From Bitterness to Pride: A Journey in Indian Education

A.)

The tone of Indian Education started off as bitter and ends as proud. At the beginning, he constantly mentions how he was bullied during school. “They pushed me down, buried me in the snow until I couldn’t breathe, thought I’d never breathe again” (DiYanni 230). This radiates a bitter and defeated type of tone. Also, he mentions how he was abused by higher figures. “But all I learned was that gravity can be painful” (DiYanni 231). Toward the end, the story shifts to more of a proud and humble tone. For example, the author does well in sports and in school. During the ninth grade, “after a basketball game in an overheated gym where I had scored twenty-seven points and pulled down thirteen rebounds” (DiYanni 233). Also, during graduation,

The story features a mother teaching her daughter on becoming a girl. The author takes a single sentence approach and constantly uses semicolons, dashes, italics, and more. I think the author uses this approach to emphasize what the mother thinks is most important. For example, “; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming;” (DiYanni 270). When the author constantly mentions being a “slut” she uses many of the semicolons and italics. The readers can then infer this is very important to the mother.

When I read the story a second time I noticed there wasn’t a beginning or an end. There weren’t events that went in an order. Everything was just thrown into one long paragraph. I think the story is presented that way to show the mother is giving significant information to the daughter. There are almost no breaks or pauses. To me, this gives a sense of urgency and necessity.

Many soldiers carried lucky items, “Norman Bowker…carried a thumb that had been presented to him as gift” (DiYanni 439). Lieutenant Cross also concluded that he was the cause of Lee Strunk’s death. The warzone made Cross believe that his reminiscing on the past got one of his men killed. This is another example of how Tim O’ Brien, the author, informed readers of how much fear there was. The soldiers also feared odd things that could bring about death. While scavenging through the tunnel, “Will your flashlight go dead? Do rats carry rabies? If you screamed, how far would it carry?” (DiYanni 438). I think O’ Brien was really just trying to show readers what soldiers went through day in and day