Exploration 6: Reading Response - Chris Phillips

     The story that I found meant the most was "The Man I Killed." This story gives insight into the most horrible part about being in the war; killing others. No one except for veterans know what it's like to be in a situation where you have to kill others to survive. As a student, it's hard for me to grasp just what something like that would feel like, but O'Brien describes his emotions and thoughts in a raw and "real" way. He forces you to share in his thoughts, regrets and guilt over the situation. O'Brien describes the man in great detail, so as to show that this memory in particular is sort of burned in to his mind. He also indulges into a fantasy about what kind of life this man may have lead, and how it could've been eerily similar to his own, showing how much of a tragedy this might have been to his family back home. O'Brien puts the reader in his own shoes by sharing his thoughts, and then puts himself in the shoes of the man he killed, suggesting to the reader to puts themselves in the shoes of the Vietnamese man who is now dead.
     I feel like the character which I can connect with the most is O'Brien. His reaction to being drafted is the same as I feel mine would be; a great internal battle riddled with indecision. I wouldn't want to feel like a coward, either, but realistically I would think about what I could do to avoid going to war. He is realistic, and I think that his reactions to his surroundings in Vietnam are naturally how I would react as well.
     The convention of narrative that stands out to me the most is O'Brien's use of figurative language. He uses figurative language to describe situations in a way that effectively deepens the reader's understanding by comparing them to other things that might be easier to feel or more easily related to. I found a good example of this on page 41, where he describes the way he felt when deciding what action to take after being drafted. He says that it was as it he "[was] hurtling down a huge black funnel, the world squeezing in tight."
     A good passage I found from "The Man I Killed" was on page 119. O'Brien describes how he imaged the man's life before it was ended, saying "he would have been taught that to defend the land was a man's highest duty and highest privilege. He had accepted this [...] secretly, though, it frightened him. He was not a fighter." This passage struck me as interesting, because it showed how much O'Brien was dwelling on what he had just done. By describing the man in this way, he is sort of relating his own life to what this man's life could've been like. This passage shows how O'Brien felt about killing, which makes it all seem more real.