Exploration Six: Nina Stute

Exploration 6

Part One:

1. The biggest strengths that I've seen so far would be how O'Brien can jump from one way of writing to the next: from telling a story to the interior monolouge of another person. This is seen in "The Man I Killed." He goes from describing what happened and what he had saw to what he thinks that young man would have done with his life: O'Brien almost gives like a 360 Degree view in "The Man I killed." A weakness in this book would be the randomness of some of the chapters. I still don't really understand why the chapter "Church" is where it is, but I do like the writing in it! It shows that even though they're neck deep in war they can still think about being decent to other humans, and that Dobbins is looking to become something more than a soldier after the war.
2. My favorite chapter so far would have to be "The Man I Killed." The writing in this chapter really makes the war seem real, like it's not just a story we have to read.The way the author takes you through his thoughts and his surroundings at the same time and repeats them over and over makes it seem like a whole other world. "His jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut and the other was a star shaped hole" (Pg 120) This sentence is repeated a lot in this chapter which I think shows how mentally scarred he is by this situation: it keeps running and flashing through his head.
3. My Favorite character would have to be Mary Ann! Although her time in the book was short lived, she left a very lasting impression about how mental a war really is. She went completely insane, the darkness of her surroundings just swallowed her up and she became one with the war. Rat Kiley says to Mary Ann's boyfriend Fossie: "Man, you must be deaf. She's already gone." Fossie didn't want to believe what had happened to his sweet girlfriend, he wanted to help her- but she wasn't even herself anymore.
Part Two:
I asked my mom what her general feelings were about Vietnam. She told me that she, and many others, were quite ignorant about it until the My Lai Massacre. Color TV had just become popular and they showed it on the news. She told me that it made the war real to her; that it wasn't just happening in a weird world far, far away. That the people being killed were innocent civilians. She told me that after seeing that she grew a distaste for the war and wanted to know more about what was actually happening: but that was the problem... no one really knew. My perception about the US around this time before I read this book was big hair, cute dresses, weak and fragile women, and the original American dream! After reading this I would say my perception has changed quite a bit; there was dirty and wrong stuff going on.