McNeil AP Lit

Spending months living and fighting with other men in a platoon causes a type of brotherhood to form.  Tim O'Brien narrated his journey through his brotherhood that was created during the Vietnam War.  They bonded over war stories, girlfriends, crude humor, and fear of the war.  They carried each other whether it was emotionally, mentally, or physically.  They loved each other like a brother, in fact they did consider each other as brothers united by war and the fear of death.  When one of them died, a part of everyone died.  They felt each others pain and tried to help bare it. The brotherhood of war is typically a lifelong bond, but for O'Brien his bond was ended after he was shot in the buttock.  Angry with the medic for his lack of action, which caused him to get gangrene, he wanted revenge.  O'Brien's pain from his injury was something that he wanted the medic to feel.  It was then that he broke the bond of brotherhood by trying to hu...

Sometimes it is hard to distinguish what is true and what is false.  What are the components in a story that make it true?  In this case, what determines a war story to be true?  In  How to Tell a True War Story,  O'Brien discusses the elements that must be present in any war story in order for it to be true. A true war story is never moral, it embarrasses you, it has obscenity, it never ends, and you feel it in your stomach.  O'Brien's points make the nature of war stories contradicting.  Many people see war stories to be heroic and patriotic. I think by portraying war stories as being immoral and evil, he emphasizes the realities of war.  In reflecting back on the death of Curt Lemon, he finds that his memory became blurry in the sense that he couldn't differentiate what parts of the story were true or false.  This is an important observation by O'Brien because it shows the impacts of being in combat. Emotions can deeply impact a person's ...

A common pattern I've noticed in reading the stories is whether humanity truly exists in war.  The nature of war is violent and can psychologically drive a person to make inhumane decisions.  Norman Bowker, an otherwise gentle person, had carried the severed thumb of a Vietnamese teenage boy.  He carried it for "good luck" as it was a gift by his friend, Mitchell Sanders.  They plumaged and looted villages without knowing what exactly they were looking for.  They simply did it because they were bored.  They took the lives of innocent villagers because it seemed like the right thing to do.  After Lavender was killed, the set fire to the nearest village out of rage and sorrow.  They blamed innocent people for their friend's death and punished them for it. War clouded a soldier's judgement.  Jimmy Cross continued to bear the pain of Lavender's death as he considered it to be his fault.  He reflected on his actions during the war and ackn...

In The Things They Carried,  the Vietnam War affected all Americans: those at home and away. Despite the opinions about the effectiveness of the war, it was inevitable for people to feel its effects. In the beginning of the war, men could only wait for a draft note to arrive in the mail.  Obviously, most men were reluctant and even scared to go to war as demonstrated by Tim O'Brien in the chapter called On the Rainy River.   As a college graduate, O'Brien represented Americans who thought of themselves as above the war, meaning that they were too good for the war.  He thought that those who were not as educated or politically opposed of the war should be drafted instead of people like him.  This is an example of how no one can avoid the war.  It touched everyone.  O'Brien experienced many emotional and internal conflict.  He wanted to run.  Scared of being killed, he was even more scared of being a coward and disappointing his family's rep...

Symbols are a way to convey an idea to further a deeper meaning within a book.  In The Thing Around Your Neck , Adichie uses various symbols to represent idea that possessions or items are a symbol of status or wealth.  This is evident in many of the stories. In the first story, Cell One , Nnamabia steals his mother's jewelry by faking a break-in.  Living in a country during economic turmoil, valuables were limited and showed the status of a family.  Stealing showed popularity because in doing so, one can increase their status by taking from others.  In the same sense, Imitation , Nkem's items that her husband bring home from Africa to America.  The Benin Mask was originally used in royal ceremonies and to her neighbors, her status increased because she was one of the only houses to collect foreign and original art pieces.  Her wealth was through her husband as he owned two houses, one in Nigeria and the other in America.  This also increased h...

A reoccurring theme in The Thing Around Your Neck  was the differences between Nigerian and American culture.  Culture is based on collectively shared set of beliefs, cuisine, music, art, etc., which defines a group or population.  Many of the stories within the novel deal with African immigrants living in America and the contrasting cultures. Some characters were trying to preserve their original culture while facing an unfamiliar and sometimes unwelcoming to anything "un-American".  In the chapter, On Monday of Last Week , Kamara found sharp distinctions when starting her new job in America as a babysitter.  In Nigeria, "half-caste" was a complimenting word, while the same word has a negative and racial denotation. Things that Karmara considered were okay, such as smacking a child as a form of discipline, were frowned upon by her American employer.  She became increasingly frustrated at the unnecessary concerns and anxieties American parents had about ...