Uncle Sam mocked me. He pointed, stared into my soul, and said, “I want you,” but it was a lie. No one wanted Clive Hardy fighting their battles for them, not if they had any sense. I limped past the poster hung on a dingy brick building and jerked open the door of Edie’s Drugstore. Cold air blasted me. “Chattanooga Choo Choo” played on the jukebox where a hodgepodge of servicemen hovered, mostly Army, a few Navy and one airman—rival heroes thrown together by their love of Glenn Miller music. I didn’t even have that in common. A combination of camphor and soap gave the place an amiable odor, but beneath it was the hint of cigarette smoke. At the first real whiff, ice shot into my heart. Wiping sweat from my upper lip, I blinked to clear away
the spots that swam in and out of vision. Not now. My cane in a death grip, I hurried into the phone booth which couldn’t quite shut out the song, even though the juke was on the store’s other end. All this time spent distancing myself and now the past knocked again. I dug out the telegram from my pocket: NEED HELP CONTACT ME. The easiest method would be to reestablish a connection on my initiative when the time was right. So much for easy. After balling the message in my pocket, I put in the call. “Hello?” Hearing Mother’s voice was like scratching off a scab. “I received your telegram. How did you find me?”
All of these hardships the soldiers faced caused an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and constant fear. To counter this sense of despair, the soldiers had many ways of coping with or avoiding the reality of the war. Tim O’Brien, with Going after Cacciato and In the Lake of the Woods, addresses th...
This contrast in style affirms that the soldiers are human and provides emphasis to the weight these intangible objects have on the soldiers. An emotional burden that the men must carry is the longing for their loved ones. The Vietnam War forced many young men to leave their loved ones and move halfway across the world to fight a questionable war in an unfamiliar land.... ... middle of paper ... ...
In both Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrators are stuck in situations where the emotional burden takes over their psyche. Each protagonist suffers a mental disjunction from reality. The narrator in “The Things They Carried” recounts first-person events that took place during the Vietnam War. O’Brien tells of the various missions his company takes part in, as well as depicting the deaths of his fellow team members. The multiple deaths in O’Brien’s tenure begin to weigh heavily on his mind in his post-war adjustment as he struggles to adapt to life back home after his best friend’s death.
The American Civil War was a bitter, grief-filled conflict with oddly musical overtones. A Southern soldier, Alexander Hunter, recalled that “There was music in plenty,” (Lawrence 169) just as Charles Frazier’s character Stobrod in Cold Mountain remarks that “there was so much music back then” (407). While both the Union and the Confederacy placed great import on music, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier focuses primarily on the Southern perspective of the war, in all of its aspects. Spiritual music gave soldiers hope, gave them something cheerful to listen to after their days of slogging through the grime of human remains, as Inman discovers during his journey. Songs of homecoming and perseverance also strengthened the women, children, and parents left behind, waiting with fearful hopes for the return of their loved ones. Ada’s continual reference to “Wayfaring Stranger” illustrates this point beautifully. Finally, the musical natures of both armies created a bond that otherwise would not have been possible, forming brief alliances among enemies. The impact of music during this period of American history was so great that General Robert E. Lee was heard to say “I don’t believe we can have an army without music” (Wiley qtd. in Waller and Edgington 147). Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain exemplifies this statement, interweaving music throughout the struggles of Ada and Inman, using it as a tool to express emotion and to give a common thread to the broken culture that was the American South. The dissonant harmonies of Civil War-era music both complemented and contrasted itself, creating new forms from old ones and forging bonds where there had been nothing.
“Within the hotel chemical odors ebbed and flowed like an atmospheric tide. Some days the halls were suffused with a caustic scent, as of a cleanser applied too liberally, other days with a silvery medicinal odor, as if a dentist were at work somewhere in the building easing a customer into a deep sleep” (Larson 254).
On my first day of school sophomore year, my English teacher assigned us a project that would last almost all year. I rolled my eyes and braced myself for information about a 300 page essay or a really long research project. Instead, he started reading to us. He was reading the book “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom. The book is about a man who reconnects with his favorite teacher who is terminally ill. Mitch interviews the professor every Tuesday until Morrie, his professor, dies. For the assignment, he wanted us to create our own version of the book. In the beginning, I was apprehensive, but since the project was a major part of my grade, I had no choice. I decided to do my project about my family friend, Robert Timmerman.
Jonathan Wayne Nobles grins at me through inch-thick wire-reinforced glass, hunching over to speak in a deep, resonant voice through the steel grate below. A feeble "What’s up?" is the best I can manage. The visiting area in Ellis One Unit is crowded with other folks who have traveled, in some cases thousands of miles, to visit relatives and correspondents on Texas’ Death Row. They sit at intervals in wooden chairs surrounding a cinder block and steel cage that dominates the center of the room. There are cages within the cage as well, reserved for inmates under disciplinary action and "death watch" status. Falling into the latter category, Jon must squeeze his considerable bulk into one of these phone-booth-sized enclosures.
Lilly Barels never thought she would be a writer. As a UCLA graduate who double majored in Neuroscience and Dance, her relationship with creative writing ended in High School. However, almost fifteen years later, in the midst of a broken marriage and lost in the fog of un-fulfillment, Barels discovered the creative channel that would transform her from a high school physics teacher to a soon-to-be published writer. After a passionate and healing love affair with poetry, she was accepted into the MFA program at Antioch Los Angeles. In 2012, Barels received her Masters in Creative Writing with a focus in fiction. Barels just finished her second novel, and she is a regular contributor to Huffington Post.
Can you imagine having to leave your home to fight in a war that you really don’t agree with? This week, I have been able to finish reading Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried; the novel had a total of 260 pages. Throughout the novel, Tim O’Brien narrates a series of short stories that describe his growing up in Worthington, Minnesota, his leaving home, and his arrival and adventures in the jungle of Vietnam. Tim O’Brien describes the many things that each of his characters must physically and emotionally carry. During his one-year tour of duty, Tim loses many good friends, including Tim Lavender, Curt Lemon, and Kiowa. This week, I have also been able to begin reading John L. Parker’s novel Racing the Rain; I am currently on page 110. In Racing in the Rain, Quenton Cassidy is a young man who is growing up in rural Florida. He faces many conflicts related to his friend, Trapper Nelson, and his dilemma related to running track or playing basketball. While reading The Things They Carried, I have been connecting and questioning; I have been visualizing while reading Racing the Rain.
Four paralleled lives of drug use. Harry, his girlfriend Marion, His friend Tyron, and his widowed mother Sara have one thing in common and that’s addiction. Harry, Marion, and Tyron come up with a plan to buy bulk drugs so they can sell them, make a huge profit to “better their lives”, and stop pushing nickel bags. As they make profits they continue to feed their growing addictions to heroin and cocaine. They end up with no money and no drugs. They all start experiencing withdrawal and become desperate. Marion begins to prostitute for drugs and money. Harry and Tyron end up in jail, and Harry ends up getting his arm amputated from IV use. Sara becomes obsessed with her weight so she can fit back into her red dress and become a contestant
First Things First, grab the saw his antibiotics are wearing off. “We have to saw off your right leg, Mr. Daws I’m very sorry for your loss.” He replied, “It’s a whole lot better than dying that's for sure I’ll just have to adjust.” This was the usual part of the job so it really didn’t affect me at the time, but it surely would come back to haunt me in the end.
John Smith has a couple of years left until he retires from his job in London where he has worked for over 25 years. John has loved this job as it has involved him saving lives.
attire stood up and with her little boy in tow, took a deep breath and
The safe house that Cain had picked out had been built in the early 50's. Originally a small jailhouse, it had been abandoned in 1975 when the King commissioned for the Wayland Penitentiary to be built. The jailhouse, while small, had been built over a series of evacuation tunnels dug deep underground. They weren't used by anyone other than the Knights and the Red Hoods—the King had condemned it with the closing of the jailhouse, deeming the tunnels unsafe for use.