In the beginning of the book i did not find it that interesting until i got to like chapter 2 or 3. Once the book started to mentions sad stories of O'brien and his fellow friend from the war that's when I thought it was getting pretty intense. I did not like the fact that the author included the long very long dreams or thoughts about Jim Cross and his girlfriend. I know he did that so there was a meaning behind everything but seriously I could care less about Cross's relationship.
Well, onto the ideas i have about the stories. One idea I have conjured up was the moment when Curt Lemon died and Rat Kiley, who was his best friend, was really upset and randomly shot the baby ox they had discovered. At that moment i was like wow this guy is really nuts, but if i were in his shoes, in the Vietnam war, and knew I could die any moment, made me realize that shooting the ox was the way to express Rat's feelings and how the war affected him. Also there was a line that really caught my attention and it said "Mitchell Sanders took out his yo-yo. "Well that's Nam," he said. "Garden of Evil. Over here, man, every sin's real fresh and original"(80). That statement is true and reflects back on the idea that being in a situation where life and death was your everyday thought on your mind 24/7 could take a toll on you and the sin that Kiley had done made him vulnerable to his own sins. Nam is just a slowly dying country and evil is what has taken control of it.
All and all when you tell a war story, you could never tell if it's true or not because the person could just be making it up to make it seem like he was a hero or because I wanted to make it sound happier than it is. As long as there was emotion and he made his audience feel the pain that he suffered in then I think that story counts. It sounds pretty awkward that someone would tell you a fake story, but when you look at it this way, then maybe you could understand that the main idea is to capture the emotions and picture it in your mind. Well, that's what I have so far and I am still trying to understand some characters but I hope you understood this and I'll have more to blog about next time. =)
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You love talking about that ox ... dont u? LoL
I remember when we were talking about it in class and were thinking...like why didnt they just kill it and put it out of its misery... well now we know. I agree with you when you say that "shooting the ox was the way to express Rat's feelings and how the war affected him." Seeing that ox struggle for its kife, probabaly made him feel better to share the pain and misery with another living thing. Also when you talked about the "fake stories" it was interesting. How a person can lie just to make the event they went through seem "cool" and "awesome" or just make it seem interesting is not the business.. LoL WELL GOOD JOB!
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Alright, my last blog comment!! Well, I can see that a lot of us are identifying O’Brien’s central idea pertaining to storytelling and the unclaimed truth behind them. But let’s talk a little about your first idea. I agree with the comments you made about Rat Kiley and the reason behind his actions, especially when you said that “shooting the ox was the way to express Rat's feelings and how the war affected him.” It makes sense that fighting a war with a lost cause will create extreme feelings within oneself. Over time, they begin to bottle up inside and pressure continues to build. And then a close friend passes away, allowing all those bottled emotions to erupt and cause brash, thoughtless actions to occur, such as the shooting of the buffalo. People need to relieve themselves from their emotions some way, and for Rat Kiley it was the shooting of an innocent, helpless creature. But the strangest part for me was that the water buffalo did not make a sound throughout the duration of its torture. I mean, there was a large part of the story describing the horrific sounds the soldiers heard during their mission in the mountains. Shortly after, we read about the baby water buffalo being shot numerous times without making one little noise. What is this supposed to mean?!
ReplyDeleteAlright, so for the start I would like to say that I agree about not really liking the book until I really got into it and it finally started talking about what happened during the war or what they said happened during the war. I also agree with your statement about the war stories. “All and all when you tell a war story, you could never tell if it's true or not because the person could just be making it up to make it seem like he was a hero or because he wanted to make it sound happier than it is. As long as there was emotion and he made his audience feel the pain that he suffered in then I think that story counts.” This is so very true because many people, even with everyday stories, try to make the story seem more interesting, so they change it a bit to give the audience a better feel of how the people viewed that experience. It is all about the emotion. If a story ahs no emotion, it basically has no point. Without emotion, a story can not have a purpose because there is no heart in the story. The story would be plain and boring. Overall, I really liked your blog and reading about the ox! Haha
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