Reading
response on The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.
“Send guys to war, they come home talking
dirty.” One of the quotes that I have read in the book I am currently reading.
It seems to say something in that entire quote.
One thing I have learned from this quote is that war can change a person
completely.
While reading throughout the chapter where this
quote was found, the author was explaining the story of his friend, Rat Kiley.
His best friend, Curt Lemon, died one day in the war. A week later, Rat Kiley
decided to write a letter to his sister explaining what a good friend and
soldier he was. In the end he waited two months, she never replied back. Rat
Kiley seemed hurt by not receiving a reply, so he simply said, “Jesus Christ,
man, I write this beautiful fuckin’ letter, I slave over it, and what happens?
The dumb cooze never writes back.”(O’Brien,66). The author mentions that Rat
Kiley says cooze instead of bitch because it’s too much for him. He’s only
nineteen and couldn’t handle the fact that he lost his best friend.
“War is hell, but that’s not the half of it,
because war is also mystery and terror and adventures and courage and discovery
and holiness and pity and despair and longing and loving. War is nasty; war if
fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you
dead.”(O’Brien,76). This quote has shown
the effects that war has on you. It makes you think harder about it. One moment
you might think it’s scary to walk around knowing you might die; but then, you
might think it’s fun using grenades and getting to blow up stuff and shoot
people. You could either live, or you could die. It made me feel different. One
way was that, for like a minute, I was thinking of joining the army just to see
what the experience was like. After thinking and thinking about it again, I realized,
I don’t really want to risk my life just to experience something that honestly
scares just by thinking about it. If I was told I had to experience a life like
that, stuck in a war not knowing whether you’ll live or die, I wouldn’t want to
do it.
Looking over that quote and the quote where
Rat Kiley came up, I questioned myself asking, what would happen if I decide to
go join the army and survive it all? How would I retell everyone my experience
over and over again? Would I wake up from all the possible, traumatizing things
that might occur during the war? If I got to live the experience for a day and
then had to decide whether that experience would be most of my life or only
that one day, which one would I choose? The answer; I think I’d only choose
that one day. I wouldn’t want to experience the things the men experienced all
throughout the book. I focus on Rat Kiley and his problem. If my best friend
and I joined the army, would I be willing to make most of it fun like Curt
Lemon? If we were both in the army, what would I do if she died one day like
Curt Lemon did? I honestly can’t even think of losing my best friend in a war
like Rat Kiley did. Rat Kiley couldn’t handle losing Curt Lemon, and it ended
up hurting him even more when his sister never replied to Rat Kiley’s letter.
How did Rat Kiley express all that anger and sadness? He ended up shooting a baby
water buffalo so many times. He shot it everywhere and after he was done
shooting, he just cradled his rifle and went off to cry. The interesting thing?
The buffalo made no sound all throughout the shooting…it was just quiet, as if
to let Rat Kiley know that he was there to help him.
Looking back and remembering everything I felt,
thought, and questioned myself, I noticed that you didn’t really need to
experience everything in order to feel what Rat Kiley and the others felt. All
you had to do was just read it all. Everything the author described, showed you
what they saw, what they felt, all throughout the story. You could experience
what they had to go through but what you gain through that? You would just end
up as traumatized and probably as hurt as they were. You could’ve died as well
too, and all for what? Just for an experience that made you curious? All those
words describing Rat Kiley’s situation was all you needed to read for you to
understand, war does change people.
A Poem:
Every
day she walks to school with fear
Wondering,
what she’ll hear.
She
steps in the classroom looking around
Knowing
if they say two words, she’ll make a sound.
And
for that, is the reason she doesn’t want to be there
Even
though she pretends she doesn’t, she actually does care.
Every
day she is asked the same
“Why
do you like them, they’re just so lame.”
And
for that she wants to stand up and defend
But
instead blushes and hides her head.
She
could never tell them the reason she loves to much
The
memory just makes her want to hush.
Whenever
they are bought up, she wants to keep talking.
But
when they question her, she just keeps on walking.
The
thought of all the hate that is sent to them maker her think
When
she receives some of the hate, it just makes her turn pink.
“Listen
to the things you say, and the things you do.
Do
you really think they’ll ever notice you?”
She
tries not to listen to those nineteen words.
She
wants them to know, they make up her whole world.
If
only they knew it was them who made her little things seem important.
In
some way, they are to her, an antidepressant.
“They’re
just a bunch of losers who don’t really care about you”
That
makes her sad but she thinks about what they do.
1
thing they did made her think about what makes her beautiful.
Doing
what they do, just pretending that they’re cool.
Letting
them fill up her head, she tries to enjoy her life even more.
What
makes her jump up for joy is never a bore.
While
they enter her mind with the words they sing, her words disappear from her
tongue.
Yes,
while all the other send hate, she knows to live while she’s young.
Reflection
on poem:
The issue that this poem focuses on is about
a girl who is constantly teased for liking something most people hate. She just
wants people to know the real reason why she loves them so much. However whenever
she tells people her story, most don’t believe her and just shrug it off as an
obsession. It’s hard for her to fit in, knowing how everyone feels about her
and her so-called “obsession”. She really wants to make friends, but as soon as
she tells them about this like she has, they don’t want anything to do with
her. She only has three other friends who share this love and thirteen other
friends who have learnt to be okay with her love.
This poem is actually based on a true story.
The process of writing it? Easy; I just took regular things that they say to
her on a daily basis. I thought about how she feels and what she thinks. I show
the view through her eyes. Once you read it, you can actually get the idea of
who the mysterious “they and them” are. The girl in this story? Yes, that girl
is me. This poem expresses what I go through just because I like One Direction.
Observations
on my surroundings
-me
and my friends being picked on for liking One Direction
-a
girl being told to be prettier
-a
girl being called lesbian for being a tomboy
-a
guy being called a nerd for being too smart
-many
people doing self-harm for all the words they’ve been told
-people
being abandoned for not telling two little secrets
I witnessed a girl being called a lesbian.
The bad thing about it? She’s not. She is just simply not into all the girly
stuff most girls like. She has a few girly qualities, but she tends to like the
stuff most guys like. She’s into video games and hates make-up. She likes
sports and won’t be caught dead in a dress. Her friends classify her fashion
sense as “tomboy casual”. And because of all these things, she was labeled as a
lesbian. The worse part about it is that it wasn’t her classmates or local
strangers who called her a lesbian. It was her mother. She was called a lesbian
by her mother just because she acted like a guy. This is wrong because no one
deserves to be judged by the way they act. She usually tries to show her mom
that she can act like a girl, but eventually she gives up because she hates it
all. She hates sitting with her legs crossed, hates the dresses, the shoes, the
make-up, the clothing, the hair.
The causes to this problem? She is expected
to act like a lady all the time. She must not slack and must have the proper
attire and do the things most girls do. Her dad is the one who mostly torments
her, asking her why she wears the same sneakers everyday instead of switching
to boots or other shoes. Whenever taken to the clothing malls by her parents
and sister, she never chooses to buy anything. They offer to buy her the most
expensive clothing and shoes, but she never likes the clothing. Her usual
response to her parent’s offer is, “So you can spend all that money on ugly
clothing and yet, you can’t use that money to buy me a skateboard?” Her parents
ignore the comment. The effect of being called a lesbian just hurts her self
esteem a lot. She just didn’t like it that her mother immediately judged her by
calling her that even though she was just behaving the way she liked. Her
sister’s Christmas wish? New clothing and Justin Bieber’s new perfume. Her very
own wish? A skateboard. Her parents thoughts on her Christmas present? Her dad
is not buying her anything. Her mom doesn’t care what she thinks and is going
to buy her two dresses that she is forcing her into wearing a lot. She is left
without a say and so is just quiet all the time. She longs to talk to someone about
this problem, but she doesn’t think anyone would want to help her.
Some possible solutions to this problem would
be for her parents to truly understand what she’s going through. Her parents don’t
know how she feels all the time whenever they force to buy some girly stuff
that she isn’t interested in. Another thing would be for the girl to have a
conversation with both her parents at the same time, face to face. She needs to
tell them how much it bothers her. She gets that her parents want her to act a
certain way but she needs to tell them that she can’t be forced to act like
someone she’s not. They need to sort it out and come up with a solution that
can satisfy them all. For example, maybe she can be allowed to act the way she
wants and then dress the way her parents want her to for a few days. She may be
into the things guys usually like, and may have that boyish attitude in her,
but one thing is certain, she is not a lesbian.
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