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.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
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 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.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
The Things They Carried Reader Response Journal
The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien is a great book to show the impact of the Vietnam War on a variety of soldiers. The book is written in Tim's perspective when he was a soldier in the Alpha company, yet this book is still a work of fiction. I think this is a brilliant idea because he can use his own memories for parts, and then add to or fill-in spots so that the reader doesn't get bored and disconnected during the less eventful times.
The first chapter of the book, having the same name as the book, describes many of the things that the soldiers carried during their time of service in Vietnam. O'Brien describes all of the physical things they carried, including "letters" (1), "P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C rations, and two or three canteens of water. Together, these items weighed between 15 and 20 pounds" (2). He emphasizes the weight of many things in this first chapter to explain that all the things they carried weighted the soldiers down a considerable amount. I really like how he does that because it shows that they had a lot of stuff weighing them down. Tim also really shows how besides the physical weight they had to carry, they had a lot of emotional pain that they carried with themselves too. "He[Lt. Jimmy Cross] tried not to cry...He felt shame. he hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war" (16). He explains this in more general terms later in the chapter, "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing - these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass...they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained" (21). Intangible basically means something that isn't physically there, and he says that even those things weighed down the soldiers.
I noticed in this chapter, Tim O'Brien doesn't use quotation marks for dialogue, yet he separates the paragraphs appropriately for dialogue. I think he did this intentionally because we don't know the people talking yet. So it doesn't seem awkward having unknown people talking.
The Company leader, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross decides he needs to put his leadership first, and do the best he can for his men. I think he showed Cross' understanding of this in a very powerful way, so that in the next chapter, which jumps twenty years to the "present" time, he still has "never forgiven himself for Lavender's death" (27). In this present voice, Tim O'Brien says that, "I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and the war has been over for a long while" (32). He re-states that line around a dozen times throughout the book, and I think he does as such to solidify the fact that these events happened a long time ago, and that his book is fiction, it's not all the hard facts from his memory, but some of it is heated up truth, as Tim O'Brien calls it. He still remembers a lot of these things, but most of the intense detail is created purely by his writing talent. I like how he mentions that frequently, sort of to bring the reader back to Earth and think about what he had written beforehand. While explaining his writing process, he says "As a writer, all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride, putting things down as they come at you. That's the real obsession. All those stories. Not bloody stories, necessarily. Happy stories too, and even a few peace stories. As he recalls many of his little fragments of memories and stories, he shows how young he and all the others in his company were; "The average age in our platoon, I'd guess, was nineteen or twenty" (37).
The chapter "On the Rainy River" (39), is probably the most important chapter in the entire book, it really helps readers understand Tim's point-of-view. He says he has never told this story before, but he wants people to know it. He starts the story, "In June of 1968, I was drafted to fight a war I hated" (40). The chapter goes on to show his feelings and reactions about being drafted into the war. I really like this chapter. It shows Tim O'Brien is human, and that he has his flaws just like everyone. A few months after getting his draft card and notice, in mid-July Tim thought "I began thinking seriously about Canada. The border lay a few hundred lies north, an eight-hour drive. Both my conscience and my instincts were telling me to make a break for it, just take off and run like hell and never stop" (44). This means a lot to me. I'm eighteen years old, and I have registered for the draft. I've thought many times what I would do if the war in Iraq caused the need to re-enlist the draft. Would I run to Canada? Would I stay and fight? I personally think that I would want to run to Canada out of fear of death, but I would stay, for my country. In the end, Tim decides to stay as well, but his reasoning is the opposite as mine. In his moment to decide, swim to Canada or fight, he reflects, "Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. I would not be brave" (57). I thought cowardice would be to run to Canada, he thinks he wasn't brave enough to do that. But he felt that he was too much of a coward, so, "right then I submitted. I would go to the war-I would kill and maybe die-because I was embarrassed not to" (59). This important chapter ends with the cloudy day that he leaves all that is familiar, and steps out into Vietnam as a soldier. His last words, that show his feelings even after the war, "I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war" (61).
In the next few short chapters, O'Brien starts to describe the lives and deaths of his company. The men include; Kiowa, Mitchell Sanders, Dave Jensen, Lt. Jimmy Cross, Lee Strunk, Rat Kiley, Curt Lemon, Henry Dobbins, Azar, and Eddie Diamond. Rat Kiley is a very good buddy of Tim, and he writes about how they've learned to tell war stories. One way he explains it by starting with the question:
"How do you generalize? War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also
mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discover and holiness and pity and
despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery.
War makes you a man; war makes you dead"(80).
I like this paragraph because it helps the reader understand the many emotions a man can feel all at once while in war, and why that makes it hard to recreate a war story using all of those emotions simultaneously. Another point he makes is, "To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true" (81). This matter of truth is very important, because most of what is in this book isn't "true". Yes, it's about the Vietnam war, but most of it has been written not because it actually happened, but because explaining it in this way helps readers to understand what it was like, not necessarily what it actually was. Once again I like how he explains this, so that it makes you want to go back and read about what you felt must have been true, but Tim O'Brien actually made it up in his head hoping you'd believe it. "Vietnam was full of strange stories, some improbable, some well beyond that, but the stories that will last forever are those that swirl back and forth across the border between trivia and bedlam, the mad and the mundane" (89).
One such story Tim tells in the next chapter. He tells the story of a boy who figured out a way to bring his girlfriend to Vietnam, and how she turns into one of the "Greenies" that the boy camped with, and can't relate to him anymore. She talks to him at the end, "I feel so close to myself. When I'm out there at night, I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and my fingernails, everything, it's like...I known exactly who I am. You can't feel like that anywhere else" (111).
I really love how Tim talks about how the most understandable stories are the least believable, and then to show it he tells this story. Having the story be about a girl, and how she changes shows how everyone changes by being in the war. Yet it seems different, because she's a girl, and at the time there weren't any girls in the military. It's very ironic, but also makes sense, that she goes through the exact same processes of getting into the war that many men do. Is the author trying to express that he feels women are equals and should be allowed to fight wars too?
Another thing it brings up is that the distance isn't the only thing that ruins relationships during wartime. They were together, they were in love. Yet the war changed them and after they had accepted their new selves, they, or at least Mary Anne, realized they weren't capable of loving each other any more. So they end up going their own ways, Mary Anne with the greenies, and eventually the wild of Vietnam itself.
After this story is over, Tim tells the story about the man he killed. He explains all the vivid details of it, all the little descriptions. he describes his victim, "The slim young man lay with his legs in the shade. His jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut and the other was a star-shaped hole" (126). What I think is weird is that he describes how he killed this man, how he threw the grenade at his feet, and killed the man when it blew up under him. Yet when his daughter asks if he's ever killed a man, he answers truthfully, "Of course not" (131).
WHAT?
This was really confusing to me. But basically what I gathered by the end of this confusing part of the book was that he actually did not kill this young man, but he witnessed the killing, and feels responsible to a point. I find it weird that he was in Vietnam for so long, yet he never killed anyone. I wonder if that has anything to do with his view on the war? Maybe he just never had the opportunity, or maybe he didn't contribute to help his team when they were under fire? I'm not sure, but I plan to bring that up in discussion. When it's brought up again, he explains more of this, and closes with his daughter, "'Daddy, tell the truth,' Kathleen can say, 'did you ever kill anybody?' And I can say, honestly, 'Of course not.' Or I can say, honestly, 'Yes.'"
The next story Tim writes about makes a lot more sense than the last, but it is very sad. I'm sure many veterans, regardless of which war they fought in, could relate to this. He tells the story of one of his comrades, who struggles with feeling responsible for his friends' death, yet he cannot tell anyone. He feels that no one wants to hear, and even if they did, something inside him wouldn't let him tell the story. After driving around his hometown all day, he gives up his hopes of finding the words to say; "There was nothing to say. He could not talk about it and never would" (153). I think this really shows the emotional baggage that many soldiers have to "carry" for their entire lives after the war, and for many of them, it tears their lives apart. They are unable to work, or socialize normally, or go to school. All of these things become hard to do, and some decide their lives aren't worth living anymore, and kill themselves. That's what Norman Bowker did, because his story couldn't be told. "He wished he could have 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" (153). Tim finally found a way to tell his story, but unfortunately it was not until after he had hung himself on the basketball hoop at his local YMCA. That's really sad that they cannot cope with these things, that because of the war they can't really return to a normal life.
Tim O'Brien reflects on this, and in his mind he thinks that's why he writes these stories. Remembering, and expressing all of his war experiences helps him get them off his soul, so that he can live with himself and continue on with a normal life with his daughter. However, Tim altered Norman's story so that he could spill out some of his own grief, "Norman did not experience a failure that night. He did not freeze up or lose the Silver Star for valor. That part of the story is my own" (161). His friend Kiowa died in the muck of that horrible night, and there was nothing he could do to save him. The next day they all had to search through the shit, the mud that was knee-deep and try to find their friends' body, so it could be sent home. That would be so hard to do, search through all that mess to find pain, and then have him sent home, for his family to grieve. There's just so much pain involved in war, how can it be worth it for anyone? Many soldiers blamed themselves for their friends' deaths, for their own inaction, and a number of other reasons. But I don't think it's their faults, I mean, they are all stuck in the chaos, and every one's doing the best they can to survive.
When the book goes back to the "present time" Tim talks about his trip back to Vietnam with his daughter. He visits many places he had been while in war, and many museums too. But the most important was that spot in the middle of nowhere, were they camped in the shit and he lost a close friend. He had written the part of the book when he describes that only a few months before, so these memories were fresh in his mind. This place is very important to him. "This little field...had swallowed so much. My best friend. My pride. My belief in myself as a man of some small dignity and courage"(184). This place is very important to him. His daughter says something while there that if I were him, it would crush my heart, "Some dumb thing happens a long time ago and you can't ever forget it" (183). It's sad that the past means so little to so many people. I don't know who said it, but hearing things like that always makes me think of the quote about how if we don't read and understand our history, it is bound to repeat itself.
Tim O'Brien was shot twice in Vietnam. Once was not life threatening, he was treated right away by Rat Kiley, his medic, and after resting for a week or so he was back on the field. But the second time, it was a different medic, Bobby Jorgenson, who was very inexperienced. That caused him to be sent away from the front lines, basically for good, and his experience in Vietnam is almost over. He sits in the medical camp, his hatred building for Jorgenson the entire time, and when he finally sees him again, Jorgenson tries to apologize. But now Jorgenson has been accepted into the "brotherhood" of his company, while he has been distanced because of his injury. That would be very depressing to be shot, and because of that lose your friends. All O'Brien can think about is getting him back for what Jorgenson did to him, and he finally does. He scares him badly with the help of Azar, but he regrets the intense hatred he feels, "There was a coldness inside me. I wasn't myself. I felt hollow and dangerous" (207). And in the end Jorgenson realizes it was him. They make up then, and although they aren't friends, they've somewhat put the past in the past.
Now he's reflecting on his past through many time periods. He talks about how death was hard for him to cope with during the war. His experiences with bodies, be they friends, enemies, or random were all personal and scary to him. This was because in his childhood his first girlfriend died of a brain tumor when she was nine years old. This has made it hard for him to cope with death his entire life. Is this why he didn't kill anyone in the war? I understand this traumatic experience in his childhood is what made him hate war. There's too much death in war. And that would also explain all the grief he feels whenever he has to experience death. Throughout the war, and even now, Tim tries to use skip around words like "dead" and "death" and say things like "kicked the bucket" (237), to make death seem less intense. Even now, he still thinks about Linda, his first love, "I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, still dreaming Linda alive in exactly the same way. She's not the embodied Linda; she's mostly made up, with a new identity and a new name, like the man who never was. Her real name doesn't matter. She was nine years old. I loved her and then she died" (245). This is another one of his writing "therapy" sessions, to keep the past in writing instead of haunting him. He ends the book with the powerful, "I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story"(246).
I love this book because of all the emotions it expresses. Tim O'Brien says it exactly:
"How do you generalize? War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discover and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead"(80).
And he expresses that perfectly in this book. While reading it I felt like I was there, I was happy, sad, nervous, anxious for what was going to happen next. I think that Tim O'Brien did an excellent job at showing war how it really is.
The first chapter of the book, having the same name as the book, describes many of the things that the soldiers carried during their time of service in Vietnam. O'Brien describes all of the physical things they carried, including "letters" (1), "P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C rations, and two or three canteens of water. Together, these items weighed between 15 and 20 pounds" (2). He emphasizes the weight of many things in this first chapter to explain that all the things they carried weighted the soldiers down a considerable amount. I really like how he does that because it shows that they had a lot of stuff weighing them down. Tim also really shows how besides the physical weight they had to carry, they had a lot of emotional pain that they carried with themselves too. "He[Lt. Jimmy Cross] tried not to cry...He felt shame. he hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war" (16). He explains this in more general terms later in the chapter, "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing - these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass...they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained" (21). Intangible basically means something that isn't physically there, and he says that even those things weighed down the soldiers.
I noticed in this chapter, Tim O'Brien doesn't use quotation marks for dialogue, yet he separates the paragraphs appropriately for dialogue. I think he did this intentionally because we don't know the people talking yet. So it doesn't seem awkward having unknown people talking.
The Company leader, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross decides he needs to put his leadership first, and do the best he can for his men. I think he showed Cross' understanding of this in a very powerful way, so that in the next chapter, which jumps twenty years to the "present" time, he still has "never forgiven himself for Lavender's death" (27). In this present voice, Tim O'Brien says that, "I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, and the war has been over for a long while" (32). He re-states that line around a dozen times throughout the book, and I think he does as such to solidify the fact that these events happened a long time ago, and that his book is fiction, it's not all the hard facts from his memory, but some of it is heated up truth, as Tim O'Brien calls it. He still remembers a lot of these things, but most of the intense detail is created purely by his writing talent. I like how he mentions that frequently, sort of to bring the reader back to Earth and think about what he had written beforehand. While explaining his writing process, he says "As a writer, all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride, putting things down as they come at you. That's the real obsession. All those stories. Not bloody stories, necessarily. Happy stories too, and even a few peace stories. As he recalls many of his little fragments of memories and stories, he shows how young he and all the others in his company were; "The average age in our platoon, I'd guess, was nineteen or twenty" (37).
The chapter "On the Rainy River" (39), is probably the most important chapter in the entire book, it really helps readers understand Tim's point-of-view. He says he has never told this story before, but he wants people to know it. He starts the story, "In June of 1968, I was drafted to fight a war I hated" (40). The chapter goes on to show his feelings and reactions about being drafted into the war. I really like this chapter. It shows Tim O'Brien is human, and that he has his flaws just like everyone. A few months after getting his draft card and notice, in mid-July Tim thought "I began thinking seriously about Canada. The border lay a few hundred lies north, an eight-hour drive. Both my conscience and my instincts were telling me to make a break for it, just take off and run like hell and never stop" (44). This means a lot to me. I'm eighteen years old, and I have registered for the draft. I've thought many times what I would do if the war in Iraq caused the need to re-enlist the draft. Would I run to Canada? Would I stay and fight? I personally think that I would want to run to Canada out of fear of death, but I would stay, for my country. In the end, Tim decides to stay as well, but his reasoning is the opposite as mine. In his moment to decide, swim to Canada or fight, he reflects, "Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. I would not be brave" (57). I thought cowardice would be to run to Canada, he thinks he wasn't brave enough to do that. But he felt that he was too much of a coward, so, "right then I submitted. I would go to the war-I would kill and maybe die-because I was embarrassed not to" (59). This important chapter ends with the cloudy day that he leaves all that is familiar, and steps out into Vietnam as a soldier. His last words, that show his feelings even after the war, "I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war" (61).
In the next few short chapters, O'Brien starts to describe the lives and deaths of his company. The men include; Kiowa, Mitchell Sanders, Dave Jensen, Lt. Jimmy Cross, Lee Strunk, Rat Kiley, Curt Lemon, Henry Dobbins, Azar, and Eddie Diamond. Rat Kiley is a very good buddy of Tim, and he writes about how they've learned to tell war stories. One way he explains it by starting with the question:
"How do you generalize? War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also
mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discover and holiness and pity and
despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery.
War makes you a man; war makes you dead"(80).
I like this paragraph because it helps the reader understand the many emotions a man can feel all at once while in war, and why that makes it hard to recreate a war story using all of those emotions simultaneously. Another point he makes is, "To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true" (81). This matter of truth is very important, because most of what is in this book isn't "true". Yes, it's about the Vietnam war, but most of it has been written not because it actually happened, but because explaining it in this way helps readers to understand what it was like, not necessarily what it actually was. Once again I like how he explains this, so that it makes you want to go back and read about what you felt must have been true, but Tim O'Brien actually made it up in his head hoping you'd believe it. "Vietnam was full of strange stories, some improbable, some well beyond that, but the stories that will last forever are those that swirl back and forth across the border between trivia and bedlam, the mad and the mundane" (89).
One such story Tim tells in the next chapter. He tells the story of a boy who figured out a way to bring his girlfriend to Vietnam, and how she turns into one of the "Greenies" that the boy camped with, and can't relate to him anymore. She talks to him at the end, "I feel so close to myself. When I'm out there at night, I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and my fingernails, everything, it's like...I known exactly who I am. You can't feel like that anywhere else" (111).
I really love how Tim talks about how the most understandable stories are the least believable, and then to show it he tells this story. Having the story be about a girl, and how she changes shows how everyone changes by being in the war. Yet it seems different, because she's a girl, and at the time there weren't any girls in the military. It's very ironic, but also makes sense, that she goes through the exact same processes of getting into the war that many men do. Is the author trying to express that he feels women are equals and should be allowed to fight wars too?
Another thing it brings up is that the distance isn't the only thing that ruins relationships during wartime. They were together, they were in love. Yet the war changed them and after they had accepted their new selves, they, or at least Mary Anne, realized they weren't capable of loving each other any more. So they end up going their own ways, Mary Anne with the greenies, and eventually the wild of Vietnam itself.
After this story is over, Tim tells the story about the man he killed. He explains all the vivid details of it, all the little descriptions. he describes his victim, "The slim young man lay with his legs in the shade. His jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut and the other was a star-shaped hole" (126). What I think is weird is that he describes how he killed this man, how he threw the grenade at his feet, and killed the man when it blew up under him. Yet when his daughter asks if he's ever killed a man, he answers truthfully, "Of course not" (131).
WHAT?
This was really confusing to me. But basically what I gathered by the end of this confusing part of the book was that he actually did not kill this young man, but he witnessed the killing, and feels responsible to a point. I find it weird that he was in Vietnam for so long, yet he never killed anyone. I wonder if that has anything to do with his view on the war? Maybe he just never had the opportunity, or maybe he didn't contribute to help his team when they were under fire? I'm not sure, but I plan to bring that up in discussion. When it's brought up again, he explains more of this, and closes with his daughter, "'Daddy, tell the truth,' Kathleen can say, 'did you ever kill anybody?' And I can say, honestly, 'Of course not.' Or I can say, honestly, 'Yes.'"
The next story Tim writes about makes a lot more sense than the last, but it is very sad. I'm sure many veterans, regardless of which war they fought in, could relate to this. He tells the story of one of his comrades, who struggles with feeling responsible for his friends' death, yet he cannot tell anyone. He feels that no one wants to hear, and even if they did, something inside him wouldn't let him tell the story. After driving around his hometown all day, he gives up his hopes of finding the words to say; "There was nothing to say. He could not talk about it and never would" (153). I think this really shows the emotional baggage that many soldiers have to "carry" for their entire lives after the war, and for many of them, it tears their lives apart. They are unable to work, or socialize normally, or go to school. All of these things become hard to do, and some decide their lives aren't worth living anymore, and kill themselves. That's what Norman Bowker did, because his story couldn't be told. "He wished he could have 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" (153). Tim finally found a way to tell his story, but unfortunately it was not until after he had hung himself on the basketball hoop at his local YMCA. That's really sad that they cannot cope with these things, that because of the war they can't really return to a normal life.
Tim O'Brien reflects on this, and in his mind he thinks that's why he writes these stories. Remembering, and expressing all of his war experiences helps him get them off his soul, so that he can live with himself and continue on with a normal life with his daughter. However, Tim altered Norman's story so that he could spill out some of his own grief, "Norman did not experience a failure that night. He did not freeze up or lose the Silver Star for valor. That part of the story is my own" (161). His friend Kiowa died in the muck of that horrible night, and there was nothing he could do to save him. The next day they all had to search through the shit, the mud that was knee-deep and try to find their friends' body, so it could be sent home. That would be so hard to do, search through all that mess to find pain, and then have him sent home, for his family to grieve. There's just so much pain involved in war, how can it be worth it for anyone? Many soldiers blamed themselves for their friends' deaths, for their own inaction, and a number of other reasons. But I don't think it's their faults, I mean, they are all stuck in the chaos, and every one's doing the best they can to survive.
When the book goes back to the "present time" Tim talks about his trip back to Vietnam with his daughter. He visits many places he had been while in war, and many museums too. But the most important was that spot in the middle of nowhere, were they camped in the shit and he lost a close friend. He had written the part of the book when he describes that only a few months before, so these memories were fresh in his mind. This place is very important to him. "This little field...had swallowed so much. My best friend. My pride. My belief in myself as a man of some small dignity and courage"(184). This place is very important to him. His daughter says something while there that if I were him, it would crush my heart, "Some dumb thing happens a long time ago and you can't ever forget it" (183). It's sad that the past means so little to so many people. I don't know who said it, but hearing things like that always makes me think of the quote about how if we don't read and understand our history, it is bound to repeat itself.
Tim O'Brien was shot twice in Vietnam. Once was not life threatening, he was treated right away by Rat Kiley, his medic, and after resting for a week or so he was back on the field. But the second time, it was a different medic, Bobby Jorgenson, who was very inexperienced. That caused him to be sent away from the front lines, basically for good, and his experience in Vietnam is almost over. He sits in the medical camp, his hatred building for Jorgenson the entire time, and when he finally sees him again, Jorgenson tries to apologize. But now Jorgenson has been accepted into the "brotherhood" of his company, while he has been distanced because of his injury. That would be very depressing to be shot, and because of that lose your friends. All O'Brien can think about is getting him back for what Jorgenson did to him, and he finally does. He scares him badly with the help of Azar, but he regrets the intense hatred he feels, "There was a coldness inside me. I wasn't myself. I felt hollow and dangerous" (207). And in the end Jorgenson realizes it was him. They make up then, and although they aren't friends, they've somewhat put the past in the past.
Now he's reflecting on his past through many time periods. He talks about how death was hard for him to cope with during the war. His experiences with bodies, be they friends, enemies, or random were all personal and scary to him. This was because in his childhood his first girlfriend died of a brain tumor when she was nine years old. This has made it hard for him to cope with death his entire life. Is this why he didn't kill anyone in the war? I understand this traumatic experience in his childhood is what made him hate war. There's too much death in war. And that would also explain all the grief he feels whenever he has to experience death. Throughout the war, and even now, Tim tries to use skip around words like "dead" and "death" and say things like "kicked the bucket" (237), to make death seem less intense. Even now, he still thinks about Linda, his first love, "I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, still dreaming Linda alive in exactly the same way. She's not the embodied Linda; she's mostly made up, with a new identity and a new name, like the man who never was. Her real name doesn't matter. She was nine years old. I loved her and then she died" (245). This is another one of his writing "therapy" sessions, to keep the past in writing instead of haunting him. He ends the book with the powerful, "I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story"(246).
I love this book because of all the emotions it expresses. Tim O'Brien says it exactly:
"How do you generalize? War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discover and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead"(80).
And he expresses that perfectly in this book. While reading it I felt like I was there, I was happy, sad, nervous, anxious for what was going to happen next. I think that Tim O'Brien did an excellent job at showing war how it really is.
Friday, February 9, 2007
Yellow Wallpaper: Close Analysis fixed
In The Yellow Wallpaper, John's role as a physician helps him be a caring, loving husband. Since he is a medical professional, he knows what is best to help his wife recover from her mental disability. In the beginning of the book, the narrator says; "Perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see [John] does not believe I am sick" (10)! This may seem like John does not care about his wife, that he ignores her illness, but in actuality, he is trying to get her to stop thinking about her illness, since that's how she will get better. It is proven that John thinks this way when the narrator tells us that, "John says the very worst thing i can do is to think about my condition, and i confess it always makes me feel bad" (10). John also tells her that she should be cautious about her daydreams, but not because he wants to limit her thinking capabilities. The narrator explains this when she writes about her daydreams; "But John has cautioned me not to give way to fancies in the least. He says that... a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies" (15-16). Although it may seem like John is trying to suppress the narrator's voice, he really is just being a caring husband and helping her do what is best for herself.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Yellow Wallpaper: Close Analysis
In The Yellow Wallpaper, John's role as a physician helps him be a caring, loving husband. Since he is a medical professional, he knows what is best to help his wife out of her mental disability. In the beginning of the book, the narrator says; "Perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see [John] does not believe I am sick!" (10). This may seem like John does not care about his wife, that he ignores her illness, but in actuality, he is trying to get her to stop thinking about her illness, since that's how she will get better. "John says the very worst thing i can do is to think about my condition, and i confess it always makes me feel bad" (10). John also tells her that she should be cautious about her daydreams, but not because he wants to limit her thinking abilities. The narrator explains this when she writes about her daydreams; "But John has cautioned me not to give way to Fancies in the least. He says that... a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies" (15-16). So although it may seem like John is trying to suppress the narrator's voice, he really is just being a caring husband and helping her do what is best for herself.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
The Yellow Wallpaper: Journal 1-Reader's response
The Yellow Wallpaper starts with the narrator talking about a house that her husband and her had "secured for the summer" (9). I thought instantly that the narrator was superstitious because she keeps wanted to call their summer home a haunted house, but she says that would "reach a height of romantic felicity" (9).
fe·lic·i·ty –noun.
So after she talks about her wishes of her haunted house she describes her husband. His name is John. John is a physician, well doctors make a lot of money so he probably is the financial supporter of the family. The narrator seems to think that he husband is keeping her sick, which doesn't make sense since he is a physician, and he must care about his wife. Ah, but it's because he doesn't believe she's sick. So does that mean she has some sort of hidden mental disease?
The narrator was a writer, which makes sense since she is technically writing this as a diary. Her husband and brother, who is a physician too, say she is forbidden to "work" therefore she should not be writing this at all. There's a paradox for you; she's writing about how she's not allowed to be writing anything.
Now she goes back to describing the house, saying it is "The most beautiful place!" (11), and that "There is a delicious garden" (11). She must really like this place, but I thought she was afraid of the house being haunted. Unless she wants it to be haunted? She admits to having an anger problem with her husband at times, but she holds that anger in, doesn't let it show. That could be an addition to her already troubling mental state.
The one part of the house she doesn't like is their room. She wanted a different room downstairs, but her husband shot that idea down, saying that the upstairs room with lots of windows was better for her so she could get lots of air. The narrator seems to, at least pretend, to be very compliant with all of this, even trying to convince herself of his good intentions. "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction" (12).
She describes the room as being big and airy, noting that the room was a nursery and then a playroom for its past owner. She goes into great detail about the wallpaper and paint, which she noticed is ripped off on one side of the room. Why this wallpaper is so important to her doesn't make sense to me, but I know its important because of the title. She keeps using negatively connotated words like "repellent", "suicide", "revolting". Why does she hate this wallpaper so much? Why not just paint or paper over it?
Time jumps now to two weeks after her last "entry" in the book. She has more time to write because her husband is gone on "serious cases" most of the day and night. She says, "I'm glad my case is not serious" (14). This is strange because he's neglecting her, knowing she's not mentally normal, and she's glad for the lack of attention, it gives her time to do things she shouldn't, like write.
The name Mary is mentioned, along with the narrator's son. So I'd assume Mary is a sort of nanny for their child, which the narrator isn't allowed to see. A mother who can't see her own son, maybe another addition to her mental case?
Her husband won't cover up the wallpaper, he says her dislike for it is foolish, and that she needs to not let these things bother her. He did say however, that he will fix up the room about in the three months that follow before they leave the house. She's getting more attached to the house now, she says it is an, "airy and comfortable room....all but that horrid paper" (15).
She mentions how when she looks out the window she imagines people walking by. Does this mean that there are imaginary people in her head? Could that be something along the lines of the mental disease Schizophrenia? Or multiple personalities disorder? The narrator tells her husband that she wants to visit her cousins that she likes, but John says that would, if anything, make her condition worse. So she is secluded away from the people she wants to be with.
As time goes on, she becomes attached to the wallpaper she once despised. "This paper looks at me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!" (16). She stares at the wallpaper for long periods of time, looking for patterns and flaws, trying to make order in the chaotic wallpaper. Is this symbolic of her chaotic life? She still doesn't really care for the wallpaper yet, but her thoughts seem to always wander back to it. John's sister is mentioned again in the book. "She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession" (17-18). She is probably described like this because of the author's feminist critique lens on the assumption that a good woman stays at home, and is content doing so. Maybe the narrator didn't want to be like that, so as societies' outcast for the time period, society itself is leading to her mental disorder.
The narrator's husband threatens her that he'll send her to Weir Mitchell if she doesn't get better soon. That was a very bad idea on his part; no way a threat like that will make her feel better, and her feeling well is the only way her mental health would improve. Her mental health is obviously deteriorating; "I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time" (19).
She's always thinking about the wallpaper now, and she's getting more and more lazy. Staring at the wall seems to sap all the strength out of her. John tries to compliment her, but then will talk about her condition and upset her again. Wasn't it he who said that she shouldn't talk about herself like that at all until she's better?
Her husband thinks she's getting better, and maybe physically she is, but she's definitely way worse mentally. She's trying to "master" the patterns in the wallpaper, learn all of them. She's now decided that the wallpaper has multiple layers to it, making it much more complicated then it already was. And that light and dark change the patterns as well, so she stays awake to observe the changes. Severe lack of sleep alone could cause problems, much less on top of everything else she deals with.
She says that her time is more exciting now, with all of it spent on the wallpaper. She thinks she sees a woman dancing in the wallpaper, but only under a certain lighting. You know somethings wrong when in her own secret journal she writes "I have found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much" (31). So now she's so crazy that she ignores all logic, she won't even tell herself her secrets in her diary.
She keeps fantasizing about this woman behind the wall, how she sees her outside her windows too, and wants to jump out after her. Is this meaning like suicide? She's gone so insane she sees herself out the window and she wants to jump to herself? Anyways, she can't because of the bars on the windows.
They are now on the last day of living in this ancient house. The narrator has completely lost her mind and decided that she wants to let her friend in the wall out, by riping off all of the wallpaper. She's been doing it subtly for the last week or so, but this day she will get the rest off. She rips and rips, staying in her room, skipping meals. She even locks herself in to get the woman out.
Finally she gets all the paper off the wall, and starts creeping and crawling around the room. Wow, this is just weird now, has the "woman" she saw in the wall possessed her now? So when John's sister, Jennie, tries to come in, the narrator says the key is outside; she threw it out the window. She is freaked out, so she gets John, who takes an axe upstairs, to break the door down if he has to. But then the narrator says "John dear! The key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf" (36). John goes down and finds the key, but when he goes up and unlocks the door, he is incredibly disturbed by his wife's behavior. The book ends with the narrator, "I've got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!"(36). This is weird because once again there is another woman's name, her own maybe? also, she verbally states that she's the woman behind the wall, since the wallpapers gone so she can't go back. "Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!"(36). So I'm confused, did she kill her husband? He did have an axe with him. Or did he just pass out, and now she's crawling all over him? This woman is completely psycho and this book confuses me.
Things to possibly bring up in discussion:
fe·lic·i·ty –noun.
| 1. | the state of being happy, esp. in a high degree; bliss: marital felicity
|
The narrator was a writer, which makes sense since she is technically writing this as a diary. Her husband and brother, who is a physician too, say she is forbidden to "work" therefore she should not be writing this at all. There's a paradox for you; she's writing about how she's not allowed to be writing anything.
Now she goes back to describing the house, saying it is "The most beautiful place!" (11), and that "There is a delicious garden" (11). She must really like this place, but I thought she was afraid of the house being haunted. Unless she wants it to be haunted? She admits to having an anger problem with her husband at times, but she holds that anger in, doesn't let it show. That could be an addition to her already troubling mental state.
The one part of the house she doesn't like is their room. She wanted a different room downstairs, but her husband shot that idea down, saying that the upstairs room with lots of windows was better for her so she could get lots of air. The narrator seems to, at least pretend, to be very compliant with all of this, even trying to convince herself of his good intentions. "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction" (12).
She describes the room as being big and airy, noting that the room was a nursery and then a playroom for its past owner. She goes into great detail about the wallpaper and paint, which she noticed is ripped off on one side of the room. Why this wallpaper is so important to her doesn't make sense to me, but I know its important because of the title. She keeps using negatively connotated words like "repellent", "suicide", "revolting". Why does she hate this wallpaper so much? Why not just paint or paper over it?
Time jumps now to two weeks after her last "entry" in the book. She has more time to write because her husband is gone on "serious cases" most of the day and night. She says, "I'm glad my case is not serious" (14). This is strange because he's neglecting her, knowing she's not mentally normal, and she's glad for the lack of attention, it gives her time to do things she shouldn't, like write.
The name Mary is mentioned, along with the narrator's son. So I'd assume Mary is a sort of nanny for their child, which the narrator isn't allowed to see. A mother who can't see her own son, maybe another addition to her mental case?
Her husband won't cover up the wallpaper, he says her dislike for it is foolish, and that she needs to not let these things bother her. He did say however, that he will fix up the room about in the three months that follow before they leave the house. She's getting more attached to the house now, she says it is an, "airy and comfortable room....all but that horrid paper" (15).
She mentions how when she looks out the window she imagines people walking by. Does this mean that there are imaginary people in her head? Could that be something along the lines of the mental disease Schizophrenia? Or multiple personalities disorder? The narrator tells her husband that she wants to visit her cousins that she likes, but John says that would, if anything, make her condition worse. So she is secluded away from the people she wants to be with.
As time goes on, she becomes attached to the wallpaper she once despised. "This paper looks at me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!" (16). She stares at the wallpaper for long periods of time, looking for patterns and flaws, trying to make order in the chaotic wallpaper. Is this symbolic of her chaotic life? She still doesn't really care for the wallpaper yet, but her thoughts seem to always wander back to it. John's sister is mentioned again in the book. "She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession" (17-18). She is probably described like this because of the author's feminist critique lens on the assumption that a good woman stays at home, and is content doing so. Maybe the narrator didn't want to be like that, so as societies' outcast for the time period, society itself is leading to her mental disorder.
The narrator's husband threatens her that he'll send her to Weir Mitchell if she doesn't get better soon. That was a very bad idea on his part; no way a threat like that will make her feel better, and her feeling well is the only way her mental health would improve. Her mental health is obviously deteriorating; "I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time" (19).
She's always thinking about the wallpaper now, and she's getting more and more lazy. Staring at the wall seems to sap all the strength out of her. John tries to compliment her, but then will talk about her condition and upset her again. Wasn't it he who said that she shouldn't talk about herself like that at all until she's better?
Her husband thinks she's getting better, and maybe physically she is, but she's definitely way worse mentally. She's trying to "master" the patterns in the wallpaper, learn all of them. She's now decided that the wallpaper has multiple layers to it, making it much more complicated then it already was. And that light and dark change the patterns as well, so she stays awake to observe the changes. Severe lack of sleep alone could cause problems, much less on top of everything else she deals with.
She says that her time is more exciting now, with all of it spent on the wallpaper. She thinks she sees a woman dancing in the wallpaper, but only under a certain lighting. You know somethings wrong when in her own secret journal she writes "I have found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much" (31). So now she's so crazy that she ignores all logic, she won't even tell herself her secrets in her diary.
She keeps fantasizing about this woman behind the wall, how she sees her outside her windows too, and wants to jump out after her. Is this meaning like suicide? She's gone so insane she sees herself out the window and she wants to jump to herself? Anyways, she can't because of the bars on the windows.
They are now on the last day of living in this ancient house. The narrator has completely lost her mind and decided that she wants to let her friend in the wall out, by riping off all of the wallpaper. She's been doing it subtly for the last week or so, but this day she will get the rest off. She rips and rips, staying in her room, skipping meals. She even locks herself in to get the woman out.
Finally she gets all the paper off the wall, and starts creeping and crawling around the room. Wow, this is just weird now, has the "woman" she saw in the wall possessed her now? So when John's sister, Jennie, tries to come in, the narrator says the key is outside; she threw it out the window. She is freaked out, so she gets John, who takes an axe upstairs, to break the door down if he has to. But then the narrator says "John dear! The key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf" (36). John goes down and finds the key, but when he goes up and unlocks the door, he is incredibly disturbed by his wife's behavior. The book ends with the narrator, "I've got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!"(36). This is weird because once again there is another woman's name, her own maybe? also, she verbally states that she's the woman behind the wall, since the wallpapers gone so she can't go back. "Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!"(36). So I'm confused, did she kill her husband? He did have an axe with him. Or did he just pass out, and now she's crawling all over him? This woman is completely psycho and this book confuses me.
Things to possibly bring up in discussion:
- Stockholm Syndrome, where one is put in a situation that they despise, something they can't stand to be in, yet over time the trauma causes them to get used to it, and then like the situation they once hated. Could she have suffered from this?
- What actually happens in the end of the book?
- Is her mental breakdown her own fault, or is it the actions/inaction of her husband that led to her mental deterioration? Like how crazy was she in the first place?
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