Sejin+Paik's+Summer+ Reading 

**The Things They Carried **

**Essay #1 Weather **  In any wartime story, there are scenes of violence and damage. The stories usually describe in depth how brutal these scenes are, and the authors use strong, impacting words to make the feelings come across to the readers. Distinctively, in Tim O'Brien's __The Things They Carried__, he describes one of the war scenes by using sunlight to illustrate the image of a man being killed.

In the chapter, "How to Tell a true War Story," the author emphasizes the importance of a true story and how wartime stories are delivered and told. He tells numbers of stories and in between them, he explains how we need to interpret these stories. He states that most wartime stories do not have a moral and that they are misleadingly glorify the war. Ultimately, this chapter illustrates wartime stories in a straightforward, blunt way showing that these stories are what wars actually feel and look like.

One of the most meaningful stories that O'Brien tells us in this story is when Rat Kiley, one of the soldiers, is trapped in a rigged 105 round, a type of trap. he does not simply lay out what the scene looked like and how Rat died: he uses the weather-in this case, the sunlight-to give a unique but strong impact to the readers in visualizing this incident. "Rat's face suddenly brown and shining, and when his foot touched down, he must've thought it was the sunlight that was killing him. How the sun seemed to gather around him and pick him up and lift him high into a tree."

The quote is one of the parts that describe specifically about how the author pictured Rat dying. He related Rat being trapped by a booby trap by using the sunlight to give an atmospheric view. Explained in Foster's book, it tells us that when author uses weather, it is not just to show the weather, but it contains a meaning and it works as a device to symbolize or represent, or even deeply signify a certain event. In this case, as seen in the quote, the sunlight is used to illuminate the bare, heartless images of the war and how because it is unbearable for anyone to watch these scenes, people have illusions of positive thoughts to replace the vicious scenes.

Friends are one of the most valuable factors in one's life, in good times and bad. However, in Tim O'Brien's __The Things They Carried__, the author shows that there are certain times when friends are nothing but pain relievers or even enemies during war.
 * Essay #2 Violence **

"Friends," the title of the chapter, is uniquely only one page long and it is a direct juxtaposition between the previous chapter called, "Enemies." These two chapters exist to show how the roles of friends and enemies are played in times of war and among soldiers. The "Friends" chapter goes on to talk about how friendship is broken during wartime and how loyalty and trust is redefined. Two characters, Jensen and Struck, come out in this chapter, as they are known to be friends. However, as they step into the scene of the Vietnam War, their relationship changes and their co-existence becomes less and less tolerable.

"There were slivers of bone, and the blood came in quick spurts like water from a pump. 'But you promise. Swear it to me--swear you won't kill me.' 'I swear.' Later we heard Struck died, which seemed to relieve Jensen of an enormous weight." This quote is one of the most significant parts of this chapter where it shows the warped image of friendship and their trust to one another. As Foster has explained in his book, chapter "More Than It's Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence," he states that "violence is one of the most personal and even intimate acts between human beings." In this case, O'Brien shows the violence of Struck as a device through which we can see how people act differently during war and how big of a burden it can be to take care of someone else, instead of just yourself. The violence described in this chapter is not merely to describe the bloody and dramatic scene of Struck's leg being blown off by a mortar-but rather, the violence is used to give an impact to the readers how difficult it is to be in a war and still keep up a moral trust and bond with others."

Comment Hello Sejin! Before I move on, thank you for the helpful comments on my essay. :) So my comments will revolve around the six-traits rubric which includes: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and convention. To makes things simple I’ll just go in that order, why not :p. The overall idea of violence is clear and easy to capture. But the introductory paragraph seems a little aloof from the rest of the essay. Perhaps a bit more commentary of the correlation between friendship and violence in the first paragraph could be made. Your essay’s organization is well structured and helps develop your central idea. The voice of your writing is engaging and appropriate for the audience. I think the word choice is natural and effective. This essay generally has a good flow between sentences and paragraphs. Lastly, besides the omission of (author’s last name, page number) page citations, I cannot find much mistakes for convention. I somewhat understand the usages of your quotes, but perhaps you could explain more for clarity. The quote from Foster’s book seems to be less connected with your ideas. Overall, I like this essay and it enhanced my understanding of the novel. I especially like your second paragraph for its succinct yet deep insight. Please don’t take negative comments personally! We can criticize each other because we’re good friends. XD Jay Park

In all stories, there is a destination, a goal, an objective, and a quest. In Foster's __How To Read Literature Like a Professor__, he gives us the impression of a quest as a noble, knight-and-armor, happy ending kind of quest. However, in Tim O'Brien's __The Things They Carried__, the quest is entirely different from how Foster describes most quests.
 * Essay #3 Quest **

In the last chapter,"The Lives of The Dead," O'Brien sums up the story describing his love life and the final adventures and hardships he went through in the Vietnam War. The author mentions how during the Vietnam War, the soldiers made up stories that sounded as if the dead were not dead and stories were told mostly to take their minds off of other dead people.

"And then it becomes 1990. I'm forty-three years old, and a writer now, still dreaming Linda alive in exactly the same way." This quote sums up the quest of the story and how everything had ended. The author shows from this quote everything about how the war ended, reflecting that he had not died and he had actually lived to tell the story-but tragically the one person he loved had died. The author's conclusion is that death and life are more closely related than most people think; this pearl of knowledge is perhaps the real object of the quest -Vietnam War. The author in the end tells us that although many wars are told in a positive and noble way, in truth, that is not how it is. War contains death and suffering, tears of sorrow and hate, and exaggerations that sound false, but are possibly true and cold-hearted. Like what Foster has said, "a quest's real reason is for self-knowledge," and clearly this book has shown self-knowledge in the soldier's path to life and their meaning in everything they went through. O'Brien has not only told a story to himself, but he has impacted many of the modern readers about the reality of war.

In the book, __The Things They Carried__, Tim O'Brien give readers a powerful visual and emotional illustration of an American soldier's life during the Vietnam War. He tells the truth about war stories and their influence on the people who are reading them.
 * Essay #4 Communion **

The book starts out with the first chapter called, "The Things They Carried," immediately answering the questions the readers might have asked when reading the cover of this book. And as readers might have assumed, the "Things They Carried" are described as materials that soldiers carried in the war. Things such letters, weapons, medicine, memory keepers, and more are what helped those men to go that far into the war and showed that even the smallest things mattered when they were to step into a battle. The author clarifies specific terms that the soldiers used for war and the significance of its use.

As Foster describes in the chapter, "Acts of Communion," the writer and the plot helps the readers to work together to form a communion. The act of these soldiers carrying a certain item along their paths shows their unity in the way they garner material and hold a specific meaning for each thing. "They shared the weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak." Moreover, the example of physical material things that they carried gives way to show that there were feelings and emotions that they helped each other to carry as well. As the quote shows that they helped to carry their memories and help to lean on each other when they needed it. This idea of "carrying" acts as a unifier and acts as a communion among the soldiers, which gives them confidence and hope during the war.

 Comment on essay #4 Author: Sejin

Hi Sejin! I am going to use the six-trait rubric since I find myself lost if I do not use it. :D (The six-traits are ideas, convention, sentence fluency, word choice, organization, and voice) Starting with ideas, the act of communion was well explained. The idea of each soldier carrying something important to himself unifying the soldiers was clearly conveyed. Convention, I think you are missing the MLA citation... but besides that, I think the rest are okay. Sentence fluency was smooth, not making any drastic or sudden changes of the idea. (Good job!) Word choice, this is hard to judge… since when I hear word choice, I immediately think of using fancy words that I have never heard of. But, this essay gave me no trouble when reading and I personally think that words used were simple but direct, so good job. You did a good job organizing the essay, using the paragraph to separate the analysis to the story explanation paragraph, but a conclusion paragraph on its own would have been better. I think voice is something that needs work here. Although it is hard to really convey the ‘voice’ of the author since the essay is half analysis essay where implying voice is rather difficult, I do not see this essay as a ‘standing out’ essay. But then again, if we all can write well, we would all be writers.. haha :) nice job overall - Kevin J. Lee 

 "The blood at the neck had gone to a deep purplish black. The man I killed." __In The Things They Carried__, Time O'Brien uses many significant but hidden symbols to depict scenes of war and the nature of human interactions during the war.
 * Essay #5 Symbol **

In the chapter called "The Man I Killed," O'Brien talks about the time when he killed another soldier. Different from the other chapters, this chapter was written in third voice. The narrative only conveyed feelings of how the author might have felt after killing one of the soldiers, but it is clear that this chapter was intentionally written from another person's voice to show that the author was guilty and shameful of the action he had committed.

The quote stated in the beginning is the symbol of this chapter-and possibly, a symbol of this book. Although the chapter focuses mainly on a specific plot and a specific person who got killed by the author, on a broader perspective, the man who died symbolizes those who had not died because of any particular crime, but because of the mere fact that war involves death and murder. Just like how symbol is explained in Foster's book, the symbol of a dead man represents not only the one who died but all those who are reading and are feeling the same sympathy. Thus, the dead man didn't die, in a sense: he is an inclusive and enduring symbol.

 I randomly came to your page and wanted to comment on your analysis, but I was worried that I would not know what you would be talking about--since this is a book I've never read before. However, after reading the first two paragraphs of your Essay #1, I didn't have to worry, because you did a great job of introducing the book in a short and concise manner. Going into the analysis of your essay, it seems like you went deep into the context and really tried to find meaningful contents. You explain straightforwardly the quest of your book and it was very easy for me to understand and follow along. This seems like an interesting book and it seems to convey a strong message about God and Christianity. I have a quick question though!! Is this a strong Christian related story? Do you think this will inspire people who are not Christian as well? <span style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; letter-spacing: 0px;"> You also seemed to have chosen words that fit well into your essay and makes the essay flow smoothly. I especially like how you phrased your sentences. For example, “ //A Prayer For Owen Meany// contains supernatural elements in order to represent the influence God has on the quest of the two boys.” I guess this being the last sentence of your essay, it is a great device you used to conclude and summarize your thesis. Somethings you could improve on is elaborating on what your main idea is and to analyze a bit further. This is just a very minor mistake or improvement to point out. Such as, when you explain about “self-knowledge,” you could relate it more to the story and try to expand on the topic. I think this is a great essay to help reader’s to understand the story and to also convince them to read the book.
 * <span style="line-height: normal; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Comment #1 **<span style="line-height: normal; font-family: Georgia,serif;">

Hey Jay. I didn't know the word "nightmarish" existed....I learned something new today! Anyways, after hearing about the summary of this book, I was a bit frightened and scared of the content. But deep down inside, I wanted to read it because it sounds as though there is a deep meaning to the whole killing and violence--I knew there was something more. So, I read your essays and got a whole lot of insight to your thoughts and also the analysis of this book. I think your introduction paragraph and your summary are well organized and they explain very clearly what you are trying to demonstrate to your readers. I especially like your summary because it isn't extremely long, but it still seems to explain the important components and gives a general overview of the chapter. Your use of Foster's book is also well done. You clearly know what Foster is saying, and you know exactly where to look in the book to find them. One very minor point I may point out is that you have a great quote and it blends well with your analysis, but it looks as though it lacks a bit of analysis ON THE QUOTE itself. I fully understand why it is there and why you used it, but if focused a bit more on the quote itself, your essay can be 150%!
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Comment #2 **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">

Citation: 1. http://regularrumination.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/things-they-carried.jpg