These Things They Carried Reading Response
1. The story that has meant the most to me so far has been "On the Rainy River". This one really captivated me as a reader because O'Brien's emotion is so raw and he really makes himself vulnerable, which is instantly connectable in a piece of writing. In this story, it also was interesting how O'Brien used his descriptiveness to capture how he was feeling at the time, when he was battling between what he thought was what he had to do but didn't morally believe in it. The fear of decision overcomes him to the point where he has a personal meltdown. What I really admired was his ability to overcome this fear and make the decision, whether it was a good one or not, he conquered something many cannot.
2.The character that I'd say that I connected to the most was actually Tim O'Brien. I've connected with him through his stream of consciousness throughout the book, I feel like we have shared a lot of ideologies and similarities in thought process and writing. I also connected with him in a more obvious way, because if I was faced with the draft at the time, my reaction would most definitely be the same. I would be very much in fear of what going against my peaceful mindset in such a harsh way would do to myself. This would have been a hard thing to just set aside and willingly go to war like O'Brien did, in a less impactual way, I connect this to my life and the hardships that I find everyday with my beliefs and morals as a person.
3. A specific convention of narrative that I find most obvious and influential in O'Brien's writing is characterization and how he uses it to his advantage. O'Brien focuses mainly on detail, and uses to it to create a persona for a character. Human from a biological standpoint are generally similar but O'Brien uses the small quirks and differences that set us all aside from one another. This also goes on to create a lot of figurative language in his writing. An example of this would be "I loved baseball and hamburgers and Cherry Cokes" (Page 48), these details are insignificant to the story but make a clear and specific picture of who O'Brien is before the war, so the reader can assume what the war did the innocent look he had on life, he was living care free. This is all information from one small characterization that he made about himself.
4. "It struck me then that he must've planned it. I'll never be certain, of course, but I think he meant to bring me up against the realities, to guide me across the river and to take me to the edge and to stand a kind of vigil as I chose a life for myself." (Page 53) This quote resonated with me because it's something that in a lesser value I'm going through at this point in my life with all the important decisions that I'm making that will impact my future forever, and I feel like in a way there has been a number of people in my life that has guided me here, whether they still be here or not, they have affected me in this way and I feel as O'Brien felt for Elroy towards them, I feel extreme gratitude.
2.The character that I'd say that I connected to the most was actually Tim O'Brien. I've connected with him through his stream of consciousness throughout the book, I feel like we have shared a lot of ideologies and similarities in thought process and writing. I also connected with him in a more obvious way, because if I was faced with the draft at the time, my reaction would most definitely be the same. I would be very much in fear of what going against my peaceful mindset in such a harsh way would do to myself. This would have been a hard thing to just set aside and willingly go to war like O'Brien did, in a less impactual way, I connect this to my life and the hardships that I find everyday with my beliefs and morals as a person.
3. A specific convention of narrative that I find most obvious and influential in O'Brien's writing is characterization and how he uses it to his advantage. O'Brien focuses mainly on detail, and uses to it to create a persona for a character. Human from a biological standpoint are generally similar but O'Brien uses the small quirks and differences that set us all aside from one another. This also goes on to create a lot of figurative language in his writing. An example of this would be "I loved baseball and hamburgers and Cherry Cokes" (Page 48), these details are insignificant to the story but make a clear and specific picture of who O'Brien is before the war, so the reader can assume what the war did the innocent look he had on life, he was living care free. This is all information from one small characterization that he made about himself.
4. "It struck me then that he must've planned it. I'll never be certain, of course, but I think he meant to bring me up against the realities, to guide me across the river and to take me to the edge and to stand a kind of vigil as I chose a life for myself." (Page 53) This quote resonated with me because it's something that in a lesser value I'm going through at this point in my life with all the important decisions that I'm making that will impact my future forever, and I feel like in a way there has been a number of people in my life that has guided me here, whether they still be here or not, they have affected me in this way and I feel as O'Brien felt for Elroy towards them, I feel extreme gratitude.
I think O'Brien's use of characterization in the story is one of the most important uses of conventions of narrative. He introduces many characters at the very beginning of the book, which is unusual because normally the author introduces characters gradually in order to help the reader ease into them and remember them more effectively. However, O'Brien has an interesting take on characterization, in that he introduces many characters at once but makes you remember them by giving raw dialogue that may not be integral to the plot, but provides a lot of context for how each character thinks.
ReplyDeleteI agree O'Brian's use of characterization is one of the most important uses of convention of narrative. the way he introduces and describes all the characters in the beginning instead of all though out is a different way to describe them. Also thats a good quote you used.
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