People often have nicknames to describe details about themselves. Nicknames are not self-created but given to the person from friends or even comrades. In “Into The Lake Of The Woods” By Tim O' Brian, this is the case with John Wade, a former soldier that was nicknamed “Sorcerer”. John Wade is named Sorcerer because of use of magic in his youth and how the men is his squad would feel protected because of his magical powers. As Sorcerer is Wade's alter ego, it seems that it goes on to cost him dearly later in his life. Wade eventually ends up becoming governor of Minnesota and tries to run for U.S Senate. He loses in a landslide victory to his opponent as evidence of the My Lai incident is uncovered. His actions as Sorcerer start to make his life for the worse. It is seen later that Wade's wife, Kathy, is missing and Wade is soon suspected as he remains calm and not involved in the search party. O’Brien does not make it clear on how it Kathy's disappearance occurs but it is clear what happens. Sorcerer arrives again in John Wade as he pulls one final magic trick: to make Kathy disappear....forever.
John Wade is an odd character in this novel as he goes through dramatic shifts in his life. Before the My Lai uncovering, John was seen as a respectable guy. He was physical attractive, had a “beautiful woman” (21) as his wife and he was polished. Behind all that though was something, disturbing to say the least. John would “wake up in the middle of the night screaming sometimes” (29). This was an indication that there were problems he was dealing with, and he was. John's depressing childhood and horrors of the My Lai incident eventually consumed him. John's childhood was rough because he had an abusive father which evidently, has s...
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...stanced himself from relationships to concentrate on the horrible reality of war. As Sorcerer, he was able to kill without doubt and follow orders. He was seen as the magic protector of the squad as he also performed magic tricks in war. Sorcerer was able to keep him and the others safe and survive the Vietnam war.
In the book, John Wade and Sorcerer are one. They are qualities of one person that ultimately makes him. It seems as the book progresses, Sorcerer takes over more and more until towards the end when Wade goes looking for Kathy. It seems Wade is able to overcome his loneliness and deteriorating mental state to come back as the respectable, good looking man people saw him as. We may never know what happened to Kathy and if the evidence chapter is really true in figuring out her fate but we see John Wade let go of Sorcerer and becomes himself again.
The Secret Lives of Sgt. John Wilson, written by Lois Simmie, is a hybrid book featuring a nonfiction storyline with a personal, albeit fabricated, flare which gives us a glimpse into what the interior dialogue of the individuals involved the novel might have felt. The essence in focus centres around John Wilson, sometimes referred to as Jack, and the double life which he opts to play. Throughout the plot of the novel, personalities clash and emotions formerly unseen rise to the surface. One action is used as a recurring theme anchoring all of the chapters and events together, that being deception. Betrayal and deception by the hands of John Wilson were shown towards the main individuals of the novel, namely Polly, Elizabeth, and Jessie.
The Vietnam War was a controversial conflict that plagued the United States for many years. The loss of life caused by the war was devastating. For those who came back alive, their lives were profoundly changed. The impact the war had on servicemen would affect them for the rest of their lives; each soldier may have only played one small part in the war, but the war played a huge part in their lives. They went in feeling one way, and came home feeling completely different. In the book Vietnam Perkasie, W.D. Ehrhart describes his change from a proud young American Marine to a man filled with immense confusion, anger, and guilt over the atrocities he witnessed and participated in during the war.
Murderer, liar, manipulator; these are only a few words that describe the enigmatic Sergeant John Wilson. In the historical book, The Secret Lives of Sgt. John Wilson: A True Story of Love & Murder, written by Lois Simmie, we get acquainted with the complex balancing act of a life John Wilson lived. We find out about his two-faced love life, the bloody solution, and the elaborate cover up. In Simmie’s thought-provoking book, John Wilson abandons his family in Scotland, for a better life in Canada on the force. John battles debilitating sickness along with the decision to double-cross his wife. His young love interest Jessie cares for him as he battles tuberculosis. While, “many young women Jessie’s age would have had second thoughts about commitment
The author, Tim O'Brien, is writing about an experience of a tour in the Vietnam conflict. This short story deals with inner conflicts of some individual soldiers and how they chose to deal with the realities of the Vietnam conflict, each in their own individual way as men, as soldiers.
John Wade craved love, admiration and affection. All his life, all he wanted was to be loved, and his father’s constant taunting hurt him immensely. In going to the war, John fulfilled his dream to become a figure who was both admired and respected. He was not a strong, macho man, who thrived upon violence and bloodshed, yet he was young and ambitious. Wade saw the war as a way of gaining ‘hero’ status in order to reach his lifelong ambitions of reaching the U.S Senate. When the revelations about his acts in the war were made, John Wade lost everything that he had fought so hard to build for himself. In this superficial way, one may argue that it was the war that ultimately led to who John Wade became at the end of the novel, yet many other factors involving his life before the war must be examined.
	The novel illuminates light on the situation not just during the Vietnam era, but also rather throughout all history and the future to come. Throughout mankind’s occupation of earth, we have been plagued by war and the sufferings caused by it. Nearly every generation of people to walk this earth have experienced a great war once in their lifetimes. For instance, Vietnam for my father’s generation, World War 2 for my grandfather’s, and World War 1 for my great-grandfather’s. War has become an unavoidable factor of life. Looking through history and toward the future, I grow concerned over the war that will plague my generation, for it might be the last war.
John Proctor is a very good man or he seems like a very good man. He is hardworking, nice guy, never lies or people thought he was that guy. In my opinion, he wants to be thought of a great guy and he is, but up until he makes a very bad life decision with Abigail. At one point he was possibly bored with his good wife, Elizabeth. As the book goes on, Abigail gains power in Salem and people that live there view her as a saint. John has no worry about what is happening in Salem. His reputation is good still, but his wife knows what he and Abigail did, but as nice as Elizabeth is she has forgiven him. When Abigail has power and she is running around Salem accusing people, she accused Mrs. Proctor. John goes to Salem, sees what is going on and talked to Abigail. John is mad, it was just Abigail and him alone, she confesses that she just wants to get John to
The adult John comes to civilized society as an experiment by Marx and Mond to see how a "savage" would adapt to civilization. Frankly, he does not adapt very well. He is appalled by the lifestyle and ideas of civilized people, and gets himself into a lot of trouble by denouncing civilization. He loves Lenina very much, but gets very upset at her when she wants to have sex with him. He physically attacks her, and from that point on does not want to have anything to do with her. When his mother dies, he interferes with the "death conditioning" of children by being sad. Finally, his frustrations with the civilized world become too much for him and he decides to take action. He tries to be a sort of a Messiah to a group of Deltas, trying to free them from the effect of soma. He tells them only the truth, but it is not the truth that the Deltas have been conditioned to believe, so to them it is a violent lie and they begin to cause a riot. When the riot is subdued, John is apprehended and taken to have a talk with Mustapha Mond.
...ust deal with similar pains. Through the authors of these stories, we gain a better sense of what soldiers go through and the connection war has on the psyche of these men. While it is true, and known, that the Vietnam War was bloody and many soldiers died in vain, it is often forgotten what occurred to those who returned home. We overlook what became of those men and of the pain they, and their families, were left coping with. Some were left with physical scars, a constant reminder of a horrible time in their lives, while some were left with emotional, and mental, scarring. The universal fact found in all soldiers is the dramatic transformation they all undergo. No longer do any of these men have a chance to create their own identity, or continue with the aspirations they once held as young men. They become, and will forever be, soldiers of the Vietnam War.
...g during the war. Tim O'Brien doesn't write about black and white of what is true and what is not, but of the gray fog in between. Even though each story is separate, they come together to express how stories rule our lives. What is written down in words is what others hear and is passed down. "What stories can do, I guess, is make things present…I can make myself feel again." His main purpose is to make a person feel something about what the characters are going though. It is not everyday when one comes home from war. The only way to preserve the memories are to write about them in a story. This novel may appear to be a simple story about a platoon of soldiers while in Vietnam. As the book progresses, the weight of the war starts to dwell on the reader. The powerful emotional content grows as the narrator gets more courage to talk about the horrors that occurred.
In society there is a longing for a story to have a nice and neat happy ending. Broadway and the theater originally would give this to their audience, especially in America. Give the audience what the want! They want happy endings that mirror their own values and interpretations of how the world should be and at the end of it should be, “and they all lived happily ever after.” The fairy tale ending is something society hopes, dreams, and strives for since we could listen to our parents read us fairy tales with these sweet stories of finding true love and having to fight the odds to be the Prince or Princess you deserve to be. With Into the Woods, Lapine and Sondheim sought out to explore what could go wrong with “happily ever after.” Effectively leaving the audience with the adage, “be careful what you ask for…”
A big "celebration" dinner was planned for John's going away. All of his family and close friends came to enjoy good food and fellowship before leaving in the morning. His parents were to drive him to the airport where he would fly to the army base. The same base his father trained at many years ago. John's father was proud of his son, but also a little concerned, for he realized the seriousness of this war.
In the novel ‘Jihad’ by Rosanne Hawke, Jasper is a boy that lives in Afghanistan and he then found himself struggling in life without any of his friends understanding his emotions after his dad passed away. Throughout the story Jasper’s emotions changed and he opened up more about his personal issues.
America,” Susan S. Lanser explains that “reading or writing her self (sic) upon the wallpaper allows the narrator, as Paula Trechler puts it, to ‘escape’ her husband’s ‘sentence’ and to achieve the limited freedom of madness which, virtually all these critics have agreed, constitutes a kind of sanity in the face of the insanity of male dominance” (Lanser 418). This perspective shows how the patriarchal way in which John infantilizes his wife and forces her to rest against her intuition ultimately leads to her
It was a calm, overcast day, and I found myself resting at the side of a large oak tree, admiring the beauty of the woods that surrounded me.