aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/jones-la
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorHolden Rohrer <hr@hrhr.dev>2020-05-20 00:48:48 -0400
committerHolden Rohrer <hr@hrhr.dev>2020-05-20 00:48:48 -0400
commit77237cfedc4abee6233b948cf750fe81eef87fe2 (patch)
treec69bdc5b60cca85b4d7aae02893faff52c10e7fa /jones-la
parenta64ffd7ffc5cc28cabecd51e96102d3e830709b5 (diff)
the 45 minute version of the lives of the dead
Diffstat (limited to 'jones-la')
-rw-r--r--jones-la/tttc-dead.tex68
1 files changed, 68 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/jones-la/tttc-dead.tex b/jones-la/tttc-dead.tex
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bb9d22c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/jones-la/tttc-dead.tex
@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+\input mla8
+
+\numberfirstpage
+\name{Holden} \last{Rohrer}
+\prof{Jones}
+\clas{AP Lang}
+
+\header
+\title{Rhetorical Essay on {\it The Things They Carried}}
+% Rhetorical Analysis in __ minutes
+
+Tim O'Brien's {\it The Things They Carried} is only topically about the
+Vietnam War. Throughout the book, he often tells stories directly, but
+will afterwards analyze it through the lens of why he wrote that or will
+tell a story while at the same time delivering a series of philosophical
+messages and questions about his own storytelling, from his own and the
+reader's point of view, and about how this bleeds into other components
+of his life. O'Brien uses fanciful language to emphasize that ``unreal''
+stories and dreams and ideas are philosophically equal to ``real''
+experience.
+
+This excerpt follows that pattern to connect the material and the
+immaterial. O'Brien describes his dreamlike state as a ``spell of
+memory and imagination'' with what would be impossible qualities in the
+material world like ``no brain tumors and no funeral homes.'' This mist
+of thought is meant to make this place seem magical because O'Brien is
+trying to convince the reader that this imaginative trance and by
+equivocation stories in general are a sort of window past the horror
+that is war and the human condition.
+
+But O'Brien doesn't imply that all stories are tonally fanciful like
+his with Linda. Because even those in this book aren't; his war stories
+about Lemon and Lavender are sense horrific and a type of pointless
+that O'Brien talks about in {\it How to Tell a True War Story}. He does
+imply that, at their core, every story has this wonderful ability. In
+the true story that's never happened, where a group of soldiers are on
+patrol, one jumps on a grenade, but they all die anyway, O'Brien's
+telling has a fanciful, ridiculous humor to it. O'Brien says that this
+story is true because it explains the emotions that he and his comrades
+experienced.
+
+The idea that the emotional core of a story matters most is a central
+theme here because it means that a story can exist with equal value
+regardless of its source. And O'Brien uses ridiculousness and
+impossibility to achieve this end: bringing someone back after death or
+calling a dead Vietnamese child a ``crispy peanut'' are ridiculous, but
+their binding to reality---to the war or to O'Brien's life require the
+reader to recognize that these stories are just as valid regardless of
+which parts of Kiley's tale of the Sweetheart on the Song Tra Bong
+really happened.
+
+%% 32:35.
+
+This last chapter provides the most examples of wondrous language
+because the story is itself wonderful. O'Brien describes his love with
+her as deep and adult-like and talks about the great swells of emotion
+he felt when he was around her. The experiences he has in his dreams,
+like the birthday party with a grandiose cake, and the ``thrill and
+mystery'' he feels about seeing her in his dreams, lead the reader to
+a conclusion that follows from the immaterial being philosophically
+real: wonder and fancy are very much parts of ``real'' life. The war
+stories where the men cope with the dead by playing it up as if the
+people were objects or as if they were still alive are extensions of
+this fancy. O'Brien uses fancy to compel the reader into believing that
+the immaterial and material are the same because its allure is so
+powerful. %%44:55
+
+\bye