus, The Time Machine, Peter Rabbit, Brideshead Revisited, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Gone with the Wind, The Third Man (1948)
Meta-plot structure:

Anticipation Stage (‘Fall’ into the Other World)
Initial Fascination (Dream Stage)
Frustration Stage
Nightmare Stage
Thrilling Escape and Return

Comedy
Comedy is dealt with by a less rigid structure. In essence, the comedy meta-plot is about building an absurdly complex set of problems which then miraculously resolve at the climax. There is much discussion of how the comedy plot has developed over time:
Stage one: Aristophanes
Stage two: ‘The New Comedy’ (comedy becomes a love story)
Stage three: Shakespeare (plot fully developed)
Comedy as real life: Jane Austen
The plot disguised: Middlemarch, War and Peace
The plot burlesqued: Gilbert & Sullivan, Oscar Wilde
Meta-plot structure:

Under the Shadow
A little world in which people are under the shadow of confusion, uncertainty and frustration and are shut up from one another.
Tightening the Knot
The confusion gets worse until the pressure of darkness is at its most acute and everyone is in a nightmarish tangle.
Resolution
With the coming to light of things not previously recognised, perceptions are dramatically changed. Shadows are dispelled, the situation is miraculously transformed and the little world is brought together in a state of joyful union.

Tragedy
Examples: Macbeth, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Carmen, Bonnie & Clyde, Jules et Jim, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Julius Caesar
Meta-plot structure:

Anticipation Stage (Greed or Selfishness)
Dream Stage
Frustration Stage
Nightmare Stage
Destruction or Death Wish Stage

Rebirth
Examples: Sleeping Beauty, The Frog Prince, Beauty and the Beast, The Snow Queen, A Christmas Carol, The Secret Garden, Peer Gynt
Meta-plot structure:

Under the Shadow
A young hero or heroine falls under the shadow of a dark power
The Threat Recedes
Everything seems to go well for a while - the threat appears to have receded.
The Threat Returns
Eventually the threat approaches again in full force, until the hero or heroine is seen imprisoned in a state of living death.
The Dark Power Triumphant
The state of living death continues for a long time when it seems the dark power has completely triumphed.
Miraculous Redemption
If the imprisoned person is a heroine, redeemed by the hero; if a hero, by a young woman or child.

Dark Versions
All of the above plots have dark versions, in which the ‘complete happy ending’ is never achieved because of some problem. The only exception is Tragedy, which is already the ‘dark’ version.

New Plots
Two additional plots are presented which are outside of the basic seven listed above. Note that the existence of general patterns of plot is not intended to mean that no other plots are possible.
Rebellion Against ‘The One’
A solitary hero/heroine finds themselves being drawn into a state of resentful, mystified opposition to some immense power, which exercises total sway over the world of the hero. Initially they feel they are right and the mysterious power is at fault, but suddenly the hero/heroine is confronted by the power in its awesome omnipotence. The rebellious hero/heroine is crushed and forced to recognise that their view had been based only on a very limited subjective perception of reality. They accept the power’s rightful claim to rule.
Example: The Book of Job
Dark version: Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four
The Mystery
Begins by posing a riddle, usually through the revelation that some baffling crime has been committed. Central figure unravels the riddle.
Examples: Bel and the Dragon, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie

Archetypes
In addition to patterns of plots, there is a pattern of characters provided according to Jungian principles. These archetypal characters are as follows:
Negative (centred on Jungian Ego i.e. "evil"):
Dark Father, Tyrant or Dark Magician
Dark Mother, Dark Queen or Hag
Dark Rival or Dark Alter-Ego
Dark Other Half or Temptress
Positive (centred on Jungian Self i.e. "good"):
Light Father, Good King or Wise Old Man
Light Mother, Good Queen or Wise Old Woman
Light Alter-Ego or Friend and Companion
Light Other Half (light anima/animus)
Note: Booker uses ‘witch’ where I use ‘hag’, for reasons that will be apparent to most readers.
Three other archetypes are referenced:
The Child
The Animal Helper
The Trickster

Additional Concepts
The Complete Happy Ending
In the regular versions of the meta-plots, if all that is ego-centred becomes centred instead on the Self (i.e. if all characters are redeemed), the result is a 'complete happy ending'. In the dark versions of the story, the ending is generally tragic and disasterous - both are considered to be following the same meta-plot. It is also possible for stories to contain elements of both approaches.
The Unrealised Value
The chief dark figure signals to us the shadowy, negative version of precisely what the hero or heroine will eventually have to make fully positive in themselves if they are to emerge victorious and attain 'the complete happy ending'. Therefore, the villain metaphorically represents what the hero or heroine will conquor both within themselves, and in the world of the story.
Above and Below the Line
In general, (and especially in comedy) there is a dividing line in effect. Above the line is the established social order, and below the line are the servants, ‘inferior’ or shadow elements. The problem originates ‘above the line’ (e.g. with tyranny) but the road to liberation always lies ‘below the line’ in the ‘inferior’ level.
Below the line can also be represented as a ‘shadow realm’, containing the potential for wholeness. In the conclusion of the story, elements may ‘emerge from the shadows’ to provide resolution.
The Seven Basic Plots is published by Continuum, ISBN-0-8264-5209-4.

Essay --The Things They Carried

Read, discuss and evaluate the following student essay. Post a comment regarding your observations.
What is strong about the following student essay? What needs to be strengthened or revised?

NYS ELA criteria: Meaning, Development, Organization, Language, Conventions

USE OF TEXT-BASED QUOTES

MLA STYLE

from BookRags:

The Things They Carried: Coping With Death

Summary: Discusses the Tim O'Brien book, The Things They Carried. Examines how O'Brien conveys his approach to death, coping skills, and the loss of his childhood friend, Linda. Reveals how O'Brien used his coping skills in the Vietnam War.

Death is one of life's most challenging obstacles. Tim O'Brien was exposed to more than his fair share of death. To manage the emotional stress, he developed methods of coping with the death in his life. O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, demonstrates his attempts to make death less real through psychotherapeutic tactics like telling stories about the dead as if they were living and conceiving the dead as items instead of people.

O'Brien explains how the stories told about those who have passed are meant to keep the deceased's life alive. The "weight of memory" was one thing all the solders carried (14). When added to the physical weight of their gear and the emotional burdens of war, it was all too much. In response, the men altered their perceptions of the truth in order to lighten the haunting weight of memory. O'Brien suggests "in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true," memory is altered to compensate for its weight (82). In this way, O'Brien, and the rest of the men, were able to utilize "story-truth (179)." Stories alter truth; therefore, a well-told story can actually allow the dead to continue to live on. "In a story, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world (225)." In this way you could "keep the dead alive" with "blatant lies, bringing the body and soul back together (239)." O'Brien remembers listening to a story about Curt Lemon. He recalls how "you'd never know that Curt Lemon was dead (240)." It seemed like "he was still out there in the dark" yet, "he was dead (240)." Similarly O'Brien uses story to save his childhood friend's life, "not her body - her life (236)." In his stories Linda "can smile and sit up. She can reach out (236)." He allows her to come to life and "touch [his] wrist and [say], "Timmy, stop crying." (238)." O'Brien and the rest of the men are able to find a comfort in the unreal that the real cannot offer.

The solders in Vietnam were able to eliminate the reality of death through predictable responses (20). One response was to "call [death] by other names (21)." "If it isn't human, it doesn't matter much if it's dead . . . a VC nurse, fired by napalm, was a crisp critter. A Vietnamese baby, which lay nearby, was a roasted peanut (238-239)." This detachment made death easier to handle. Furthering the illusion that the dead were not really people, the men would interact with the corpses on a very dehumanizing level. For example, there was a corpse of an old man in a small town. "Dave Jensen went over and shook the old man's hand" and said "How-dee-doo (226)." " One by one the others did too (226)." They all shook the corpse's hand, except O'Brien. O'Brien did not touch the body because for him death was still real. He admits it was "Way too real (226)." He had not yet acquired the survival technique of distancing one's self from the reality of death.

The actuality of war in Vietnam required that the solders have coping techniques in order to retain any mental stability. War was death. "There were a million ways to die. Booby traps and land mines and gangrene and shock and polio from a VC virus (197)." The solders "carried the emotional baggage of men who might die" at any moment (21). "Ted Lavender was shot in the head on his way back from peeing (12)." "The dead were everywhere . . . some in piles" that "proximity to death" changes a person (242, 81). The men needed to develop these coping skills of distancing and selective memory in order to remain sane. "When a man died, there had to be blame" and it was always everyone's fault; yet, no one could handle the soul responsibility (176-177). Often times you held someone's life in your own two hands and were forced to live with the blame if you let go (150). If you were unable to delude yourself as to the reality of death and your part in it, terrible emotional stress was the result. "Lieutenant Cross found himself trembling . . . He felt shame. He hated himself . . . he burned the two photographs" that distracted him, seemingly causing the mistake that killed his solder, he "couldn't burn the blame (16-23)." The guilt and responsibility would destroy the solders if they did not practice coping techniques.

"War is hell . . . war is mystery terror and adventure and courage and discovery and despair and . . . war is nasty (80)." When it all happened it was not like "a movie you aren't a hero and all you can do is whimper and wait (211)." O'Brien and the rest of the solders were just ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations. They needed to tell blatant lies" to "bring the body and soul back together (239)." They needed to eliminate the reality of death. As ordinary people they were not capable of dealing with the engulfing realities of death and war therefore they needed to create coping skills. O'Brien approaches the loss of his childhood friend, Linda, in the same way he approaches the loss of his comrades in the war as this is the only way he knows how to deal with death. A skill he learned, and needed, in the Vietnam War.

HUNTER COLLEGE READING/WRITING CENTER
THE WRITING PROCESS
Invention: Five Qualities of Good Writing

     What is good writing?  This is not an easy question to
answer.  Many very different kinds of writing are considered
"good" and for many different reasons.  There is no formula or
program for writing well.  However, there are certain qualities
that most examples of good writing share.  The following is a
brief description of five important qualities of good writing. 
The qualities described here are especially appropriate for
academic and expository writing.  



         FIVE IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF GOOD WRITING

Writing should have focus:         An essay should have a single
                                   clear central idea.  Each
                                   paragraph should have a clear
                                   main point or topic sentence.

Writing should have development:   Each paragraph should support
                                   the central idea of the paper.
                                   Individual sentences should
                                   support the main point of the
                                   paragraph.   

Writing should have unity:         Every paragraph in an essay
                                   should be related to the main
                                   idea.  Each paragraph should
                                   stick to its main point.

Writing should have coherence:     An essay or paper should be
                                   organized logically, flow
                                   smoothly, and "stick"
                                   together.

                                   In other words, everything in
                                   the writing should make sense
                                   to a reader.

Writing should have correctness:   A paper should be written in
                                   generally correct standard
                                   English, with complete
                                   sentences, and be relatively
                                   error-free.

     One additional quality, not part of this list, but
nevertheless, very important, is creativity.  The best writing is
that which carries some of the personality, the individuality of
its author.  Follow the above guidelines, but always strive above
all to make your writing uniquely your own.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Week of 9/24-9/28 Things They Carried

* 9/24 Mon. Discussion of "Speaking of Courage" and "In the Field"

HMWK:   Study 20 Things They Carried vocabulary for quiz on Friday (see previous post)
                  Study Top Twenty Figures of Speech for quiz Friday (see link)
Continue to read The Things They Carried--finish book by Friday

*9/25   Tues.   What is the AP exam?
            Practice AP multiple choice quiz on Shmoop, Spark notes, etc.
Go to College Board website
            Go over paper assignment
HMWK: Read pg. 188-218 for Discussion Wed.

*9/26   Wed. Discuss "The Ghost Soldiers"
HMWK: Read "Night Life" and :The Lives of the Dead" for discussion Thurs.

*9/27   Thurs. Discuss "Night Life" and "The Lives of the Dead"

* 9/28 Fri. QUIZ   Closure ----The Things They Carried

Friday, September 21, 2012

Nick Ut's Vietnam Napalm picture

Yesterday, some of you were interested in Nick Ut's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a little girl running down the street naked. for more information about the 9 year old girl, now a woman,
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc

http://digitaljournal.com/article/326206

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhz2gCnhr-I

Vocabulary Things They Carried

devout
deeply religious

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Devout Christians usually pray in public and swear in private.
—Remsburg, John B.
profound
situated at or extending to great depth; too deep to have been sounded or plumbed

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Another mainland businessman who spent several days in Taiwan said the election had a profound impact on his understanding of politics.
—New York Times (Jan 16, 2012)
volition
the act of making a choice

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Somehow, not by my own volition, I was in the group nearest him.
—Salon (Jan 27, 2011)
ambiguity
unclearness by virtue of having more than one meaning

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

"There should be no ambiguity about that," he said.
—The Guardian (Aug 5, 2010)
reservoir
lake used to store water for community use

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Two of these reservoirs are kept full of water at all times as a reserve, and in case of fire.
—Anonymous
imperative
requiring attention or action

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Obama said higher education today is “an economic imperative” instead of a luxury.
—BusinessWeek (Jan 27, 2012)
negligence
failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

In court papers, the reported victim’s lawyers allege an atmosphere of negligence at Penn State and the Second Mile stretching back decades.
—New York Times (Nov 30, 2011)
acquiescence
agreement with a statement or proposal to do something

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

One or two muffled complaints and quiet acquiescence.
—Salon (Mar 4, 2010)
cryptic
having a secret or hidden meaning

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Also, cryptic handwritten comments were found in a safe at his home that referred to assassination, investigators said.
—Seattle Times (Jan 26, 2011)
reticence
the trait of being uncommunicative; not volunteering anything more than necessary

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Mr. Bernard, known for reticence, not public belligerence, smiled slightly before answering.
—New York Times (Jul 28, 2011)
insufficient
of a quantity not able to fulfill a need or requirement

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Treasury, said donations are insufficient to solve the budget deficit.
—BusinessWeek (Jan 23, 2012)
monotonous
sounded or spoken in a tone unvarying in pitch

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

The old man stopped suddenly, having told all his story in a dull, monotonous voice, with little feeling and no dramatic display.
—Allen, Grant
elusive
skillful at eluding capture

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

While details remain elusive, “there’s an increasing consciousness that this is the only way forward.”
—BusinessWeek (Nov 14, 2011)
intransitive
designating a verb that does not require or cannot take a direct object

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

In the last stanza, though, Housman rhymes three intransitive verbs – "nighs", "sighs", "replies".
—The Guardian (Aug 15, 2011)
amnesty
a warrant granting release from punishment for an offense
oppressive
weighing heavily on the senses or spirit

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

An oppressive silence followed, while each girl looked blankly at her neighbor.
—Halsey, Rena I.
encysted
enclosed in (or as if in) a cyst

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

After death the bullet was found buried and encysted in the heart.
—Pyle, Walter L. (Walter Lytle)
intangible
incapable of being perceived by the senses especially the sense of touch

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

There are too many other factors, intangible factors, that make up a company’s value.
—Forbes (Aug 15, 2011)
laxity
the quality of being lax and neglectful

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

There reigned also a deplorable laxity of morals; and the graceful Polish women were very seductive.
—Hoffmann, E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus)
fungal
of or relating to fungi

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Fungal infections are even more difficult to treat.
—Nature (Oct 12, 2011)
rectitude
righteousness as a consequence of being honorable and honest

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

A more profound cinematic influence for would-be lawyers, he said, is Atticus Finch, that symbol of moral rectitude in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
—New York Times (Oct 21, 2010)
proximity
the property of being close together

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

And despite its proximity to Japan, South Korea, with 21 active nuclear reactors, is moving forward on 18 more.
—New York Times (Jan 12, 2012)
affirm
to declare or affirm solemnly and formally as true

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

In reclaiming "Flying," Young affirms that for him country music wasn't just another '80s mood swing, but an essential building block of his career.
—Chicago Tribune (Jun 13, 2011)
ordinance
an authoritative rule

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

At the same time, an ordinance was issued forbidding any person to carry out the King's good money or to bring in counterfeit.
—Shaw, William Arthur
comport
behave in a certain manner

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Ironically, the one man on stage who did comport himself with dignity, John Huntsman, is now being dismissed as having not made an impact.
—Time (Sep 8, 2011)
platitude
a trite or obvious remark

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Bad advice, judgments and platitudes are not what Mitch needs right now.
—The Guardian (Aug 11, 2011)
catharsis
purging the body by the use of a cathartic to stimulate evacuation of the bowels

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

We needed distance and now we can finally have catharsis.”
—New York Times (Jun 14, 2010)
eviscerate
remove the entrails of

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

These animals were being eviscerated and just left there to slowly die, flailing about in the sun.
—New York Times (Sep 20, 2010)
accord
concurrence of opinion

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

The numbers present were not precisely ascertainable, as the men were not under discipline, but had turned up of their own accord.
—Duncan, Sara Jeannette
selective
characterized by very careful or fastidious selection

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

At a time of global uncertainties, though, consumers are becoming more selective.
—Reuters (Nov 9, 2011)
figurative
(used of the meanings of words or text) not literal; using figures of speech

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

I mean a kick in the figurative sense; the one that leaves no trace, and does not prevent us from sitting at our ease.
—O'Rell, Max
objector
a person who dissents from some established policy

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

A conscientious objector, he did not enlist in the armed forces during the second world war.
—The Guardian (Jan 23, 2011)
implausible
highly imaginative but unlikely

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

I find it utterly implausible that Google charges sites for placement in its search results, as the EU's inquiry insinuates.
—Washington Post (Jan 14, 2011)
topography
the configuration of a surface and the relations among its man-made and natural features

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

He had had some training in topography and he kindly agreed to take over the map question.
—Roosevelt, Theodore
immediacy
the quickness of action or occurrence

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

This absence of body language, and the single-click immediacy of online sharing has created problems that have no ready parallel offline.
—New York Times (Sep 3, 2010)
conscientious
characterized by extreme care and great effort

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

A conscientious hostess would be very much mortified if she served chicken out of its proper course.
—Reed, Myrtle
predatory
living by preying on other animals especially by catching living prey

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Predatory birds, feeding on fish, insects, and even reptiles, birds, and small quadrupeds.
—Johns, Rev. C. A.
defiance
a hostile challenge

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

But in light of Iran’s continued defiance, some, including many in Israel, have argued that military action is the only solution.
—Washington Post (Nov 8, 2011)
evasion
the act of physically escaping from something (an opponent or a pursuer or an unpleasant situation) by some adroit maneuver

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

Two of its partners were found guilty of tax evasion in May.
—Reuters (Jan 13, 2012)
controversial
marked by or capable of arousing controversy

EXAMPLE SENTENCE:

The sites are blacking out to protest controversial anti-piracy legislation in the House and Senate.
—Forbes (Jan 17, 2012)
toiling
doing arduous or unpleasant work
serenity
the absence of mental stress or anxiety
monotony
constancy of tone or pitch or inflection
bewilderment
confusion resulting from failure to understand
taut
pulled or drawn tight

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Thematic Search--Things They Carried

GROUP A:

Spark Notes analysis:

"O’Brien illustrates the ambiguity and complexity of Vietnam by alternating explicit references to beauty and gore. The butterfly and the tiny blue flowers he mentions show the mystery and suddenness of death in the face of pristine natural phenomena. O’Brien’s observations of his victim lying on the side of the road—his jaw in his throat and his upper lip gone—emphasize the unnaturalness of war amid nature. The contrast of images is an incredibly ironic one that suggests the tragedy of death amid so much beauty. However, the presence of the butterfly and the tiny blue flowers also suggests that life goes on even despite such unspeakable tragedy. After O’Brien killed the Vietnamese soldier, the flowers didn’t shrivel up, and the butterfly didn’t fly away. They stayed and found their home around the tragedy. In this way, like the story of Curt Lemon’s death, “The Man I Killed” is a story about the beauty of life rather than the gruesomeness of death."

Find contrasting images of beauty and gore in the chapter. Do you agree with this analysis?
Where else in the novel do you find images of the beauty of life contrasted with the gruesomeness of death?

Group B:

Again, from Spark notes:

“The Man I Killed” sets up ideas that are addressed in “Ambush,” just as “The Things They Carried” sets up ideas that are addressed in “Love.” The refrains of “The Man I Killed,” such as “he was a short, slender man of about twenty,” are constant, adding to the continuity of the storytelling. Unlike “The Man I Killed,” which seems to take place in real time, “Ambush” is already a memory story—one with perspective, history, and a sense of life’s continuation. As such, O’Brien uses his narrative to clear up some of the questions that we might have about the somewhat ambiguous version of the story in “The Man I Killed.” But O’Brien’s memory is crystal clear. He remembers how he lobbed the grenade and that it seemed to freeze in the air for a moment, perhaps indicating his momentary regret even before the explosion detonated. He has a clear vision of the man’s actual death that he probably could not have articulated so close to the occurrence. O’Brien’s simile about the man seeming to jerk upward, as though pulled by invisible wires, suggests that the actions of the men in Vietnam were not entirely voluntary. They were propelled by another power outside of them—the power of guilt and responsibility and impulse and regret.

Where else in the novel do you find references to the power of guilt , responsibility and regret?

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong and The Man I Killed and Ambush

Post discussion questions

Finish your group discussion about "The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong" (see questions below) and post your comments here.

Here's another link to practice AP multiple choice questions. See how you do with this.

testprep.sparknotes.com/testcenter/ap/english/

Reading of O'Brien's "The Things They Carried"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnNMUYJ9fm8

Tim O'Brien and author Tobias Wolff

http://vimeo.com/19413281

A Reading:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE6e0YyUIA8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG3L0DMeTsE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ivNokqT74&feature=related
play at 18:00 "Ambush"

Monday, September 17, 2012

A Soldier's Sweetheart 9/18

Tuesday, 9/18

View A Soldier's Sweetheart
http://blip.tv/lostin24/a-soldier-s-sweetheart-part-1-of-3-2467255

Magic Realism and The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong

Magic Realism

"My most important problem was destroying
the lines of demarcation that separates what
seems real from what seems fantastic"
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A narrative technique that blurs the distinction between fantasy and reality. It is characterized by an equal acceptance of the ordinary and the extraordinary. Magic realism fuses (1) lyrical and, at times, fantastic writing with (2) an examination of the character of human existence and (3) an implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite.

Characteristics of Magical Realism
Hybridity—Magical realists incorporate many techniques that have been linked to post-colonialism, with hybridity being a primary feature. Specifically, magical realism is illustrated in the inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural, and Western and indigenous. The plots of magical realist works involve issues of borders, mixing, and change. Authors establish these plots to reveal a crucial purpose of magical realism: a more deep and true reality than conventional realist techniques would illustrate.
Irony Regarding Author’s Perspective—The writer must have ironic distance from the magical world view for the realism not to be compromised. Simultaneously, the writer must strongly respect the magic, or else the magic dissolves into simple folk belief or complete fantasy, split from the real instead of synchronized with it. The term "magic" relates to the fact that the point of view that the text depicts explicitly is not adopted according to the implied world view of the author. As Gonzales Echevarria expresses, the act of distancing oneself from the beliefs held by a certain social group makes it impossible to be thought of as a representative of that society.
Authorial Reticence—Authorial reticence refers to the lack of clear opinions about the accuracy of events and the credibility of the world views expressed by the characters in the text. This technique promotes acceptance in magical realism. In magical realism, the simple act of explaining the supernatural would eradicate its position of equality regarding a person’s conventional view of reality. Because it would then be less valid, the supernatural world would be discarded as false testimony.
The Supernatural and Natural—In magical realism, the supernatural is not displayed as questionable. While the reader realizes that the rational and irrational are opposite and conflicting polarities, they are not disconcerted because the supernatural is integrated within the norms of perception of the narrator and characters in the fictional world.
english.emory.edu/Bahri/MagicalRealism.html

DISCUSSION GROUPS:
HMWK: POST A COMMENT TO THE INTERPRETIVE QUESTIONS Level 2 and Allegorical/Symbolic Question Level 3

"The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"

Level 2: Interpretive questions.
In "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," what transforms Mary Anne into a predatory killer? Does it matter that Mary Anne is a woman? How so? What does the story tell us about the nature of the Vietnam War?

2. The story Rat tells in "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" is highly fantastical. Does its lack of believability make it any less compelling? Do you believe it? Does it fit O'Brien's criteria for a true war story?

3. Find three symbols in this chapter and explain them.

4. Find three specific quotes and scenes from the chapter that illustrate Mary Anne’s change. Also, explain Mary Anne’s transformation. Does she go crazy? Or does she simply change?

5. Explain the whole “cave scene”. What is going on? What has Mary Anne become? Make a list of all of graphic imagery from that scene.

6. Does it matter what happened, in the end, to Mary Anne? Would this be a better story if we knew, precisely, what happened to her after she left camp? Or does this vague ending add to the story? Either way, why?

Level 3 Allegorical/Symbolic Questions What does this short story tell the reader about the nature of humanity? About war?

Basic Level I Reading Comprehension Questions
1. What was Rat’s reputation among the men of Alpha Company, when it came to telling stories?
2. What does Rat insist about his story in this chapter?
3. What was the military discipline like at the outpost?
4. Who were the Greenies and what were they like?
5. Who did Mark Fossie bring to the outpost?
6. What was their plan together, since elementary school?
7. What does Rat say are the similarities between Mary Ann and all of them?.
8. What did Mary Anne begin to do when casualties came in?
9. Where had Mary Anne been the first time she stayed out all night?
10. How did she change as a result of her conversation with Fossie the next morning?
11. How did she respond to Fossie’s arrangements to send her home?
12. When and under what circumstances did Rat see her next?
13. On pg. 106, what is Mitchell Sanders’ attitude about Rat’s way of telling a story?
14. What does Rat have to say about the soldiers attitude toward women?
15. What did the Rat, Fossie, and Eddie find when they entered the Greenies hootch?
16. What kind of jewelry was Mary Anne wearing?
17. What does Mary Anne tell Fossie about his presence in Vietnam?
18. What does Mary Anne say she wants to wants to do with Vietnam?
19. At the bottom of pg. 113, what does Rat say about "the girls back home"?
20. What is the metaphor that Rat uses to explain Mary Anne’s experience with Vietnam?

Literary Terms #2 Quiz Friday

Week #2 Literary Terms and Vocabulary

On the Rainy River 9/17

Discussion "On the rainy river"

On the Rainy River slides:

http://www.curriculumcompanion.org/public/lite/mcdougalLittell/ml10/pdf/ml10_u4p2_rainy.pdf

Adrienne Rich, "Diving Into the Wreck"
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15228

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

The id, the ego, the super ego: Freud's theory

http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/personalityelem.htm

A thought about symbolism: Elroy's role (from Shmoop)

On the Rainy River

So, O'Brien didn't really work in a meatpacking plant the summer before he went to Vietnam, and he didn't go up to the Canadian border to try to get away from the war and then chicken out and return home. It's a symbol for his mental state at the time. He can't get the nightmarish idea of slaughter out of his head – it's all he can think about – and so he thinks about running away. He's on the edge. Eventually, though, he backs off the edge. He doesn't go to Canada.
Elroy Berdahl is an important symbol in all of this, as O'Brien explicitly states:
He was the true audience. He was a witness, like God, or like the gods, who look on in absolute silence as we live our lives, as we make our choices or fail to make them. (On the Rainy River.74)
If Berdahl is God (or your deity of choice – atheists, feel free to use the universe as a stand-in), then God is ambivalent here. He doesn't push Tim to make one choice or another, and he doesn't judge Tim either way. He's simply there, watching, and his presence is felt.

In small groups, please discuss "On a Rainy River":

(1) How do the opening sentences prepare you for the story: "This is one story I've never told before. Not to anyone"? What effect do they have on you, as a reader?

(2) Why does O'Brien relate his experience as a pig declotter? How does this information contribute to the story? Why go into such specific detail?

(3) What is Elroy Berdahl's role in this story? Would this be a better or worse story if young Tim O'Brien simply headed off to Canada by himself, without meeting another person?

(4) At the story's close, O'Brien almost jumps ship to Canada, but doesn't: "I did try. It just wasn't possible" (61). What has O'Brien learned about himself, and how does he return home as a changed person?

(5) Why, ultimately, does he go to war? Are there other reasons for going he doesn't list?

Questions for discussion:

Why is the first story told in the third person? What effect does it have on you as a reader to then switch to the first person in “Love”? O’Brien also uses the second person in this collection. For example, in “On the Rainy River,” the narrator, trying to decide whether to accept the draft or become a draft dodger, asks: “What would you do?” (page 56). Why does the author use these different perspectives?

Who is Elroy Bendahl, and why is he “the hero of [the narrator’s] life” (page 48)?

At the end of "On the Rainy River," the narrator makes a kind of confession: "The day was cloudy. I passed through towns with familiar names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie, and then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and then home again. I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war" (61). What does this mean?

Here is the website for The Big Read with lots of interesting information and a 28 minute radio interview with Tim O'Brien:
www.neabigread.org/books/thethingstheycarried/radioshow.php

HMWK: For tomorrow, "The Dentist" and Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong"

Friday, September 14, 2012

Epigraph John Ransom Andersonville

1. There is an epigraph at the beginning of the text. What is an epigraph? How do writers use them? This epigraph is a citation from John Ransom's Andersonville Diary. Who was he? What was Andersonville? Who "wrote" or "edited" the Diary? Given what you discover about the epigraph and what it introduces, what do you think it accomplishes?

John L. Ransom was born in 1843. He joined the Union Army during the American Civil War in November 1862 and served as Quartermaster of Company A, 9th Michigan Volunteer Cavalry.

In 1863 Ransom was captured in Tennessee and taken to Andersonville, Georgia. During his imprisonment he kept a diary of his experiences. On the 6th July, 1864 he wrote: "Boiling hot, camp reeking with filth, and no sanitary privileges; men dying off over 140 per day. Stockade enlarged, taking in eight or ten more acres, giving us more room, and stumps to dig up for wood to cook with. Jimmy Devers has been a prisoner over a year and, poor boy, will probably die soon. Have more mementos than I can carry, from those who have died, to be given to their friends at home. At least a dozen have given me letters, pictures, etc., to take North."

The Confederate authorities did not provide enough food for the prison and men began to die of starvation. The water became polluted and disease was a constant problem. Of the 49,485 prisoners who entered the camp, nearly 13,000 died from disease and malnutrition.

In August, 1865 President Andrew Johnson give his approval for Henry Wirz, the commandant of Andersonville, to be charged with "wanton cruelty". Wirz appeared before a military commission headed by Major General Lew Wallace on 21st August, 1865.

Wirz was found guilty on 6th November and sentenced to death. He was taken to Washington to be executed in the same yard where those involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln had died. Alexander Gardner, the famous photographer, was invited to record the event. The execution took place on the 10th November. The gallows were surrounded by Union Army soldiers who throughout the procedure chanted "Wirz, remember, Andersonville."

John L. Ransom's book, Andersonville Diary, was published in 1881. He died at the age 76 years on 23rd September 1919 in Los Angeles County.

(1) John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary (July, 1864)

6th July: Boiling hot, camp reeking with filth, and no sanitary privileges; men dying off over 140 per day. Stockade enlarged, taking in eight or ten more acres, giving us more room, and stumps to dig up for wood to cook with. Jimmy Devers has been a prisoner over a year and, poor boy, will probably die soon. Have more mementos than I can carry, from those who have died, to be given to their friends at home. At least a dozen have given me letters, pictures, etc., to take North. Hope I shan't have to turn them over to someone else.

7th July: Having formed a habit of going to sleep as soon as the air got cooled off and before fairly dark. I wake up at 2 or 3 o'clock and stay awake. I then take in all the horrors of the situation. Thousands are groaning, moaning, and crying, with no bustle of the daytime to drown it.

9th July: One-half the men here would get well if they only had something in the vegetable line to eat. Scurvy is about the most loathsome disease, and when dropsy takes hold with the scurvy, it is terrible. I have both diseases but keep them in check, and it only grows worse slowly. My legs are swollen, but the cords are not contracted much, and I can still walk very well.

10th July: Have bought (from a new prisoner) a large blank book so as to continue my diary. Although it is a tedious and tiresome task, am determined to keep it up. Don't know of another man in prison who is doing likewise. Wish I had the gift of description that I might describe this place.

Nothing can be worse kind of water. Nothing can be worse or nastier than the stream drizzling its way through this camp. And for air to breathe, it is what arises from this foul place. On al four sides of us are high walls and tall tress, and there is apparently no wind or breeze to blow away the stench, and we are obliged to breathe and live in it. Dead bodies lay around all day in the broiling sun, by the dozen and even hundreds, and we must suffer and live in this atmosphere.

12th July: I keep thinking our situation can get no worse, but it does get worse every day, and not less than 160 die each twenty-four hours. Probably one-forth or one-third of these die inside the stockade, the balance in the hospital outside. All day and up to 4 o'clock p.m., the dead are being gathered up and carried to the south gate and placed in a row inside the dead line. As the bodies are stripped of their clothing, in most cases as soon as the breath leaves and in some cases before, the row of dead presents a sickening appearance.

At 4 o'clock, a four or six mule wagon comes up to the gate, and twenty or thirty bodies are loaded onto the wagon and they are carried off to be put in trenches, one hundred in each trench, in the cemetery. It is the orders to attach the name, company, and regiment to each body, but it is not always done. My digging days are over. It is with difficulty now that I can walk, and only with the help of two canes.

(2) Some captured Union Army prisoners in Andersonville began stealing from fellow inmates. Henry Wirz gave instructions for the men to be arrested and tried. John L. Ransom recorded in his diary how six of the men were executed.

This morning, lumber was brought into the prison by the Rebels, and near the gate a gallows erected for the purpose of executing the six condemned Yankees. At about 10 o'clock they were brought inside by Captain Wirtz and some guards. Wirtz then said a few words about their having been tried by our own men and for us to do as we choose with them. I have learned by inquiry their names, which are as follows: John Sarsfield, 144th New York; William Collins, 88th Pennsylvania; Charles Curtiss, 5th Rhode Island Artillery; Pat Delaney, 83rd Pennsylvania; A. Munn, U.S. Navy and W.R. Rickson of the U.S. Navy.

All were given a chance to talk. Munn, a good-looking fellow in Marine dress, said he came into the prison four months before, perfectly honest and as innocent of crime as any fellow in it. Starvation, with evil companions, had made him what he was. He spoke of his mother and sisters in New York, that he cared nothing as far as he himself was concerned, but the news that would be carried home to his people made him want to curse God he had ever been born.

Delaney said he would rather be hung than live here as the most of them lived on the allowance of rations. If allowed to steal could get enough to eat, but as that was stopped had rather hang. He said his name was not Delaney and that no one knew who he really was, therefore his friends would never know his fate, his Andersonville history dying with him.

Curtiss said he didn't care a damn only hurry up and not be talking about it all day; making too much fuss over a very small matter. William Collins said he was innocent of murder and ought not be hung; he had stolen blankets and rations to preserve his own life, and begged the crowd not to see him hung as he had a wife and child at home.

Collins, although he said he had never killed anyone, and I don't believe he ever did deliberately kill a man, such as stabbing or pounding a victim to death, yet he has walked up to a poor sick prisoner on a cold night and robbed him of blanket, or perhaps his rations, and if necessary using all the force necessary to do it. These things were the same as life to the sick man, for he would invariably die.

Sarsfield made quite a speech; he had studied for a lawyer; at the outbreak of the rebellion he had enlisted and served three years in the army, being wounded in battle. Promoted to first sergeant and also commissioned as a lieutenant. He began by stealing parts of rations, gradually becoming hardened as he became familiar with the crimes practised; evil associates had helped him to go downhill.

At about 11 o'clock, they were all blindfolded, hands and feet tied, told to get ready, nooses adjusted, and the plank knocked from under. Munn died easily, as also did Delaney; all the rest died hard, and particularly Sarsfield, who drew his knees nearly to his chin and then straightened them out with a jerk, the veins in his neck swelling out as if they would burst.

Collins' rope broke and he fell to the ground, with blood spurting from his ears, mouth and nose. As they was lifting him back to the swinging-off place, he revived and begged for his life, but no use, was soon dangling with the rest, and died hard.

Characters in How to Tell a True War Story

How to Tell a True War Story: Characters

Stink Harris
Stink Harris has a very small role in this story, although he figures in other stories in The Things They
Carried.

Dave Jensen
Dave Jensen is a minor character in this story, a fellow member of Tim’s platoon.

Rat Kiley
Rat Kiley is another member of Tim’s platoon. The story opens with Tim telling the story of how Rat wrote a letter to the sister of Curt Lemon, one of Rat’s buddies who was killed. The sister never writes back and Rat calls her a ‘‘dumb cooze.’’ A second story involving Rat concerns a ‘‘baby VC water buffalo.’’ The event occurs soon after Curt’s death. The platoon captures the buffalo and takes it with them. However, when it refuses to eat the food Rat offers it, Rat begins shooting the buffalo. The narrator attributes this action to Rat’s grief and anger over the death of his friend.

Kiowa
Kiowa is a Native American member of Tim’s platoon. His role in this story is limited to helping Dave Jensen throw what is left of the baby water buffalo in the village well. However, in other stories in The Things They Carried, Kiowa is a central figure.

Curt Lemon
Curt Lemon is a member of Tim’s platoon who dies. The story of his death is woven through this story and throughout the entire collection of stories that make up The Things They Carried. Curt and his friend Rat Kiley were playing with smoke grenades when Curt stepped on a rigged 105 mm. artillery round. Tim tells the story over and over, trying to describe Curt’s ascent into the trees. Curt’s role in the story is as ‘‘the dead guy.’’ His death offers an illustration of the difference between happeningtruth and seeming-truth. The happening-truth is, of course, that he is killed in an explosion. The seeming- truth, however, is that somehow the sunlight lifts him up into the trees.

Tim O’Brien
Although the first person narrator of the story has the same name as the author (the narrator is not named in this story; readers learn this information from other stories in O’Brien’s The Things They Carried), readers should not confuse the two. The author has deliberately created a fictional persona to tell this story. Like the author, the narrator Tim is a white male writer in his mid-forties, recalling his time as a soldier in Vietnam. He alternates between commenting on the construction of ‘‘true’’ war stories and memories that illustrate his points. Indeed, Tim’s first words in the story are ‘‘This is true.’’ Tim serves as the chief storyteller in the story, although he reports on stories he has heard from his comrades. Repeatedly, however, Tim points out to the reader those characteristics that identify a war story as true. At the same time, however, he also contradicts and changes his stories. Just as his opening words are ‘‘This is true,’’ he later tells the reader that ‘‘None of it happened. None of it.’’ Likewise, although he claims that this is a story about war stories, in the final paragraph he tells the reader, ‘‘And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war.’’

Mitchell Sanders
Another member of Tim’s platoon, Mitchell Sanders, tells the story of a patrol that goes up into the
mountains to spend a week listening for enemy movement. What they hear, however, is not enemy
movements, but a whole host of other sounds, including a glee club, a Chinese opera, and a cocktail party. He swears that the episode is true. Later in the night he returns to tell Tim the moral of the story, although Tim has just told the readers that a true war story has no moral. Even later in the night, Mitchell returns once again to Tim to tell him that he had to make up a few things in order to make the story true. Nevertheless, within the story, Tim presents Mitchell Sanders as a reliable narrator.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

How to Tell a True War Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPi8EQzJ2Bg

Read over the following summaries and analysis of "How to Tell a True War Story." Then discuss with your group the key questions posted in red. As a group find passages in the story that show the distinction between "happening truth" and "story truth". Post a group comment reflecting the key points of your discussion and passages you may want to refer to later in your paper. Why are ambiguity and paradox so important to the telling of these stories about the Vietnam War?

Memory and Reminiscence
Because ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story’’ is written by a Vietnam War veteran, and because Tim O’Brien has chosen to create a narrator with the same name as his own, most readers want to believe that the stories O’Brien tells are true and actually happened to him. There are several reasons for this. In the first place, O’Brien’s so-called memoir, If I Die In a Combat Zone, contains many stories that find their way into his later novels and short fiction. Thus, it is difficult for the reader to sort through what is memory and what is fiction.
There are those, however, who would suggest that this is one of O’Brien’s points in writing his stories. Although most readers would believe that their own memories are ‘‘true,’’ this particular story sets out to demonstrate the way that memories are at once true and made up.
Further, as O’Brien tells the reader in ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story,’’ ‘‘You’d feel cheated if it never happened.’’ This is certainly one response to O’Brien’s story. Readers want the stories to be true in the sense that they grow out of O’Brien’s memory. O’Brien, however, will not let the reader take this easy way out. Instead, he questions the entire notion of memoir, reminiscence, and the ability of memory to convey the truth.

Truth and Falsehood
Certainly, the most insistent theme in this story is that of truth and falsehood. O’Brien, however, would be unlikely to set up such a dichotomy. That is, according to ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story,’’ truth is not something that can find its opposition in untruth. Rather, according to O’Brien, because war is so ambiguous, truth takes on many guises. Even seemingly contradictory events can both be considered true. O’Brien uses the event of Curt Lemon’s death to make this point. O’Brien knows, for example, that Curt is killed by a rigged 105mm round. However, as the scene replays in his mind, O’Brien sees the event very differently. It seems to him that Curt is killed by the sunlight, and that it is the sunlight that lifts him high into the tree where O’Brien will later have to retrieve Curt’s body parts. Thus O’Brien distinguishes between the truth that happens and the truth that seems to happen.
Moreover, O’Brien likes to play with words and to undermine the logical connection between words. In Western philosophy, it is considered impossible for a word to mean itself and its opposite at the same time. O’Brien demonstrates it may indeed be possible. For example, when he writes, ‘‘it is safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true,’’ he is creating a paradox. If nothing is ever absolutely true, then even that statement cannot be absolutely true. The paradox suggests that while it might be possible to approximate truth, it must be told, as Emily Dickinson once wrote, ‘‘aslant.’’

Perhaps the most disconcerting moment in this tale occurs when O’Brien tells the story of the woman who approaches him after he tells this tale. Most readers assume that O’Brien the author is speaking, and that perhaps he is telling a story of what happened to him after a reading of his fiction. When the woman says she likes the story about the water buffalo, O’Brien is annoyed. Although he does not tell her, he tells the reader that the entire episode did not happen, that it was all made up, and that even the characters are not real.
Readers may be shocked. How could O’Brien have fabricated all of this? Then the reader may realize that O’Brien is playing with the truth again, for if everything in the story is fabricated, then so is the woman who approached him. This play with truth and falsehood provides both delight and despair for the reader who will never be able to determine either truth or falsehood in O’Brien’s stories in the traditional sense. As Stephen Kaplan suggests in Understanding Tim O’Brien, ‘‘[O’Brien] completely destroys the fine line dividing fact from fiction and tries to show . . . that fiction (or the imagined world) can often be truer, especially in the case
of Vietnam, than fact.’’

How to Tell a True War Story: Style
Point of View and Narration
One of the most interesting, and perhaps troubling, aspects of the construction of ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story’’ is O’Brien’s choice to create a fictional, first-person narrator who also carries the name ‘‘Tim O’Brien.’’ Although the narrator remains unnamed in this particular story, other stories in the collection clearly identify the narrator by the name Tim. Further, the other stories in the collection also identify the narrator as a forty-three-yearold writer who writes about the Vietnam War, ever more closely identifying the narrator with the author.
On the one hand, this connection is very compelling. Readers are drawn into the story believing that they are reading something that has some basis in the truth of the writer Tim O’Brien. Further, the authorial voice that links the story fragments together sounds like it ought to belong to the writer.
On the other hand, however, the device allows O’Brien to play with notions of truth and ambiguity. Does the narrator represent the author? Or do the narrator’s words tell the reader not to trust either the story or the teller? What can be said unequivocally about the Vietnam War? O’Brien’s use of the fictional narrator
suggests that there is nothing unequivocal about the war. Rather, it seems that O’Brien, through his narrator Tim, wants the reader to understand that during war, seeming-truth can be as true as happening-truth.
Ought the reader consider the narrator to be unreliable? After all, after pledging the truth of the story from the very first line, he undercuts that claim by telling the reader at the last possible moment that none of the events in the story happened. While this might seem to point to an unreliable narrator, a narrator who cannot find it in himself to tell the truth, it is more likely that O’Brien is making the point that the entire story is true, it just never happened. This distinction, while frustrating for some readers, is an important one not only for the understanding of ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story’’ but also for the reading of The Things They Carried.

Structure
‘‘How to Tell a True War Story’’ is not structured in a traditional manner, with a sequential narrative that moves chronologically from start to finish. Rather, O’Brien has chosen to use a number of very short stories within the body of the full story to illustrate or provide examples of commentary provided by the narrator.
That is, the narrator will make some comment about the nature of a ‘‘true’’ war story, then will recount a brief story that illustrates the point. These stories within the larger story are not arranged chronologically.
Consequently, the reader learns gradually, and out of sequence, the events that led to the death of Curt Lemon as well as the events that take place after his death.

This structure serves two purposes. In the first place, the structure allows the story to move back and forth between concrete image and abstract reality. The narrator writes that ‘‘True war stories do not generalize.
They do not indulge in abstraction or analysis.’’ Thus, for the narrator to provide ‘‘true’’ war stories, he must provide the concrete illustration. While the stories within the larger story, then, may qualify as ‘‘true’’war stories, the larger story cannot, as it does indulge in abstraction and analysis.

The second purpose served by this back-and forth structure is that it mirrors and reflects the structure of the book The Things They Carried. Just as the story has concrete, image-filled stories within it, so too does the larger book contain chapters that are both concrete and image-filled. Likewise, there are chapters within the book that serve as commentary on the rest of the stories. As a result, ‘‘How to Tell a True War Story’’ provides for the reader a model of how the larger work functions.
The story that results from this metafictional (metafiction is fiction that deals with the writing of fiction or its conventions) structure may seem fragmentary because of the many snippets of the story that find their way into the narrative. However, the metafictional commentary provided by the narrator binds the stories together
just as the chapters of the book are bound together by the many linkages O’Brien provides.