Monthly Archives: October 2008

Norman Bowker

Norman arrives in Vietnam operating within a schema of WWII soldiering. He believes, that what marks men as courageous are medals and service awards. Norman has an active emotional life, an intensity of feeling about the atrocities he experienced in Vietnam, especially Kiowa’s death.

These feelings are not directed out toward the world as anger, but instead are turned in upon him, and they become self loathing and extreme survivor guilt. Tim describes Norman as someone who “did not know what to feel”. Norman himself could not find words to describe his feelings, and instead turns to O’Brien to tell his story for him.

Norman connects “Tim” the soldier with Tim the writer. He operates as a figment of O’Briens imagination allowing him to move between the war and storytelling, providing a purpose and a story for O’Brien to tell. This stands in contrast to Norman’s actions in the novel, and points to what motivated him to take his own life, the lack of an objective.

Norman embodies the paradox between the need for emotional truth and the pain many feel in expressing it. The Norman character is most essential to the novel as fodder about which O’Brien creates a fictional story. He asks Tim to write his story, and when he reads it, asks him to revise it to reflect more of his feeling of intimate loss. Norman teaches Tim how to articulate pain through storytelling, the particular pain of Kiowa’s death to the wastefulness of war. Without this experience of articulating trauma through storytelling, Tim asserts that he too could have been trapped in the same emotional paralysis as Norman. Norman also helps Tim realise how writing helped him to avoid a similar fate.

The importance of Kiowa

Kiowa symbolises the wastefulness of war.

Kiowa is the emotional compass of Alpha Company, the one who gets everyone else to talk. Kiowa tries to comfort Tim after he kills the North Vietnamese soldier, and it is to Kiowa that Dobbins opens up to about his respect for the clergy. The night before Kiowa is killed the young soldier is in a tent speaking to him about his girlfriend left behind.

Kiowa helps Tim by easing his transitions. He makes Tim more comfortable when he arrives at the war, talking to him about the others’ jokes about corpses, and he tries to get Tim to talk about the Vietnamese soldier he killed. Tim tells the story of Linda to Kiowa. It is from Kiowa, therefore that Tim learns the importance of communicating, leading eventually to his becoming a writer. In some ways, Kiowa’s death is what makes Tim a writer, a teller of stories. When he returns to Vietnam with Katherine, he takes her to the site of Kiowa’s death in the field. Although Tim does not tell her the story of Kiowa, he brings her to that site so that he might pass the story on, just as he will pass on the story of how he killed a man when he feels Katherine is ready to hear it

The Things They Carried Essay

The essay below was written in exam conditions in response to the text as a whole.

Most texts are written to reflect real events in real worlds. Discuss the features that make a text you have studied seem realistic (unrealistic) and explain why realism is appropriate (inappropriate) to the text’s main themes.

Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam novel The Things They Carried was written in many respects to reflect real events and while we soon come to the realisation that the actual event is in the end irrelevant, these events still provide a vital backdrop for the reader to initially absorb then realise that they don’t actually matter. The Things They Carried is not a text book nor in any respects is it an accurate historical account, it is a collection of memories, feelings and actions and with O’Brien staying clear of stereotypical themes such as heroism and bravery we are presented with a more compelling, realistic and appropriate view of an ambiguous war fought by young and unsure men.

The Things They Carried views and presents realism very differently to a lot of other Vietnam literature, the facts are not at the heart of the book nor are they even important what is important is what the narrator Tim or Mitchell Sanders or Bob ‘Rat’ Kiley felt in that split second of heat, whether they saw someone killed, they killed, or something changed forever and that is what is real and true and forever relevant. O’Brien himself sums it up best in the chapter ‘Good Form’ as he tries to explain the structure of his book, “story truth is often more relevant than the real truth” O’Brien is simply saying that in order for us to feel what he has felt, the facts often have to be changed but if we do feel his anger, his rage, cowardice or guilt then we as an outsider and reader have seen the truth. It is this unique approach with events being moments and realism being feelings that make the novels themes still relevant to any audience anywhere to this day.

While Vietnam literature often takes the approach of showing the fearless and brave hero that conquered all despite the over whelming odds against him O’Brien has chosen to concentrate on more human ideas and themes. Guilt, shame and embarrassment prove to be very central in a book the deals almost entirely with emotions. Guilt comes in the form of Tim’s best friend Kiowa, Kiowa probably the most honourable man in Alpha Company ironically dies in a field muck and sewage due to the misjudgement of others. Norman Bowker talks about this guilt in the chapter ‘Speaking of courage’, he talks about how he almost wins the Silver Star for uncommon valour but he couldn’t get over the stench of the field in order to pull Kiowaup from the muck, he talks about how he wanted to more than anything but was paralysed by the stench. In ‘Notes’ after we are told Norman Bowker commits suicide Tim makes a confession that “the last part of the story was mine”, when we realise Tim was the one who froze the facts become distorted and all we are left with is a feeling of guilt nothing else but guilt and that is exactly what O’Brien wanted as to feel.

Strangely enough shame and embarrassment are prominent throughout as well, it’s a focussing point with curt Lemon in ‘The Dentist’, Lee Struck and Dave Jensen in both ‘Enemies’ and ‘Friends’ and Tim himself in ‘On the rainy river’. ‘On the rainy river’ is the battle Tim is having with himself after receiving his draft notice, he doesn’t want to fight a war that he believes is unjust but at the same time is scared of the rejection from his peers and community. What Tim was facing was a very real problem for a lot of people and as he was effectively stuck in a ‘catch 22′ problem everyone can relate on some level. With the ease at which everyone can relate to this story and the obvious realism that precedes it the story is that of a thousand people and therefore hugely powerful.

With realism being the truth and truth being a feeling Tim O’Brien successfully conveys every theme major or minor leaving us simply with one overwhelming feeling. As he constantly backtracks, re-writes and retells stories the facts become more and more distorted but the truth and relevance of all the stories are stronger with every page you read. While it is important to know that the soldiers were fighting an unjust war with unthinkable consequences the fact will always remain that whether someone died in 1968 in Vietnam or 1980 in New York the feelings will always be the same and in the end with time distorted facts the only truth is the felling you have.

Searchcube

Photobucket
searchcube is a graphical search engine that presents search results in a compact, visual format. It searches the World Wide Web for websites, videos and images and displays previews of each result on a unique, three-dimensional cube interface. The cube above is for Katikati College.

searchcube displays the first thirty-two results for each of websites, videos and images. The maximum total number of results returned is ninety-six results.

http://www.symmetri.com/searchcube/#


Why is Lord of the Flies worth reading?

The Level One essay below is in response to the question:

1. Describe an important idea you learned about in the text. Explain why this idea was worth learning about.

An important idea in the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding is the idea that evil exists within all men. This idea was worth learning about because it is Golding’s attempt at explaining the atrocities of World War Two, and it helps us to understand the importance of laws and rules in our society.

William Golding experienced first hand the horrors of World War Two, and Lord of the Flies was written to warn us that ‘what happened in Germany could happen anywhere. It could happen here.’ Golding shows us that evil exists not just in those who commit awful crimes, but in all of us. In his novel, a group of young schoolboys are stuck on an island, without adults, and without rules. At first this is an exciting prospect for them; a world without rules is paradise. But the boys start having nightmares about a strange beast. And very quickly, their behaviour begins to deteriorate. At first, Ralph diplomatically leads the group. But Jack decides to create his own tribe, and by the end of the novel Simon and Piggy have been killed, and Ralph is being hunted.

Ralph is portrayed as the protagonist of Lord of the Flies. He is fair haired, level-headed, and voted chief of the boy’s tribe. He is intelligent and diplomatic, and sets about creating a system of laws for the island. But Golding uses Ralph to help convey the idea that ‘all men are inherently evil’. Ralph is the good guy. Of all people, he is the one who will bring peace and justice to the island. But before he realises what he is doing, Ralph is involved in the murder of Simon. Even innocent Ralph is capable of murder. Golding wants us to understand that anyone has the potential to do ghastly things. All Germans were not murderers. But many of them became Nazi soldiers, responsible for the deaths of millions. And Golding warns us that the same thing could happen again. ‘It could happen here.’ This idea is worth learning about, because if we realise our potential for evil, we can take steps to prevent that potential becoming a reality.

We discover that the beast on the island is not a mythical creature, or an unknown monster. In fact, it is much more real. ‘You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close!’, the beast taunts Simon. ‘I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?’ Simon discovers that the beast is the evil within every human being. But before he can tell the others, he is beaten to death by them. Golding shows us how easily men can become murderous savages. In the absence of law and order, society breaks down. This is worth learning about because the same thing is happening in our world today. An example of this is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. All of a sudden, law did not exist. And people started looting, raping, and murdering. We need laws to keep us civilised. Golding saw what happened in World War Two, when the law broke down. Civilisation broke down too. His novel was written to warn us of this danger.

An important idea in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is that all men are inherently evil, and that we need laws to keep us functioning in a civilised way. This idea is worth learning about because it reminds us that laws, though sometimes frustrating, are truly necessary to prevent anarchy. And it warns us that what happened in Nazi Germany could happen anywhere. We need to be aware of the danger if we are going to be able to prevent a repeat of history.

Any thoughts?

Courage in To Kill a Mockingbird

In To Kill a Mockingbird the reader sees different types of courage. There are examples of physical courage, such as Atticus facing the rabid dog. There is also moral courage, an example of this would be when Atticus takes on Tom Robinson’s case and he sticks to his principles, even though he knows that he can’t win. Scout shows this kind of courage when she doesn’t fight back when people criticise Atticus. Atticus sees Mrs Dubose as a strong example of someone with courage and he calls her the bravest person he knows. She has the goal of dying free from her drug addiction and she achieves it with great effort. Atticus teaches his children that the action of Mrs Dubose is true courage and it is not “a man with a gun in his hand.”