Homework: Read to pg. 219 in The Things They Carried
Figures of Speech
http://grammar.about.com/od/rhetoricstyle/a/20figures.htm
Essay --The Things They Carried
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.
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.
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.
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