Poetry Extended Journal

For my Last Journal I decided to do a research paper on both Billy Collins and Mary Oliver. Since I was at my College orientation on Friday and didn't learn how to write poetry, I decided it would be best to do research rather then attempt writing in a style I don't understand.

Here are the sites I used for research:
http://project1.caryacademy.org/echoes/03-04/Billy_Collins/Defaultcollins.htm
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Billy-Collins
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/278

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/265
http://www.maryoliver.net/biography.html

Collins
William (Billy) Collins was born March 22, 1941 in New York City. All his life he has shown proficiency towardswriting, "From day one, his talents as a writer shined through, as he was able to express his thoughts on paper well throughout grade school" (Khoury). In his lifetime he has received fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and The Guggenheim Foundation. Collin's most well known book is The Best Cigarette, to which he has recorded all thirty-three poems, and released the recording in 1997. He has won a plethora of awards, some of which include; Poetry Magazine's "Poet of the Year" in 1994, Literary Lion of the New York Public Library, and New York State Poet for 2004. His single greatest award was in 2001, when he was named the United States Poet Laureate. Billy Collins is alive today, living in Somers, New York, and a professor at Lehman College. He has also taught at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College. Collins has produced seven published books of poetry; Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Picnic Lightning, The Best Cigarette, The Art of Drowning, Questions About Angels, and The Apple that Astonished Paris.

Oliver
Mary Oliver was born in Maple Heights, Ohio, on September 10, 1935. Oliver never graduated from college, "Oliver attended both Ohio State University and Vassar College" (poets.org). Despite having never earned a college diploma in writing, she has had great sucess. Her first poetry book, "No Voyage, and Other Poems, was published in 1963," (poets.org) and has since published many others. Her repertoire includes; Thirst (2006), Why I Wake Early (2004), Owls and Other Fantasies : Poems and Essays (2003), Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems (1999), West Wind (1997), and White Pine (1994). Oliver's poems tend to shape themselves around the beauty and complexity of nature, and have won her many awards. Her book, New and Selected Poems (1992) won the National Book award. House of Light (1990) won the Christopher Award, and American Primitive (1983) earned Oliver the Pulitzer Prize as well. Not only is Mary Oliver a poet, but she is quite a professional vocalist as well; "Mary Oliver has been writing and performing for twenty-five years" (MaryOliver.net). Mary Oliver is also still alive today, and resides in her house in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she continues to create works of poetic fiction.

Poetry Close Analysis

Mary Oliver's Happiness

For my class discussion poem, I chose Happiness, from Mary Oliver's American Primative. To me, a person who does not have to find hidden "powerful" meaning in each poem, I thought it was just about a bear on her quest to obtain honey, or her quest for happiness. but through classroom discussion, I learned that others felt it was both a spiritual quest for religion, as well as a sexual encounter between two women.

I saw Happiness as just a "she-bear"'s quest for honey; the poem details 'I' whom I assumed to be Mary Oliver, watching a bear in the afternoon. At first the poem seems to have negative meanings, as Oliver details the "Black block of gloom" whilst the bear searches in many trees for honey. Once she obtains her honey, she consumes it's sweetness until "maybe she grew full, or sleepy, or maybe a little drunk." After the bear is full and 'happy', she is described as an enormous bee, "all sweetness and wings" and Oliver describes roses and flowers in a happy tone.

The first point brought up in discussion that suprised me was the poem's sexual connotations. Most of Mary Oliver's poems seem to have sexual innuendos wrapped in them somewhere, I learned after our discussions. After some discussion, Anders brought up the point that this poem's diction seems to describe the sexual portions in a female form. "She lipped and toungued and scooped out in her black nails," is one of the main sexual phrases. Describing the honeycombs as "the tree's soft caves," in freudian theology, implies that the trees are female. The interactions between the she-bear and the female trees, the poem seems to take not only a sexual side, but a lesbian side as well.

Lyndsey Guthrey brought up an idea in discussion that did not provoke much discussion, but I found it very thought-provoking. To her the poem described a spiritual quest to find religion, and the happiness truly finding it brings. This meant a lot to me, as I aslo felt the poem was about a quest. So I re-read the poem, realating it to religion. The beginning of the poem starts with the "bear", or person, in a "black block of gloom," until she found it in the deep in the woods. Upon it's discovery, she "dipped into it among the swarming bees," immersing herself in the religion she has chosen. When she is 'full'y submerged in the religion, she acts as a bee, which I saw as an angel, and "let go of the branches...all sweetness and wings." The she-bear does the leap-of-faith and falling from the tree, ascends into heaven.

I originally enjoyed this poem because I thought it was simple, but through discussion I learned that it was just as deep, if not more so, as most of Mary Oliver's poems in American Primative. Poetry is a form of literature that can read many ways, and for different readers those ways can be entirely different.

Poetry Response Journal

Poetry is something that has proved to be very difficult for me to read. My complete ignorance towards poems was proven to me as I read the first few pages of Mary Oliver's American Primitive, and was surprised that it didn't rhyme at all. I knew poetry didn't have to rhyme every line, but I thought each paragraph was supposed to have some rhyming theme or something. These two books started off as very slow reads for me, with random pauses as the poems jumped lines for seemingly no reason, but as I progressed through them I suppressed my original negativity for poetry and let the words on the page float deeper into my mind.

I will admit that I haven't yet had time to finish the last 20 or so pages of Billy Collins' Picnic, Lighting, though I plan on reading them tomorrow morning in school. I have read more than enough to notice the similarities, as well as the polar opposites, between these two poet's writings.

Billy Collins' poems are for the most part longer than Mary Oliver's, but they typically have deeper meaning as well. In "Victoria's Secret", for example, Collins goes further than just describing himself paging through a catalog, he vividly describes the unhappiness of the models exposed to any and all curious eyes. Collins' writing had the effects of a deeper understanding in some poems, as well as a deeper confusion in others. I really enjoyed reading "What I learned today", where he describes his thinking process as he reads through a single page of an encyclopedia. "I Go Back to the House for a Book" was another interesting poem of Billy Collins that I personally found both very interesting and very confusing. He explains how by changing what he was doing he has split himself into two; the man who chose to grab his book, and "another me that did not bother to go back to the house for a book" (Collins 39). Throughout this poem Collins details his feelings on this person always being just in front of him, and the paradox of him not existing at all simultaneously.

Mary Oliver's poems were much shorter and quicker to read. While Collins' poems seemed to focus on himself and other people and their interactions and reactions with life, Oliver's writing seemed to wrap itself around the beauty (or ugliness) of nature and the animals living in nature. She has many poems about ponds, or beautiful sunrises in the morning, but she also incorporates grotesque imagery of a crow's "wings crumbling like old bark. Feather's falling from your breast like leaves, and your eyes two bolts of lightning gone to sleep" (Oliver 9). For me personally the contrast she uses between different poems, or even in the same poems, has the effect of making me more connected to the text, and I felt like I had a deeper understanding of them. One poem I enjoyed reading entitled "John Chapman", was about a man whom, "Everywhere he went the apple trees sprang up behind him lovely as young girls" (24). Is this Johnny Appleseed from old legends? Why does she call him John Chapman? Another poem is called Chapp's lake, so I'm wondering if the name Chap has some significance to Oliver unknown to me?

After reading these two poem books, I've realized poetry isn't as bad as I thought. I'm not about to go and buy a bunch of poem books necessarily, but I have a better understanding of them now and can appreciate the complexity of them. Some of the poems were confusing and/or boring for me, but quite a few I found to be shockingly interesting. They had vivid imagery describing nature, as well as deeper meanings that go far beyond what is on the pages. Unfortunately, most of my favorite poems that I wanted to keep reading are the shortest, and end abruptly. Overall though, my poetry reading experience turned out much better than I had first expected.

The Sorrow Of War: Extended Journal

For my extended journal I decided to make a poster containing much of the slang and Jargon used by Vietnamese Soldiers as well as Americans. I stumbled accross a "Vietnam War Dictionary" while looking for sources for my Literary Analysis, so it didn't take me long to figure out what I wanted to do. I searched google.com and found a few sites to take definitions from. To pick what words to use and design the poster took about two hours. I found this really interesting especially what opposing sides nicknamed ranks/positions and weapons.

Here are the websites I picked my terms from:

http://www.ktroop.com/language.htm
http://www.imnahastamps.com/military/militaryterms.htm
http://www.vietnamgear.com/glossary.aspx
http://www.angelfire.com/mn/nathanlee/vietnam_dictionary.html

Persepolis: Creative Extended Journal

Persepolis 1.5: The Story of a Plane flight

For my extended journal on Persepolis I wanted to make something creative. Since I also read Persepolis 2, I know that Marji had a hard time adjusting to all the different cultural beliefs and sexuality differences. So I decided to make a comic strip of her plane flight to Austria. The goal of the comic is to get the point across that although Marji was striped of the majority of her childhood innocence at an early age, she is still only fourteen, and has a lot to learn about life outside of the oppressive Iranian regime.

It took me approximately an hour to come up with the idea for this journal and write out a basic script with the details I wanted to include. I am just beginning the process of drawing my comic, and due to my lack of artistic skill, I expect it to take another two or three hours to finish. I don't think it's possible to post it here, and I wasn't planning on presenting it in class, so if anyone is interested in looking at it (or Persepolis 2 for that matter) just let me know and I'll show it to you.

The Sorrow Of War: Reader's Response

The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam by Bao Ninh is a immensely descriptive novel of a Soldier's struggles after spending ten years serving his country during the Vietnam War. The story starts very slowly, with main character Kien in a "Missing in Action Remains-Gathering Team"(3). I was pretty bored for about the first thirty pages of the novel, as his team, consisting of only him and one other person, driving around collecting the long-dead remains of the dead soldiers after the war. Kien starts hallucinating and thinks he sees and hears "Screaming Souls"(7). Scattered in the forest and remaining in the bodies he collects. He sleeps in the back of the truck, in a hammock above the dead bodies. It's no surprise why he gets frequent nightmares, why would he want to sleep above all those bodies? The next thirty to fifty pages detail his hallucinations and bring him to the home of an old acquaintance, who although dead, has a daughter named Lan that vividly remembers him, and the two reminisce on the horrors of the war. Lan wants Kien to stay with her and live out his days, but he knows he must finish this job so he can go back to his hometown.

Finally, on page 56 the true plot line of the story shines through. "When starting this novel, the first in his life, he planned a postwar plot...but relentlessly, his pen disobeyed him. Each page revived one story of death after another and gradually the stories swirled back deep into the primitive jungles of war" (57). This entire book is about the struggle for Kien to write his novel, and how he struggles so painfully with Post-Traumatic Stress. Throughout his book he deals with both the sorrows of war and the sorrows of love.

In his sections detailing the sorrow of war, Ninh's writing resembles Tim O'Brien in that the stories pull you in and make you believe they are real, when there in reality may be little or no truth to the story. As Kien recalls his painful memories of war, they take shape on his random writings. "The sorrows of war and his nostalgia drove him down into the depths of his imagination. From there his writing could take substance" (173). For Kien to be able to write about his experiences, he had to get drunk and write only at night. This is so strange, how is it that he can only write while in an intoxicated tired state of mind? My guess is that it has to do with his conditions in war and being drunk and alone in the dark was the closest post-war way to relive his experiences. "What remained was sorrow, the immense sorrow, the sorrow of having survived. The sorrow of war" (192). As he writes his stories I couldn't help but feel sorry for him; he struggles so much but there is no one there to help him.

As a child, Kien had a lover whom he spent most of his time with. Her name is Phuong, and she is a beautiful young girl. But as the story progresses and Kien must go to war, they realize that their "eternal love" was anything but that. When he returns from the war he finds that his love is sleeping around with other people to fulfill her material needs. She tells Kien that times have changed, and they were never meant for each other. I think this is so sad because they seemed like the perfect couple as children and now, because of what war has done to them, they will never be happy together. Their last conversation before Phuong leaves for good shows how much passion they had had for each other, "'Are you in love?' he said. 'I loved you and only you, Kien. I never loved anyone else. And you?' she asked. 'I still love you,' he replied" (146). This really got me attached to the two lovers who were once so close to each other. Because of what war does to a soldier's heart, "The sorrow of war inside a soldier's heart was in a strange way similar to the sorrow of love....It was a sadness, a missing, a pain which could send one soaring back into the past" (94). If only their love hadn't ended so tragically they could have lived out a happy life together and started a family.

At the end of Sorrow of War Bao Ninh states that he had received all of the manuscripts of Kien's writings from his mute neighbor one day. This really shocked me because the whole time I thought that Kien's stories of war and his struggles with his novel were actually Ninh's struggles, only told in third person so, as Tim O'Brien would put it, "To objectify himself to the experience." I really enjoyed reading this novel. At first it was hard to read with overly long descriptions of the screaming souls and the ghosts Kien saw, but as the story developed and I grew attached to the character of Kien, I really started to enjoy the novel. It was very sad how far Kien had fallen in his life from where he was, and all of the vivid details helped me visualize what it was like for Kien to have to serve in the Vietnam war. This book opened up my eyes to a new perspective of the war; the men I used to consider to be the "bad guys" suffered equally as much if not more than any American "hero" fighting in the same battle.

Persepolis: Close Analysis

"The Revolution is like a bicycle. When the wheels don't turn, it falls. And so went the revolution in my country" (10).

Persepolis: The Story of a childhood by Marjane Satrapi is a book based on Satrapi's own childhood while growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Cultural Revolution in 1980, as well as a plethora of other revolutions in the early years of her life. Throughout Persepolis Marjane writes about the revolutions and how they always fail. She compares the revolutions to a bicycle to show how a revolution needs full support of the population to succeed.

Satrapi's message throughout the book is very simple to understand; without full support of an entire group, a revolution will never succeed. The entire population needs to be behind a single cause if it is to overpower the current system and start something new. This was such a problem in Iran during Marji's childhood, because for every revolution there were people in favor of revolution, and those who would rather keep everything the way it is. During the first cultural revolution in 1980, "The year it became obligatory to wear the veil at school" (3). Right from the start of this revolution, the people were divided over this act of covering a woman's hair. "Everywhere on the streets there were demonstrations for and against the veil" (5). Another example of a disunited people was when the war had started in Iran against Iraq.

"There were two kinds of women. The fundamentalist woman. The Modern women. You showed your opposition to the regime by letting a few strands of hair show. There were also two sorts of men. The Fundamentalist Man: beard, shirt hanging out. The Progressive Man: shaved, with out without mustache, shirt tucked in. Islam is more or against shaving" (75).

Even when the country needed the full support of the population, people still decided to rebel against the common ideals of Iran and the Islamic religion.

Although the revolutions never achieved the unity necessary to succeed, they did make many attempts to sway the population. One such example was when Marji's Father was taking photos of the revolutionaries turning dead victims into Martyrs. Her father explained what he saw, "People came out carrying the body of a young man killed by the army. He was honored like a martyr. A crowd gathered to take him to the Baheshte Zahra cemetery" (31). They tried to rally support by raising these victims to martyr status and persuading the people. Also on page 31-32, they take the body of a man who died of cancer, and not only do they blame his death on their King but they persuade his wife to protest with them.

The government also made attempts to unify the people. Since regular actions did not come close to swaying the people, they had to start taking extreme actions. When girls were walking around alone, they were confronted by men or women who tried to scare them into following the new laws of the revolution. This was especially true for those who weren’t wearing the veil properly or even at all. These men used force and foul language to scare the women, Marji’s mother Ebi told her story to Marji and her father, “Two fundamentalist bastards…they insulted me. They said that women like me should be pushed up against a wall and fucked. And then thrown in the garbage” (74). This was very hard for many women to deal with. Another form of intimidation tactic were fundamentalist women who walked around and punished young girls for breaking the rules. Marji explains the experience when she was yelled at by these women, “Their job was to put us back on the straight and narrow by explaining the duties of Muslim women. ‘Why are you wearing those ‘punk’ shoes? What punk shoes? Those! But these are sneakers! Shut up! They’re punk” (133). Even for something as unimportant as wearing the wrong shoes, the women in this book were forced to comply with the government’s beliefs for fear of bodily harm.

There were also others who didn't stand in a group to aid the revolution, but suffered alone, even giving up their lives for the cause of the revolution. On page 51 is shown the horrible torture of a man who will not confess the hiding place of his comrades and in the end, "they burned him with an iron" (51). Another example of someone who died for the revolution was Marji's uncle Anoosh, who was a supporter of the revolution. He was put into jail multiple times, and in the end was executed under the accusation of being a "Russian Spy" (70).

In Persepolis, there are many people who are both strongly in favor and strongly opposed to the revolutions taking place. With the many different reasons for each revolution to exist, it became very hard for any of them to attain enough popular support for their new ideal to become a reality. Marjane Satrapi wanted to show people how hard it was living in a world full of so much adversity, and that uniting under a common goal was as futile as trying to pedal a bike with wheels that don't turn. She does a great job of conveying this message throughout Persepolis: the Story of a Childhood.

Persepolis: Readers response

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, by Marjane Satrapi, is a very good graphic novel detailing Marjane's own childhood living in Tehran, Iran. I've read comic books before, and even one or two Japanese "Manga" books but I have never read an Graphic noviel in English before. I have to say I really liked the book; both because of the powerful impact it left on me as well as the artisticness of Satrapi. I honestly didn't realize that this story was in part non-fiction besides the historical events; many aspects of this book are actual events in Satrapi's early childhood.
Persepolis really showed me a lot about the culture and lifestyles in Iran during their many revolutions, revolts, and wars. I honestly had no idea that women's wearing of a veil was ever a controversy; I had just assumed it had always been something they did as a part of their religion. But right from the very begginning of this book I could tell that was not so. During Iran's "cultural revolution" the veil caused conflicts. "Everywhere in the streets there were demonstrations for and against the veil" (5). With page 11's "2500 years of tyranny and submission" I really saw all the opression these people have had to deal with. I wondered if these events really happened, and as I looked more at them I realized they probably did. On page 22, Marjane learns that her grandfather was a prince, and pictures him riding on an elephant with a lion chasing after him. This helped me to understand why Marjane had a hard time understanding what was going on; Marjane wanted to "become a prophet...because our maid did not eat with us...Because my father had a cadilac...And, above all, because my grandmother's knees always ached" (6). It is hard for her to understand because she has been living a good life all her life without even realizing it.
Marjane Satrapi is a very religious young girl. Besides wanting to be a prophet when she was young, she had many personal conversations with God throughout the book; from anything faith all the way to "tomorrow the weather is going to be nice" (13). As she is faced with the many evils of life, she pushes God away and he leaves her alone for awhile. But when she starts to feel truely alone God comes back to talk with her. Throughout her life she is faced with many tragic events and scenes, which make her basically skip her childhood. She constantly hears about death and torture, until she is so numb to it she play games involiving it with friends. She is not the only one; the majority of children living in Iran in this time period seem to have lost their childhoods as well.
I thought the sadest part of the whole book involving children growing up too fast was the chapter "the Key". Mrs. Nasrine shows Marjane and her mother a key that her son gave to her. "They gave this to my son at school. They told the boys that if they went to war and were lucky enough to die, this key would get them to heaven" (99). The mother's struggle to accept this along with the traumatic impact of this make this a very powerful section of the book. I couldn't imagining living in a place where your school encouraged you to not only fight but to die for your country to gain access to heaven.
By the end of the book Marjane is only fourteen years old, but she seems like she is a grown up. Her parents decided to send her to a French school in Austria. Marjane rejects the idea at first, "But I'm only fourteen! You trust me?" "You're fourteen and I know how i brought you up. Above all, I trust your education" (147). As Marjane finishes saying goodbye and leaves to get on the plane, she turns one last time to see her mother laying in her father's arms. What happened? What does Marjane mean when she says "I turned around to see them one last time. It would have been better to just go" (153). I'm very confused by this part, and I'm hoping it's made clear in the sequal, which I plan on reading later this week.
I found Persepolis to be much more interesting then I expected. I was entertained by the book and its artwork, while I also gained quite a bit of knowledge about Iranian culture and background. I feel very sympathetic for all of the innocent civilians in Iran that had to suffer not only at the hands of their enemies, but the hands of the overbearing reformists as well.
I am really curious about what happens next in the story now that Marjane is on her way to an Austrian French school. I'm going to read the next book this week and I think for my creative journal I will write a story on what happens between the end of Persepolis: the Story of a Childhood and Persepolis 2: the Story of a Return.

Sula: Extended Journal

For my extended journal for Toni Morrison's Sula, I decided to describe the movie Fight Club. While that may seem to have no connection whatsoever at all, it is actually relative. First of all you have to understand the opinion debated in discussion that Sula and Nel are one and the same person. Growing up, Nel was a girl without any ambitions or feelings. Because of her mother Nel, "became obedient and polite. Any enthusiasms that little Nel showered were calmed by her mother until she drove her daughter's imagination underground" (Morrison 18). But that all changed the day she met Sula; "her new found me-ness, gave her the strength to cultivate a friend in spite of her mother" (19). They had became instantaneous friends are were inseparable from then on. That is where my point comes in that Nel and Sula are alter-egos of each other. According to Freudian Psychology, Nel is the Superego portion of the young girl; responding to morals and trying to please others by behaving and doing what she's expected to do. Sula on the other hand, represents the Id portion; which reeks of lust and other desires that all humans have to some degree. So basically Nel is the 'good girl' and Sula is the 'bad girl' of the same entity.

Now to relate to Fight Club:
http://aram.free.fr/divx/images/fight_club_front.jpg (shows both Brad Pitt and Edward Norton's Characters, the Id and Superego of the single person "Jack" or Tyler Durton)

Fight Club, based off the novel by Chuck Palahnuik, directed by David Fincher, begins with Edward Norton's character, who doesn't really ever have an official name. He is incredibly sleep deprived, and there's nothing that can help him, until he discovers support groups. By crying in front of random people, he can free himself and finally sleep. He gets addicted to support groups, changing his name, identity, and story for each group. That's the first hint that he himself might not know who he really is.

As the movie progresses, He meets Brad Pitt's character, Tyler Durden, on an airplane. After the flight, the main character returns home to find that his apartment has been blown apart. He calls Tyler Durden and ends up living with him in a run-down house. The two start fighting and hitting each other just to see what it feels like, and enjoy doing it. They then fight often after leaving bars, occasionally drawing crowds. Eventually, they get enough people into the fights that they start the actual fight club in the basement of the local bar. This is when the movie really picks up.

1st RULE: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB.
2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about FIGHT CLUB.
3rd RULE: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out the fight is over.
4th RULE: Only two guys to a fight.
5th RULE: One fight at a time.
6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes.
7th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to.
8th RULE: If this is your first night at FIGHT CLUB, you HAVE to fight.
(taken from http://www.diggingforfire.net/FightClub/)

I'm not going to completely ruin the movie, because it is a great movie that I strongly recommend watching to anyone who is interested in strange movies. But basically Edward Norton's character, I'll call him "Jack" is stuck in a rut. An entirely Superego-made rut. He has to be at work, do his job right. All his furniture has to be perfect. Everything in his life must be "single-serving" and organized. All of this changes when he meets Brad Pitt's Tyler Durden. Tyler is very much a completely Id fueled person. He never thinks twice about what his actions do to others; he steals cars, has lots of sex, vandalizes property, contaminates restaurant industries, etc.


*SPOILER* SKIP IF YOU'RE GOING TO WATCH THE MOVIE
At the end of the movie, when "Jack" realizes that he is Tyler Durton, and that this person he has been around for so long is just his "imaginary friend" whose Id takes over the body whenever Jack's Superego loses conscious, such as when he 'sleeps'. Jack finds out that as Tyler Durden, he has organized a terrorist group that is blowing up many gigantic office buildings in the middle of the city. He is doing this to make a point to everyone, based purely off of desire, the Id portion of the brain. Jack realizes the only way to get rid of Tyler is to "kill himself". So he takes a gun, puts it in his mouth, and shoots. Tyler dies, but Jack is only wounded. Why? Because Jack angled the gun, without Tyler's understanding, so that he shot through his cheek, rather than through his head. Although it is too late to save the buildings from being destroyed, Jack destroys his purely Id self and in the process makes his purely Superego self understand that there needs to be a reasonable balance between the two
*END SPOILER*

Fight Club is a very deep, confusing movie, but it is an excellent movie. I'd recommend watching it twice to fully understand what is going on. But from what I understand from the movie Brad Pitt/Tyler Durden is relatable to Sula because of their Id-based decisions. Furthermore, Edward Norton/Jack and Nel both are dominated by their Superego mindsets. I have learned from both Fight Club and Sula that both Id and Superego exist in everyone, but it is very dangerous for the person's mental state if one side overpowers the other. The ideal would be a perfect balance between the two, where one still can have fun, but is smart and thinks logically as well.

Here's a site with many quotes from Fight Club. This moive has a TON of very memorable and interesting quotes: http://imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes Enjoy!

Sula: Close Analysis Journal

War holds a heavy burden for all soldiers. Many people die in war, but they are not the only casualties. There are many good people who survive the war, but because of what they've witnessed they will never be the same again. Tim O'Brien writes how throughout the war, "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide" (O'Brien 21). Having to return to normal society after experiencing the hideous faces of war was not an easy task; for many veterans it proved to be more than they could handle. Both Toni Morrison and Tim O'Brien write about how difficult it is for soldiers to re-enter society after war.

In Toni Morrison's Sula, she writes about the character Shadrack. Shadrack went to war in December of 1917, "a young man of hardly twenty, his head full of nothing and his mouth recalling the taste of lipstick" (Morrison 7). While Shadrack was in war, "he expected to be terrified or exhilarated - to feel something very strong. In fact, he felt only the bite of a nail in his boot" (Morrison 7-8). Eventually Shadrack's experience in war led him to an unknown injury, sending him home to a hospital, "when Shadrack opened his eyes he was propped up in a small bed. Before on a tray was a large tin plate divided into three triangles" (Morrison 8). Because of his violent tendancies, Shadrack was released from the hospital long before he should have been. Once he pulled himself together a little bit, he instituted National Suicide Day, hoping that, "if one day a year were devoted to it, everybody could get it out of the way and the rest of the year would be safe and free" (Morrison 14). After returning from the war, he lived out his days, "in a shack on the riverbank that had once belonged to his grandfather long time dead. On Tuesday and Friday he sold the fish he had caught that morning, the rest of the week he was drunk, loud, obscene, funny and outrageous" (Morrison 15). Needless to say, Shadrack had changed immensly from the man he was before he went to serve his country.

In Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, he shows the struggles of character Norman Bowker once he returns from the Vietnam war. Bowker's most traumatizing experience in war was when his friend, Kiowa, died right next to him. That experience is something Bowker has to "carry" the rest of his life. He survived the war, but when he came back he was not the same; "the war was over and there was no place in particular to go" (O'Brien 137). He wanted his story to be told, maybe in hopes of "objectifying his own experience" (O'Brien 158). Norman writes out his story for Tim O'Brien to write. It is a hard task for Tim to do, and by the time he was able to figure out how to write the story, it was too late. O'Brien got a letter "In August of 1978 [Bowker's] mother sent me a brief note explaining what had happened...he used a jump rope; his friends found him hanging from a water pipe. There was no suicide note" (O'Brien 160). Norman Bowker is Tim's example of a man who physically survived the war, but a part of him still died over in Vietnam and he was never the same again.

Both of the characters Shadrack and Norman Bowker are veterans from a war; Shadrack from WWI, and Bowker from Vietnam. Both of these men are suffering from a mental illness many soldiers succumb to after their time surviving their country: Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (PTSD). Neither of them were treated for it, and because of that they suffered much worse. Shadrack's main symptom of PTSD was hallucinations. Toni Morrison describes how his hands, "began to grow in higgledy-piggledy fashion like Jack's beanstalk all over the tray and the bed" (Morrison 9). These hallucinations cause him to be thrown out of the hospital, so he cannot fully recover ever from his PTSD. Bowker on the other hand, was not wounded in battle. However, his struggle with Survivor's guilt after witnessing his friend die, as well as his other war experiences, he could not adjust back to normal life. His life had moved on without him, "the town seemed remote somehow. Sally was married and Max was drowned and his father was at home watching baseball on national TV" (O'Brien 138). Neither Shadrack nor Norman had anyone close to talk to, so they had very little hope of ever fully recovering from their Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In part because they still suffered from PTSD, both men found it nearly impossible to blend back into everyday life. Shadrack's "drunk, loud, obscene, funny and outrageous"(Morrison 15) behavior bothered many people in the town of Medallion. The people of the town were afraid of Shadrack because; "they knew Shadrack was crazy but that did not mean that he didn't have any sense or, even more important, that he had no power...he caused panic on the first, or Charter, National Suicide Day" (Morrison 14-15). In The Things They Carried, Bowker doesn't cause any panic in his hometown, but he is looked upon as an ignorant old fool by many of the younger residents. When he went to the resturant "Mama Burger"(O'Brien 151), and tried to place his order, the waitress snapped at him, "'You blind?' she said. She put out her hand and tapped an intercom attacted to a steel post. 'Punch the button and place your order. All I do is carry the dumb trays'"(O'Brien 151). These two men who bravely fought for our country should have been respected upon their return, but because of their PTSD, they were deemed outcasts of society.

Both Tim O'Brien and Toni Morrison effectly show how many soldiers suffer from PTSD, and have to live with it for the rest of their lives. Norman Bowker knew that if he expressed his feelings he would feel better, however he did not know who to tell his story to or how to explain it. His frustrations show in Tim's writing; "he wished he could've explained some of this. How he had been braver than he ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be" (O'Brien 153). Shadrack's inability to recover fully from PTSD is in part because he had no one he could confide in and partly because he was not given enough time in the hospital ward to rest. In both Sula and The Things They Carried, it is shown how even when soldiers survive the war, a peice of them dies on the battlefield, and they are incapable to cope with reality once they are thrown back into society.

Sula: Reader Response Journal

Toni Morrison's Sula is a novel about the Black community living in the city of Medallion, in an area called the Bottom, which ironically is a giant hill. Why did Morrison place them on a giant hill in the middle of a white community? To show that the African American community was singled out? The story starts with the character Shadrack, who just got home from WWI, and who is seriously suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He ends up living in isolation, in a run-down shack near the river. He created his own crazy holiday, and "except for World War II, nothing ever interfered with the celebration of Nation Suicide Day. It had taken place every January third since 1920, although Shadrack, its founder, was for many years the only celebrant" (1). What? I don't understand why he made up a holiday called National Suicide Day. Is it foreshadowing that he will kill himself? Anyways the novel Sula primarily focuses on the lives of two young girls, Sula and Nel, whom despite the fact that they were best friends, lived very different lives.

Sula grew up in a very large house that was constantly full of many people. Sula had a very unique look; "Sula was a heavy brown with large quiet eyes, one of which featured a birthmark that spread from the middle of the lid toward the eyebrow, shaped something like a stemmed rose" (52). What significance is this birthmark on her eye, does it matter that it's shaped like a rose? Her grandmother, Eva first built their house and made it bigger as her family grew; she took in many couples of newlyweds, orphans who became known as the "Deweys"(38), brothers, sisters, cousins, her children, and a couple random people all lived in the house. So Sula grew up without a lot of privacy, living in a house where there was always someone around. Sula had no father figure in her life growing up, her grandpa and father had abandoned their wives. Could that have an impact on how she grows up? Because her mom had no husband, and slept around with many men Sula's attitude towards sex was, "that sex was pleasant and frequent but otherwise unremarkable" (44). Does this attitude shape how she acts the rest of her life?

Nel was raised by her mother Helene Wright. I thought it was really interesting how Nel was raised in a similar way to white women who were supposed to grow up to be the perfect wives; "Under Helene's hand the girl became obidient and polite. Any enhusiasms that little Nel showed were calmed by the mother until she drove her daughter's imagination underground" (18). I could tell Helene's strict parenting comes from her mother, when she has Nel meet her grandmother. I was confused when Nel's grandma asked her, "'Comment t'appelle?' 'She doesn't talk Creole.' 'Then you ask her.' 'She wants to know your name, honey.' 'With her head pressed into her mother's heavy brown dress, Nel told her and then asked, 'what's yours?' 'Mine's Rochelle'" (26). Why do they bring up Creole, and what language is it anyways? It seems sort of like French, but i'm not sure. And I found it weird that this is the only time they bring it up.

This book had a lot of death throughout it. The first one was probably the most unexpected; Eva had hopped downstairs one night and entered her son Plum's room. I don't know what was going through her mind or what compelled her to do this but "Eva stepped back from the bed and let the crutches rest under her arms. She rolled a bit of newspaper into a tight stick about six inches long, lit it and threw it onto the bed where the keosene-soaked Plum lay in snug delight" (47). Why does she kill her son, just because he's a wash-out after coming back from the war? Another death in the story that is confusing is that of the little boy named Chicken Little. Sula and Nel were just playing around when he showed up. They played with him for awhile, until Sula swung him around in a circle, and he was laughing and having a good time. He slipped out of Sula's grip and fell into the water. "When he slipped from her hands and sailed away out over the water they could still hear his bubbly laughter" (60-61). He then drowned from being in the water. What I don't understand is why Sula and Nel did nothing to save the boy; if anything they just stood and watched him drown. Speaking of a time when Sula did nothing, She also just stood and watched when her mother caught fire on accident and burnt to death. Eva, who claimed to have never loved her daughter Hannah, risked her life jumping out her fourth story window and almost killing herself to save her daughter.

The other aspect of this book that I found strange was the references to sex. Sula's mother Hannah had sex with many many men, so Sula did the same when she grew up. She even slept with Nel's husband Jude. The book talks a lot about whores, and what they do and how they act. Why such an emphasis on sex? I think the scene where Nel and Sula do some very weird things together. Are they turning things in nature into sex? That's really weird since they are only like twelve years old. Morrison describes the "sex" scene very vividly; "but soon she grew impatient and poked her twig rhymically and intensely into the earth, making a small neat hole that grew deeper and wider with the least manipulation of her twig" (58). Why does she go into this detail on the little girl's interpretation of sex? This part was kind of sick and confusing to me. At the end they fill their holes up with things, "each of them looked around for more debris to throw into the hold: paper, bits of glass, buts of cigarettes, until all of the small defiling things they could find where collected there. Carefully they replaced the soil and covered the entire grave with uprooted grass" (59). What is this supposed to mean? Is it symbolic? I thought that maybe it represented all the junk the put into their lives just to feel like they've filled their life. I think that it is sad that Morrison writes it to show the girls feeling like that at such a young age. Could that be what warps Sula later in her life?

As the book progresses, Nel gets married and Sula leaves town. Why did she leave at a time of her best friend's happiest moment? Was she jealous? Sula then comes back ten years later seemingly rich, and with a terrible new attitude. She sleeps with Nel's husband Jude, ruining their relationship and throwing Nel's life into turmoil. How could she do that to her best friend, doesn't she care at all anymore? She sleeps around with many men just like her mother did, only Sula seems to do it in an even more degrating way. She even puts her grandmother, Eva, into a old folk's home when she doesn't need to be in one just yet. Altogether, the entire town dislikes this "new" Sula and she basically lives in isolation in Eva's old room, her only real romance was with a character named Ajax. When he leaves her and she finds out his actual name was, "Albert Jacks? His name was Albert Jacks? A. Jacks. She had thought it was Ajax. All those years" (135). Sula is torn apart because the only man she ever really loved left her and she realized she never even truely knew who he was. Sula dies one night after a nightmare she had many times where she was engulfed with powder. After her death the town feels grateful at first, but then they feel something like an emptiness once she's gone, "the tension was gone and so was the reason for the effort they had made. Without her mockery, affection for others sank into flaccid disrepair" (153).

The book ends with Shadrack marching out one last time for National Suicide Day, only this time his half-hearted attempt makes the whole town join in, and as they march to the tunnel that was supposed to be built the citizens tear it down and cause a cave-in, which kills many of the characters in the book.
I thought that Toni Morrison's Sula was a very different book. I didn't really care for the book. It was a very dense book to read and I felt that many of the descriptions and added words just distracted the reader from the main part of the book. The plot was hard for me to find and follow, and I was confused most of the time. A good third of the time I spent reading the book was going back and re-reading the section I just read trying to figure out what it meant or why it was in the book at all.

Green Grass, Running Water: Close Analysis Journal

A marriage is a sacred event between a man and a women who have chosen to spend the rest of their lives together. It is something that is supposed to last a lifetime, "till death do us part," as mentioned in the most common wedding vows. It is a union of two people, bringing their families and cultures closer together. This is especially important in multi-cultural relationships, the joining of cultures would lead to a wider understanding of each other and a lessening of racial and prejudiced thoughts. In Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water, instead of understanding and happiness, every relationship between a Native American and a white person leads to unhappiness.

The biggest factor in Green Grass, Running Water that shows King's negative attitude towards mixed marriages is the failure of all relationships that involve whites and Native Americans. Alberta Frank's marriage to the white man named Bob. They first met going to school together at the university, at first their relation ship went very well; after all, "They were married that same year" (91). But as time went on Bob wanted Alberta to drop out of school and work so that he could finish his schooling and once he "had established himself in a good government position," Alberta could go back to university (91). Alberta's reluctance to this idea, as well as Bob's insulting her Indian culture, "you don't want to spend the rest of your life in a tepee, do you?" (92), pushed them towards a divorce the next year. Alberta's parents also had troubles with their relationship; her father Amos was a drunk who beat her mother, Ada, repeatedly. One day Alberta witnessed Amos coming home drunk and was cursing out Ada, "come out here and help me, you old cow" (95). He passed out screaming in the front yard with his pants down. Ada left him out there on the porch with a blanket; the next day Amos was gone. His truck was drove into the lake and Amos had left his wife and family for good.

Another example of a marriage that failed because of a culture clash is Latisha's. She married a man named George Morningstar. From the very beginning, "Latisha had even liked his name. It sounded slightly Indian, though George was American, from a small town in Michigan" (143). When they first met George was a polite man who was curious about Indian culture and always listened intently to Latisha, "It was his one great quality. He made you believe that he was listening, made you believe that he was interested" (145). They spent all their time together and were very happy. Even once they were married it seemed normal and happy at first. But as time went on, George started to become more opinionated and grew distant from Latisha. He stopped listening to her and would just talk and talk about how Americans were so far superior to Canadians. They had their first child, Christian. He had been an only child when they deicided to have more children, in hopes of saving their marriage. They next two children, "Benjamin and Elizabeth were two year apart. Elizabeth had been a suprise. The divorce was not" (213). Latisha had gotten sick of George constantly switching jobs and just acting stupid. Her opinion of him now was that, "George was dull and he was stupid, bone-deep stupid, more stupid than Latisha could ever have guessed whites could be stupid" (213). George had started beating Latisha, for absolutely no reason at all. He then decided to stop working altogether and take care of the kids. Their relationship got worse and worse until, "The next week George left. Just left" (275). King writes another marriage that started happy but because of culture differences ended very badly and left everyone unhappy.

One relationship that actually would have worked out wonderfully Tom King writes it to end in tradgety. Eli Stands Alone had met a wonderful white woman named Karen. She was very open-minded towards his Native American culture, and very interested in learning about it. While Eli had taught her about Indians, Karen had given him book after book to read when he had the time. After a length of time where the two of them got along, they had decided to move in together. They lived at Karen's house since she had more money. After living together for two years, Eli met Karen's parents. They got along very well and had no problem with Eli being Indian. After that went so well, Karen wanted to meet Eli's family, and so he took her to the Sun Dance. Karen was excited to go, "'the Sun Dance!' said Karen. 'I didn't even know you guys still practiced that'" (225). They go to the Sun Dance and Karen has a great time. She was excited to go again, "Karen was full of enthusiasm and plans. They would go back next year. Early. Before the people put up the tepees. They would stay for the entire time, eat in the camp, sleep in the camp. Karen would help Eli's mother and sister" (287). Eli kept putting back going again to the Sun Dance, and Karen was afraid, "'Eli,' Karen asked, 'you're not embarassed or something like that?'' (291). After awhile Karen had stopped bugging Eli about the Sun Dance, but then she got really sick. At first they thought she was pregnant, but actually she was near death from sickness. When she finally was getting better from the sickness, and they knew she'd survive it, Eli and her started planning the rest of their lives together. Then one day, after they had planned on going to the Sun Dance again that summer, they were driving around in their car; "Eli saw the car before Karen did, a dark flash of purple and black, glistening as it came, plunging through the intersection" (382). The driver of that car was drunk and his recklessness cost Karen her life. The fact that King killed Karen, who was in the only multi-cultural relationship in the book that would have been successful, really proves how he doesn't want the cultures to succeed in mixing with each other.

In Tom King's novel, marriage itself is regarded with negative connotation. At the Dead Dog Cafe, a customer asks Latisha, "'Are you married?' asked Jeanette. 'No.' 'Very wise,' said Jeanette" (143). She pushes the question further later while talking to Latisha, "'but you must have been married,' said Jeanette. 'Every woman makes that mistake at least once" (143). In Alberta's case, she has two men in her life, whom she must act carefully around since she says that, "men wanted to be married" (46). And Alberta didn't want that commitment again. King is calling marriage in general a "mistake" throughout the novel.

Green Grass, Running Water, a satire of white culture as well as Christianity, really shows Thomas King's attitude towards the mixing of culture. With all the of the symbolic marriages failing and/or ending in unhappiness, King must feel a sort of contempt towards those who try to force a cultural understanding between white Americans and Native Americans. His writing reflects this in the way that every marriage or relationship with mixed couples ends up in disaster.

Green Grass, Running Water: Extended Journal

For my extended Journal, I decided to research the names of many of the characters in Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water. Since the book is a satire of white culture and Christianity, I thought that by looking into the names of the characters, I would find some interesting information. I searched mainly on www.google.com and used www.wikipedia.com when google wasn't very helpful. I spent between two and three hours to find descriptions for many of the characters in the book. I actually found most of these very interesting and throught provoking. I came up with many possible questions or support to use in discussion tomorrow. I'm considering presenting some of these character descriptions in front of the class on Thursday. Here are the sixteen characters I looked for information on:

The Four Indians: The Lone Ranger, Robinson Crusoe, Ishmael, and Hawkeye

The Lone Ranger – “Hi-yo Silver, Away!” From a popular radio show turned into hit television series, the Lone Ranger is a white Texan Ranger who is known to wear a black mask over his eyes to conceal his identity. He is most commonly seen with his Native American sidekick, Tonto.
Tonto – A Native American who was the sidekick for the Lone Ranger in his popular radio and television series.

Robinson Crusoe – From the Novel Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719. It is a fictional autobiography of Robinson Crusoe, an English castaway who spends 28 years on a remote island as a prisoner. After a while, Robinson Crusoe finds a fellow prisoner of native descent on the island who has escaped the island’s native cannibals. Crusoe re-names his new companion Friday, because he found him on that day of the week. He then teaches Friday English and forces him to convert to Catholicism.

Ishmael – In the Bible, Ishmael is the name of the son of Hagar and Abraham. Originally Abraham had wanted a son, so since his wife Sarah could not have children; Hagar was going to carry their son. But when Sarah became pregnant with Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael were kicked out of Abraham’s house. Ishmael then married an Egyptian woman, with whom he bore twelve sons. Those sons then became the rulers of the Egyptian lands.

Hawkeye – Hawkeye was an American Pioneer who was adopted into a Native American Family. Hawkeye was the name he was called by his adoptive family; he was originally called “Natty” Bumppo. As he lived with them, Chingachgook being his adopted father.

Nathaniel Bumppo – Nathaniel, called “Nasty” Bumppo by his friends is a Post-Colonial Wilderness Guide and Outfitter. He is the Pioneer that becomes adopted into a Native American Family and assumes the alias of Hawkeye.

Chingachgook – Hawkeye’s adopted father. He is a Native American that is mentioned in Green Grass, Running Water as Nasty Bumppo’s friend.


Dr. Joseph Hovaugh – Dr. Joe Hovaugh or “Jehovah” was the doctor in charge of the mental institute the four Indians were held at. Is there possibly some connection with Dr. Hovaugh to “God” in that he is holding those who know Indian culture in a mental institute?
Jehovah – Divine name for God found in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Dr. John Eliot – Assistant or friend of Dr. Hovaugh, who talks with him about his concerns with the escape of the four Indians. In real life, John Eliot is the author of the book; Overachievement: The New Model for Exceptional Performance. The book talks about how to become an overachiever and take one’s performance “to the next level.”

Sergeant Ben Cereno – Police officer in charge of the investigation and he interrogates Babo Jones as well as Dr. Joseph Hovaugh. He seems to be very hot tempered as well as racist and judgmental towards the other characters. In Herman Mellville’s Benito Cereno, Don Cereno is the captain of a ship that had its slaves revolt and kill most of the crew. Don, however, still has to act like the leader so as not to arouse suspicion.

Babo Jones – A cleaning lady, and possibly member, of the mental hospital that Dr. Hovaugh works at. She was interviewed by Segeant Cereno about the disappearance of the four Indians. She seems a bit odd, to put it nicely. In Benito Cereno, Babo is the leader of the revolt and the main person who forces Cereno to remain alive and act as the captain of the ship after it has been taken over.

Jimmy Delano – Sergeant Cereno’s assistant, Delano also interviews Babo after Cereno gives up from frustration. Because he seems to be more patient and understanding, he is able to get a lot of information out of Babo. In Melliville’s short story, the American Captain Delano is the first to suspect something is amiss with Don Cereno’s ship, he finds out the truth that the slaves are actually in charge of the ship and has them re-enslaved; many were even executed.


Alberta Frank – A profession of Native American History at a college in Green Grass, Running Water, Alberta has intimate relationships with two men, Charlie Looking Bear and Lionel, and strongly desires a child, but does not want to get married. The only things I could find when I searched for Alberta frank were things about Alberta, Canada, and the horrible Frank Landslide in Alberta, Canada in the early 20th century.


Clifford Sifton – In Tom King’s novel, he was the man trying to get Eli Stands Alone to move his traditional Native American cabin out of the way of the newly constructed dam. The two build a sort of awkward friendship, but Sifton obviously wants to get Eli to move so the dam can finally be operational. In real life, Clifford Sifton was the main man behind Canadian Immigration Policy in the early 20th century. One of his main goals was to discourage or prohibit immigrants who had little potential of becoming successful rural farmers from entering Canada.


Bill Bursum – The owner of the Television shop in Blossom. He is Lionel’s employer and Charlie’s former employer. I found on the internet that the “Bursum bill” was enacted to settle disputes over land between Native Americans and American expansionists. Opponents of the bill claimed that it would cause the Pueblo Indians to lose more than sixty thousand acres of land. The bill itself threatened to destroy Pueblo Indians and their entire culture altogether.

Green Grass, Running Water: Reader Response Journal

Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King is a satirical novel. Coming from his perspective as a Native American Cherokee, he satirizes a variety of predominately white customs, traditions, and beliefs. His story is very post-modern in the sense that it jumps around; there are at least eight story lines going on simultaneously all at different locations and times, with some characters overlapping, and some staying in their own story. I found this to be very confusing when just as I'm getting interested in a specific story it jumps away and I don't get to hear what happens next for at least another 30 pages sometimes. Sometimes each page will jump back and forth between two stories. It is all very hard to follow, so I used many, many post-it notes to try to keep the stories straight. The book is split into four main sections, each with some writing in Cherokee on a page that separates the different sections. Why does he write that part in Cherokee if it's meant to be read by Americans?

The main characters in the first story are Coyote, a backwards dog; G O D, as well as the character who is telling the story. I thought it was kind of weird how King portrays God as little and annoying, and in response God says "I don't want to be a little god, says that god. I want to be a big god!...'Okay, okay,' says Coyote. ' Just stop shouting.' There, says that G O D. That's better"(3). I didn't like how Coyote and this "I" character, whom I'm assuming is meant to be Thomas King both have quotes, but G O D doesn't. Later in the stories there is an Old Coyote as well as Coyote, and who's who and if they are the same or not is very confusing. I'm still not sure: Are Coyote and Old Coyote the same creature?

The next storyline introduced deals predominately with Lionel, a 40-year-old salesman at a local television store. Norma, Lionel's Aunt, also is in many of his stories, as well as his love interest, Alberta. His stories talk about how, "Lionel had made only three mistakes in his entire life, the kind of mistakes that seem small enough at the time, but somehow get out of hand" (28). He explains these mistakes throughout his stories. The first was getting his tonsils removed, which ended up with a accidental fight to a hospital and a heart condition he never had always haunting his resumes the rest of his life. "The second mistake Lionel made was going to Salt Lake City"(57). He went there for business, but ended up getting caught with the "American Indian Movement"(63), and ended up with a scar on his criminal record for the rest of his life. His third mistake was "taking the job at Bill Bursum's Home Entertainment Barn" (85). This mistake prevented him from furthering his education and got him stuck in a minimum-wage paying job for a good portion of his life. His stories deal with those mistakes, and how he needs to get his life back in order, starting with his birthday, a day when many of the story lines interact. I thought it was kind of funny how all of the mistakes he made ended up so bad because of accidents or being mistakenly associated with a group.

The next storyline in order from the beginning is probably my favorite storyline in the book. It deals with four very old Indians: The Lone Ranger, Ishmeal, Robinson Crusoe, and Hawkeye. Why do none of them have very "Indian" sounding names? It's ironic how they have names of characters from other stories that are all white and main characters, but in this book they are old Indians. Other stories mention that they may be hundreds of years old. But that's not humanly possible. Are they supposed to be like "fore-fathers" of Indian culture? Through each main section of the story, one of the four great Indians tells a story that somehow relates to the Bible.

The Lone Ranger is the first narrator, and he tells the story of First women. This is a satire of the creation story in the Bible, and to prove that the first man is "Ahdamn"(40). It is supposed to be Adam in the Bible. Was it intention for his name to sound like "Ah, Damn"? Then as the story continues they are "First women's garden"(40). There are many satires in the garden, from "all sorts of good things to eat fell out of that Tree. Apples fall out. Melons fall out. Bananas fall out. Hot dogs. Fry bread, corn, potatoes. Pizza. Extra-crispy fried chicken"(41); to G O D running around and yelling "Bad business!...You got to put all that stuff back, that G O D tells First Women" (72). Why does he make weird things fall out of the tree like fried chicken? And why does First Women purposefully leave the garden? In the Bible it's supposed to be a safe haven. Is Thomas King showing his perspective of white culture here? When Ahdamn and First Woman leave the garden there are some rangers that appear. The rangers are trying to take them, but then "[First Woman] takes some black cloth out of her purse. She cuts some holes in that black cloth. She puts that black cloth around her head. Look, look, all the live rangers says, and they point their fingers at First Woman. It's the Lone Ranger. Yes, they says, it is the Lone Ranger"(75). Why do they fall for that trick? Is King hinting that whites are stupid or easily fooled? Anyways, they are able to escape because she says that Ahdamn is her Indian side-kick, Tonto. After the rangers leave, she takes her mask of. But then a group of soldiers capture them before she can put her mask on and they take them to Florida. Once in the prison with many other Indians, First Woman puts on her mas again. "It's the Lone Ranger, the guards short. It's the Lone Ranger, they shout again, and they open the gate. So the Lone Ranger walks out of the prison, and the Lone Ranger and Ishmael and Robinson Crusoe and Hawkeye head west" (106). This ends the Lone Ranger (as narrator) and First Woman's part of the novel.

The next story is narrated by Ishmael. His story using Changing Woman, instead of First woman. Does this mean there will be four women; one for each male Indian? Is there some connection between the Indians and the women they tell the story of? Changing Woman starts in the sky world, but she keeps looking at her reflection in the water below. Why does he have the two worlds separate, is it supposed to represent heaven and earth? Once she looks over a little too far and falls out of the sky. She lands on a canoe, on top of Old Coyote. So is Old Coyote in the story, and Coyote is just watching? This section is now a satire of Noah's Arc, another Biblical reference. Why does he keep insulting the Bible? Maybe he finds our stories ridiculous, just like many people would probably find the stories about the Native American Gods? This story has many words and descriptions that are very crude. She see that, "there is poop all around the canoe. That canoe isn't all white, either, I can tell you that" (159). The animals on board the canoe make crude jokes about farting as well. Worst of all is when she meets Noah, he is a crude horny pervert, one of the first things he says is "Lemme see your breasts, says Noah. I like women with big breasts. I hope God remembered that" (160). Does Tom King write all these crude things to depict white men as dirty and crude? Noah constantly chases Changing Woman, trying to get her; "Time for procreating, shouts Noah" (161). They wind up on an island, and Changing Woman talks with Old Coyote. He tells Changing Woman about rules that Noah has, "Rules, says Changing Woman. What rules? Well, says that Old Coyote, Noah has these rules. The first rule is Thou Shalt Have Big Breasts. And Noah's wife had small breasts? says Changing Woman. No, says Old Coyote, she had great big breasts. Ah, says Changing Woman. It makes sense when you think about it, says Old Coyote" (162). Why does he insult the ten commandments? I noticed how the great big breasts didn't follow Noah's rules: both too much and/or too little of something are considered bad things. Is that another one of King's views on Christianity? After that he shouts to Changing Woman as he leaves he behind on the island, "this is a Christian ship, he shouts. I am a Christian man. This is a Christian journey. And if you can't follow our Christian rules, then you're not wanted on the voyage" (163). Yet another insult towards Christianity from King? She's stranded on the island for awhile, until Ahab runs into her. Why does he use Ahab from Moby Dick in his story? He lets Changing Woman on his ship, and tells her about his hunt for Moby Dick, the great white whale. She talks to one of the men on the ship, who says his name is Ishmael. He tries to give Changing Woman the name Queequeg. Is that the name of a Native American in Moby Dick? Changing Woman asks Ahab why he is hunting this whale and his response is; "this is a Christian world, you know. We only kill things that are useful or things that we don't like" (219). Then Coyote says that Ahab kind of looks like G O D around the eyes. Is Tom saying that he thinks that's how God views people on Earth? The crew sees a black whale, and they all shout, "Blackwhaleblackwhateblackwhalesbianblackwhalesbianblackwhalesbianblackwhale" (220). Why do they say blackwhaLESBIAN? And why is it hidden inside the jumble of words, is Tom King trying to make it a hidden message? So Changing Woman goes to this great black whale she has called Moby-Jane, and the two of them swim away from Ahab's ship, after she punches a hole in it. The two of them go to Florida. On the way Tom makes erotic suggestions in his writing. Is that why he says lesbian before? Is there something between Changing Woman and Moby-Jane? I tried to find a meaning in there, but it just confused me. When she gets to Florida and Moby-Jane leaves, a bunch of soldiers show up to take her to prison. What do these soldiers signify? She says her name is Ishmael, and don't believe her and take her to Fort Marion. Isn't that the same place they took the Lone Ranger too? I bet all the Indians meet up there at the ends of their stories.

It's Robinson Crusoe's turn to narrate the story next. His story starts with the new woman Thought Woman. She comes up to a river that persuades her to wade into the middle of it. Coyote seems like he doesn't like the river when he says, "'I don't like the sound of that.' 'Maybe the river reminds you of someone,' I say" (255). Why does he have this 'I' character bring that up? Who is Thomas King trying to have the water represent? I have no idea. Thought Woman falls asleep in the river, and the river brings her all the way to the end, where she then floats in the ocean for a long time. "Three months. Six months. Nine months. You get the idea" (298). Why does she float for so long? She finally floats onto an island, where she meets A.A. Gabriel. Arch Angel Gabriel, another Biblical reference? He gives her a business card that sings "Hosanna da, hosanna da, hosanna da"(298). The 'I' character says "you got the wrong song...this song goes 'Hosanna da, our home on Natives' land'" (299). Our home on Natives' land. Did King put that in here as another stab at the white, Christian, man for landing in the new world and stealing the Natives' land? A.A. Gabriel opens his briefcase and goes through a process with Thought Woman of filing out forms and getting things in order between them. After his questioning, he lays her down and tries to procreate with her. Why does he use this idea again to show the white man's crudeness? King abuses the Hail Mary prayer, sacred to Catholics, when he writes this scene of Gabriel taking advantage of Thought Woman. Why does he do that? Thought Woman escapes Gabriel, and he shouts that, "we can always find another one[Mary], you know" (301). She floats away again until she runs into an island, who tells her that Robinson Crusoe is on the island. He has been alone on the island, making lists of good things and bad things. When he sees Thought Woman, he rejoices, "Thank God! says Robinson Crusoe. It's Friday" (325)! He calls her Friday, yet another Indian sidekick? King has another view of white culture when he writes, "under the bad points, says Robinson Crusoe, as a civilized white man, it has been difficult not having someone of color around whom I could educate and protect" (325). He thinks that all white people believe that they are superior to all peoples of other skin colors. Thought Woman floats away from Robinson Crusoe, making lists of her own and acting like him. Coyote thinks up and creates Soldiers with flowers in their hair. When Thought Woman floats to Florida those soldiers are there and they blame her for putting flowers in their hair, because she's Indian. She claims to be Robinson Crusoe, but they arrest her and send her to Fort Marion, where the other Indians are.

The last story of the four Indians is told by Hawkeye, and it relates to Old Woman. She's looking for good things to eat. She finds a Tender Root to eat, but it crawls back into its hole when she goes to eat it. What significance does that Root and the Tree have? She chases the Root, digging with a stick until her hole is so big she falls into the sky. When Coyote tries to tell the next part of the story, he shouts out other biblical events, including, "a fiery furnace," and "a manger" (386). Is this to relate it to the Bible for another story? After all that she falls into the water, and she sees something. Coyote shouts out more biblical things, "a pillar of salt," and "a burning bush" (387). she actually "sees a man. Young man. A young man walking on water" (387). That's supposed to represent Jesus, son of God. He's looking for a boat, and Old Woman finds it first. He pretends that he doesn't know she saw it, and when he sees it he approaches it. There are strong waves around the boat and the boat is rocking hard. The Young Man Walking On Water explains what he'll do; "I am now going to walk across the water to that vessel. I am going to calm the seas and stop all the agitation. After that, I will rescue my...my...ah..." (388-389). Why can't he remember who his disciples are? He yells at the waves to calm down and the boat to stop rocking, but it doesn't work. So the Old Woman sings to the waves and they boat, and they calm down. The men see that she saved them, but Young Man Walking On Water Tries to take the credit, and eventually they believe him and go away with him, while Old Woman floats away. Why did Tom make this character that's supposed to be Jesus so close-minded? Was that to symbolize Christians in general being very close-minded and accepting of other cultures? Old Woman floats around for a long time, until she winds up in a lake and meets "Nathaniel Bumppo, Post-Colonial Wilderness Guide and Outfitter" (433). He calls Old Woman Chingachgook, his Indian friend. The fourth Indian friend for the fourth Indian story? Nasty (Nathaniel) Bumppo characterizes whites and Indians, and Old Woman fits in both categories. Did King write this to show that whites and Indians have more in common then many close-minded people think? Nasty Bummpo wants to shoot Old Coyote when he walks by, but he leaves, so then he wants to shoot Old Woman. But then he gets shot himself and blames it on Old Woman. He wants to give her a killer name, so he says; "how about Daniel Boone?...How about Harry Truman?...Arthur Watkins?...Here we go...Hawkeye. That's a good name. Hawkeye" (437). She is about to question the name Hawkeye, but then he drops dead. Once he's dead Chingachgook comes looking for him. While they are talking soldiers show up, and see Nasty Bumppo's body. "Who shot Nasty Bumppo" (438)? They all deny it, but they have to cross their names off the list to prove they are innocent. Chingachgook gets his name crossed off, but Old Woman doesn't. She lists off names "Old Woman...Daniel Boone...Harry Truman...Arthur Watkins...Is there a Hawkeye in that book" (439)? They arrest her and when she asks why the soldiers say that its "for trying to impersonate a white man" (439). They send her on a train and she ends up in Fort Marion with all the other Indians. The Soldier In Charge Of The Fort says that there is "no limit on Indians" (457) that the fort can hold. is this representing Indian imprisonment camps that white men forced them into? The Lone Ranger puts on her/his mask so they all can escape. Why does just that mask allow all of them to escape? So when they escape they walk to a Big river that they want to cross. They ask nicely and the river makes an Earthquake for them all to cross the river. This isn't the only Earthquake that they've caused. They are all trying to save the world, and if they have the power to cause earthquakes, then they are very capable indeed. They caused the dam to crack and the water to spill out, putting an end to the fight between the dam company and Eli, the Indian whose house prevented the company from using the dam. So these Indians ended a fight between the whites and the Indians, is that how they plan to save to world? By ending those types of fights? Racism? Prejudice? Once they are all finished they go back to the place where they started and tell Babo Jones about their adventure.

Next in the tangle of so many stories is Dr. Joseph Hovaugh and Babo Jones. I noticed right away the symbolism in Dr. Joe Hovaugh's (Johova)name, but I couldn't put much of a connection to that. Dr. Hovaugh is in his office when his secretary tells him that the police are downstairs because of "the Indians" (13). What is that supposed to mean? All we know is that they're gone. Babo Jones is the women who works at the same hospital as Dr. Hovaugh; she cleans up the hospital. In this chapter she is being questioned by Sergeant Cereno about the Indians that disappeared. I don't understand why the Sergeant is questioning a cleaning lady, not a nurse or another specialist. Babo is thinking about her car out the window, a Pinto that is parked in a puddle. This lady is really weird, why did King want Babo portrayed as like a crazy random women. Maybe to show the kind of Indian many racist white people think all Indians are like? Or she could just be psycho? Later Dr. Hovaugh is talking with a Dr. John Eliot about the missing Indians. He says at every time they disappear, things happen. Apparently these Indians have disappeared thirty-seven times throughout the years. How old are these Indians? Babo says they are hundreds of years old. That seems really weird, but it could be true with how much they've done. When they go back to the interrogation of Babo, it is very hard to follow the conversation because of how frequently she jumps around in what she's saying. What's the purpose in showing the Sergeant getting all frustrated. It's a typical reaction for this type of situation, but King may have put this in the book to show the white man's impatience in dealing with Indians? She finally says their names were "Mr. Red, Mr. White, Mr. Black, and Mr. Blue" (55). But those names were never on file, they must have had different names. Does the colors symbolize America? Later the Sergeant and Dr. Hovaugh talk about Babo and the missing Indians. Dr. Hovaugh seems about as random as Babo when he is talking to the Sergeant. Babo and Jimmy Delano talk after the Sergeant is done with her, and they talk a lot about the Indians' stories. Why are these stories in here again, when they had already been said before? Dr. Hovaugh tells Sergeant Cereno about his assumptions in correlation with the disappearing Indians and strange events occurring. He says that they are very old, and when the Sergeant asks him to go back to the beginning of the story Joe says, "in the beginning, there was nothing. There was just the water" (103). Why is this brought up in every story, what is the significance of the water? Babo realizes whatever information she must know must be important if, "even Dr. Joeseph God Almighty Hovaugh himself had come down to the lodge to talk to her" (245). Now Joe and Babo are together in his white Karmann-Ghia driving on a long trip to try to find the Indians. They track them through all the way to the city of Blossom, where most of the other stories take place as well. Dr. Hovaugh's car goes missing, and it was in a puddle too. What is with disaperaing cars in puddles? Why is that important? Dr. Hovaugh has basically gone crazy when Babo tells him she has gotten bus tickets to tour Parliament Lake and the Grand Baleen Dam. They witness the earthquake and the floating cars and the crack in the dam. Then they go back to where they came from and in the end Dr. Hovaugh's secretary calls and tells him that the Indians are back again.

Alberta Frank is a woman with a serious problem. She is romantically involved with two men in this story; Charlie Looking Bear and Lionel. That sounds like trouble right from the beginning. She really wants to have a child, but she doesn't want to have to get married and be tied down to one person forever. She is a college professor, and she teaches Indian history, an interesting class with all the ignorant white people King no doubt purposefully put into the story to show white culture's ignorance to the Native American culture. This weekend is Lionel's birthday, and she tells Charlie she is going to go have dinner with him. So does that mean that both sides know that Alberta is sleeping with both of them? Alberta considered her options for getting the child she always wanted. First of all she could marry one of the two and have a family with them. But she rejected that idea right away; "Option one was obscene" (69). I think Alberta is so afraid to get married because she is afraid the man will end up being like her father Amos, who was not very good to her mother. Her other options were to discuss her goals with both men, and see which of them was willing to help without wanting the marriage after the child. Option three for her was probably the most dangerous; to go to clubs and try to find a random person to get her pregnant. She even went so far as to look up artificial insemination, but that plan failed because she needs to have a husband for it to be a legal operation. Why does she want a child so badly? She drove down to Blossom in her Blue Nissan, which was later stolen from her when it was in a puddle. Why do all the cars in puddles get stolen? Charlie's car was also stolen on the way down to Blossom, to talk to Lionel and Alberta. He was driving a Red Pinto. Another important thing about Charie is that his dad was once a famous actor in Hollywood. He starred in Western movies with famous actors like John Wayne for a very long time. Being an Indian, he got many of the parts for movies since he was more real then the Italians or Mexicans trying to be Indians. But then they all moved back to the reservation when his mother died. Later in Charlie's life his dad and him went back to Hollywood, but things had changed and his father was out of luck for a movie career. Charlie went home but his father stayed there to live out his days in sadness.

So this means a Red Pinto, a Blue Nissan, and a White Karmann-Ghia were all stolen while in puddles. Those were the same three cars that floated to the dam when the earthquake happened and the dam broke open. That makes me think that the cars symbolize Christopher Columbus' ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria and that when they go to the dam it's like the ships coming to the new world, to unleash the flood of the white man upon the Native Americans.

Another story in this book is the story of the people who work at the Dead Dog Cafe, or more specificaly Latisha. The resturant sells beef that they claim to be dog as a tourist attraction. Latisha was married once, and had three kids before her husband George up and left one day, went back to his family. Latisha is now a single parent mom working as much as she can at the Dead Dog Cafe. She makes her way to the Sun Dance, where all the other characters in the book are going too. This Sun Dance must be really important if it is bringing all the characters together like this. George randomly shows up at the Sun Dance and harasses Latisha, as well as the fact that he takes pictures at the Sun Dance, a place that is supposed to be sacred where pictures are forbidden. He is shooed away by the other characters and the rest of Latisha's story goes on as normal. I thought Latisha was a likable character because of the fact that she was a single mom, yet worked so hard for her kids to have the best life possible.

Eli was an older man who now lived in his grandmother's home underneath a dam that cannot be fully operational unless he leaves. Cliford Sifton keeps pressuring him to move but Eli does not legally have to move so he says he will always stay where he is. Eli is an Indian who left the reserve for a long time, distancing himself from his tribe, until one day he came back. Now he thinks of himself as "an Indian Thoreau. Except that Thoreau had been at Walden Pond for oly a year and he hadn't been serious, saw it as a social experiment" (315). I like how he brings up that connection, I think it's very interesting how he lives in isolation like that. Back when he lived off of the reservation, he had been in a relationship with a nice girl named Karen. This was the only relationship between a white and an Indian that would have worked without any problems. But King writes the book so that Karen is very sick for a long time, and as soon as she starts to get better, she dies in a car accident. I think Tom wrote this because he feels that one way or another, whites and Indians were not meant to be together. I think that either he feels this way, or he thinks that this is how most white people think. At the end of the novel, when the earthquake breaks the dam, the water flows out and destroys Eli's house, and washes him down the river. No one is sad for Eli, they know that he died happy in his home. Eli was probably happy that he would be able to see Karen again.

The last story they have in the book focuses on Lionel's boss at the television store, Bill Bursum. He basically is a man who loves Westerns, but only when the Indians are killed and the cowboys win. The four Indians changed his favorite movie so that John Wayne dies, and he is distraught. He bought a lot of lakeside property when the dam was built but because of Eli he cannot build on the property. He was at the property daydreaming when the earthquake happened, so he witnesseed the dam break first hand as well.

Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water is a very bitter satire at times. He has some humor included, but for the most part his writing reflects his hatred at the ignorance and predjudices of most white people. I think he is kind of hypocritical in how his writing shows hatred towards the white man, and yet he talks about how the white men are bad for hating the Indians. I thought this book did a really good job however, at opening my eyes to a lot of Indian culture. I really look at a lot of things about Indians very differently now, and I think that is in part because of the harse way he compares it to white Christian society.

The Things They Carried - Journal three: Extended

For my first extended journal, I decided to do a research report on Vietnam veterans after the war, how it was hard for many of them to live a "normal life" once they got back from the war. I didn't really know what to look for at first, so I searched around on Google for possibilities for a research paper. After searching for longer then I expected, I found a site specifically for Vietnam Veterans, that was actually organized and easy to read and understand. The site I would recommend to anyone curious about Veterans from the Vietnam war and the web address is http://www.vietnow.com. Once I found this site I pulled out two articles and studied them. The two articles were "PTSD; Is It Treatable? Or Do I Just Have To Learn To Cope?" by Mary Tendall and Jan Fishler, and "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD)" also by Tendall and Fishler. I found this research to be very helpful and PTSD to be a serious and interesting illness affecting many veterans across the world.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a Disorder that veterans from many wars have suffered from due to the intense trauma they experienced while in the service. Mary Tendall and Jan Fishler explain, "For over 40 years now, PTSD has been a major problem for many Vietnam veterans" (PTSD, 1). It is caused by some sort of intense trauma that over time has harmed a person's mental state of being. Later in life, some still suffer even now, there are certain triggers that cause a person to feel as if the event that caused the trauma is re-occurring, and the person runs on auto-pilot; panic overtaking there entire being. The triggers can range from loud music blaring next door, to a falling leaf out of a maple tree, and anything in-between, depending on the person and their situation.

There are many ways to see if a person suffers the symptoms of PTSD. Tendall and Fishler, "Validate the fact that symptomatic behavior - exaggerated startle response, nightmares, trust issues, emotional numbness, irritability, isolation, avoidance of crowds, and avoidance of social events - is a normal response to the untreated trauma caused by the combat experience"(Is It Treatable?, 1). Because of all these symptoms, it becomes very hard for those suffering from PTSD to live a normal life again. Norman Bowker, in The Things They Carried suffers from untreated PTSD. When trying to explain what he's feeling, he writes that, "The thing is...there's no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It's almost like I got killed over in Nam ... Hard to describe. That night when Kiowa got wasted, I sort of sank down into the sewage with him ... Feels like I'm still in deep shit" (TTTC, 156). Some of the symptoms Bowker was experiencing were: emotional numbness, isolation, avoidance of crowds and avoidance of social events. He feels like he cannot live a normal life anymore, and in the end, "He'd been playing pickup basketball at the Y; after two hours he went off for a drink of water; he used a jump rope; his friends found him hanging from a water pipe"(160). Tendall and Fishler say that, "PTSD is a major cause of suicide among Vietnam veterans"(PTSD, 1).

For those veterans who have been able to keep strong while combating this disorder, there are a number of ways they can go about seeking treatment or getting help. The most common treatments for PTSD are, "cognitive therapy and veterans' support groups" (Is It Treatment?, 1).

Cognitive therapy basically helps patients to understand that the way we think about things affects how we feel about those things emotionally. What cognitive therapy does for veterans is it allows them to focus on what's going on in the present, rather than in the past. With luck, "cognitive therapy can help veterans understand their symptoms, decrease their reactivity, and learn coping skills"(Is It Treatable?, 1).

Another common way for veterans to cope with their PTSD, or to help friends is to join a veterans' support group. To comfort those who would feel embarrassed to join a support group, many veterans explain the group therapy as "a group of men who would never be caught dead joining a support group"(Is It Treatable?, 2). What this therapy allows for is it gives veterans a chance to say their mind, to tell their stories, and to talk about how they've suffered after the war to others who understand exactly where they are coming from. The group sessions are always confidential, and these therapy groups are shown to be effective in helping veterans deal with their PTSD.

Beyond these two more common methods of recovering from PTSD, there are two other ways that veterans can lessen or eliminate the damages from PTSD. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapy session that, "uses cognitive treatment and imagery to create resolution for intruding silent statements such as, 'I'm not safe,' or 'Don't trust anyone!'"(Is It Treatable?, 2). There are many steps to EMDR, which will help eliminate negative thoughts in a patient that would typically trigger a PTSD attack. The other treatment that alters the nervous system is Somatic Experiencing. by using relaxation and breathing techniques and imagery to "create resolution within the nervous system"(Is It Treatable?, 2). This treatment allows veterans to learn how to relax again, and when they are relaxed they can deal with stress and resolve the internal conflicts that may be causing them to suffer from PTSD.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a serious disorder that many veterans still suffer from today. But with these new therapeutic concepts along with old ideas like group therapy, many veterans will finally be able to find solace and end their lives living they way they've wanted to since their return from war. These techniques will also be an asset in assisting the veterans of the War on Terror deal with their own cases of PTSD, when the time arises.


*NOTE*
I'm thinking about doing my ethnography on a Veterans' support group or something similar to that. I think it would be really interesting to see (depending on what war(s) the veterans are from) how time has helped them cope with the trauma they most certainly experienced while serving our country in its time of need.

The Things They Carried: Journal Two - Close Analysis

"When a man died, there had to be blame"(177). This point is expressed throughout Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried. One thing that most of the characters in the book struggled with at some point during the Vietnam war was where to place the blame when a fellow soldier died; "You could blame the war...You could blame the rain...You could blame the enemy...You could blame whole nations...You could blame God...In the field, though, the consequences were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgement or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever"(177). Tim O'Brien intentionally wrote the chapter "In The Field" (162-178) to show that the young man searching through the shit fields could represent any one's struggle to carry that blame, be it Tim himself, or Jimmy Cross, or any of the other men fighting alongside Kiowa in the war.

The story that Tim writes in this chapter could easily be meant to represent himself. He says that, "By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself"(158). This may be Tim's way of dealing with the trauma he had most definitely experienced while serving in the Vietnam war. On way he alludes to this being himself is that the character "Tim" modeled after himself is not in this chapter at all. Usually he puts Tim in the book when he wants the reader to understand how he felt at the time, but he has separated this story from himself to the point where he doesn't see this "young soldier"(170) as himself anymore. His repetition of the young man's guilt, "He, too, blamed himself...The boy recognized his own guilt and wanted only to lay out the full causes"(170), represents his feelings of guilt that he didn't understand without looking at them objectively as a writer. In the next chapter, "Field Trip"(181), Tim revisits the field where Kiowa was killed with his daughter, Kathleen. Since Tim has said that he has no daughter, this part of the book is purely fictional. Yet it is interesting that he brings the reader back to that field twenty years after the horrible mortar barrage in the field of shit. He wants this field to be memorable to everyone who reads this book, because it will help him cope with his own war experiences if people read his story, and understand and sympathize with how the young soldier was feeling.

The young soldier digging through the shit field could also represent the company's leader, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. He and the young man are the only two men separate from the rest of the company, who are searching for Kiowa's body in the muck. As he approached the boy to attempt to console him, "Jimmy Cross remembered the kid's face but not the name. That happened sometimes. He tried to treat his men as individuals but sometimes the names just escaped him"(172). This means that the young man could be his inner conscience, wandering around completely lost because of the war. This separation happened to him because he had been forced to be something he didn't want to be for so long. Jimmy's heart was not in the war because, "military matters meant nothing to him. He did not care one way or the other about the war, and he had no desire to command" (168). Being forced to be a leader when, "Jimmy Cross did not want the responsibility of leading these men"(167), could be what's separated him from himself.

Since the war was such a traumatic experience for every soldier involved, this young man who seems to have lost himself to the war could represent soldiers fighting in war in general. So many people blamed themselves for the deaths of a close friend and/or fellow company member. Tim O'Brien, Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, even Azar suffered from survivor's guilt and blamed themselves for the death of Kiowa that terrible night stuck in the shit field. While talking about Kiowa, Norman says that it was, "Nobody's fault...Everyone's"(176). When Jimmy Cross is approaching the young man he is frantically searching for "Billie"(172), the picture of his girlfriend he had lost in the chaos of the night before. This carries a heavy burden for many soldiers seeing as the picture is symbolic to young men's girlfriends back at home, many who lose interest in their loved ones fighting thousands of miles away. The war changes people, and for everyone fighting in the war, at some point they will see that change, and think of themselves as almost a completely different person, there old self just wandering around lost in the "shit" of war.

The reason Tim O'Brien put all these different ways to interpret the stories in his novel was so that he can make his point relateable to as many people as possible. He wants people to understand that war isn't pretty; that you can easily lose yourself in war, without even being among the dead. By showing this from many different angles, he can share his story with a much wider audience of readers. Whether the reader thinks the young soldier to be a look at Tim through his own eyes, or Jimmy Cross's inner terrified conscience, or just another soldier at war, learning to cope with the blame of survivor's guilt, Tim O'Brien gives this story from The Things They Carried a powerful meaning.