D'Amore AP Lit

    The idea of what is true and what is false is one that should be cemented in fact, but O’Brien does something spectacular in The Things They Carried. O’Brien blends the truth with fiction and creates this story of the Vietnam War. The story is told so well that it is hard to believe what happened while O’Brien was over there and what he made up for the story. This style keeps the story exciting and spices up the war and allows for creativity.     I find this mystery between deciding if what I am reading is, in fact, a true story or just something made up for the sake of the story very conflicting. The fact that O’Brien is using real experiences and only building off them to generate the fictional pieces I think it is safe to assume a majority of the story is fact. He makes me want to believe him because he tells the story so well and presents the emotion of all the soldiers in a form that is easy to read and absorb. Another reason I take a majority of the story...

     Speaking of Courage is by far the most powerful chapter of the entire book thus far. Though other chapters focus on the dark, painful sights of death, this one goes deeper into the heaviest thing any of these soldiers carried, emotion. O’Brien describes this lost soldier stuck in his thoughts unable to share his feelings with anyone feeling so lost and alone in an endless loop of contradiction. Beyond the emotions, Bowker is experiencing is the drive itself and the metaphor O’Brien created by having Bowker circle a lake trapped in its endless loop. The circle is representing the pain Bowker is feeling and can’t express getting himself stuck in this constant loop of second-guessing and sadness.        Like no other chapter in this book Speaking of Courage expresses the real horror that many of the soldiers returned home with. The emotional weight they carried combined with the stark differences of home life and war created these people who felt a...

  Wislawa Syzmborska poem The Terrorist, He Watches takes a modern look on war poetry. Syzmborska uses the modern battlefield of cities and public places and the enemy of today, those who wish to disrupt peace through radical acts of violence. One of the big questions of the poem is who is speaking.     Based on the title of the poem The Terrorist, He Watches the speaker can be two people. They can either be the terrorist himself watching over what he is about to bomb or a bystander watching as the terrorist sets up his evil act. While reading the poem, I leaned more towards the speaker being a bystander because of a single line in particular “The terrorist's already on the other side.” This line makes it appear as though someone is watching the scene unfold and has located the terrorist and is telling the reader where they are. This would make the most sense in the feel of the poem as to why would the terrorist be so concerned about who walks in and out of the bar. ...

One of the first poems I truly enjoyed reading is The Naming of Parts by Henry Reed. I found this poem to be captivating and more so of a story and less of an outlet of emotions. Reed was able to create a scene with this piece that allowed me to sit back and watch as a young soldier learned his weapon surrounded by the beauty of nature. While listening to the poem in class, I thought it had a nice sound it flowed and made logical sense. I liked that I found it soothing almost, but then as I read over it and the class discussed what they saw in the poem I was able to see the intricate weaving and ambiguity of the piece. I love how the speaker is taking what he sees with all the plants and flowers around him and morphing it with the parts of the guns he hears. It combines the beauty of nature with the harsh pieces of war. The final stanza takes all this and has the speaker twist it together in a magnificent way. This is the first piece of poetry I was able to appreciate and see ...

Two novels set in very different environments, one in a small town in the deep south, and the other a village in the Congo. Most would say these two stories couldn’t be more different, but if you see past the setting and the plot, you will notice each novel focuses on one singular thing, family dynamic. As I Lay Dying shows the reader an inside look at a family that could not be more dysfunctional. The Poisonwood Bible is a story with a family of faith and hatred. Between the two novels families and their dynamic is a topic of much conversation.     As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner takes us on a journey with a family burying their dead mother. The entire novel is told through the perspective of each character allowing the reader to see the dynamic between the family members truly. As the story progresses more and more is revealed about how poorly the family gets along and why everyone hates each other for one reason or another. The novel was written in a time of new psychol...