In the novel In the Lake of the Woods, O’Brien channels between his life in the present at the lake with his wife, and his life in the past, recalling memories from the war in Vietnam. The novel begins with a preview into the love life and marriage of John and Kathy Wade. While the novel progresses, their relationship begins to deteriorate and as the narrator jumps from his past to his present, the impact of his time in Vietnam becomes more apparent as a primary factor in the failure of their marriage. Throughout the book there are sections of hypotheses and evidence that observe a mixture of fiction and non fiction documents. Some are simply historical facts about the condition of soldiers after Vietnam, particularly the My Lai massacre, while others are fabricated interviews and statements from the characters in the story examining the strange behavior of John Wade himself. The way the chapters are arranged in a scattered format attest to how the jaded past of John Wade sporadically emerged into his life with his wife, the election, and his sanity.…
In his novel In the Lake of the Woods Tim O’Brien paints a vivid image of the horrors of the Vietnam War, particular the savagery of the Thuan Yen massacre. While prior to reading the novel readers instinctively blame the soldiers themselves for their immoral actions, as the novel progresses, O’Brien shows that while the soldiers may have physically committed the brutal acts of murder, blame cannot solely be placed on them. O’Brien depicts the Vietnam landscape as one that, due its elusive and chaotic nature, was partially responsible for the horrors that the men committed. Furthermore, the very nature of man and our innate capacity for evil suggests that while the soldiers themselves committed the physical acts of terror, our capability to commit such atrocities when placed within the scenario of war means that any individual would have been taken over by the insanity of the conflict. Ultimately, O’Brien demonstrates that while the horrors of My Lai are unforgivable, there are extenuating circumstances which suggest that blame cannot solely be placed on the soldiers who themselves were at times victims to the nature of war.…
In his essay, “My Landlady’s Yard,” Dagoberto Gilb seems to be writing about a climate and culture that he is both very familiar with and also very fond of, as he is in fact ½ Mexican and lives in Austin, Texas. His landlady seems to be in some form of denial regarding her surroundings, which is evident in her attempt to grow grass and “Yankee” plants in a desert climate. I get the impression that the author is implying that his landlady is a “Yankee” but it is rather indirect so I cannot tell for certain. Through his statement that his landlady wants green grass in the middle of the desert, I think Gilb is implying the Proverb “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” and by doing so, he is saying that his landlady wants what she can’t have. It makes me wonder if perhaps she had to live in that house at one time and she didn’t want to live there. The author states that she lived there as a young mother and wife. I picture a young woman who is trying to make the most of her domestic imprisonment, living in a place that is very foreign to her, and her attempt of making it feel like home was to plant familiar life, such as the green grass and shrubs that were indigenous to the climate she grew up in. Although there is some sarcasm in the author’s voice, I don’t sense that he is resentful of her. On the contrary, it seems to me that on some level he understands why she has done such a silly thing as to plant this grass and shrubbery out in the desert and is somewhat sympathetic to her. I know as the tenant, he must be obligated to care for the property, but I get the feeling that it goes a bit deeper than that, so he does performs his duty of caring for her property not only out of obligation, but out of sympathy for her. And he does it to his own chagrin, as he is wasting the precious water on this foliage that he knows will not thrive in this…
Due to the land not being refreshed regularly from instability (volcanic action) the land is generally very old with poor nutrients. Soils have also been subjected to wind and water erosion, washing away topsoil nutrients. The state of soils influence flora and fauna and due to this, they have been able to develop without nutrients and have become extremely energy efficient. Biodiversity can be very high due to one species not being able to dominate a particular environment.…
In Luis Omar Salinas’s “In a Farmhouse”, speaker is reminiscing in his bedroom about the money he made after a hard day’s work. He is sitting in his bedroom thinking of all the young people of his race and how they are struggling with poverty and starvation. The poem is about hard work, poverty and starvation. Salina’s uses detailed imagery so that the reader can understand the boy’s concern for himself and for his people. The speaker wants the reader to have sympathy for the young and overworked boy.…
Growing up reading and writing has always been a part of my life; you could always catch my mom sitting in her chair with a book by her favorite author in her hand. I’ll always remember the day that she read a play to me, she was never into theatre as a kid but she read it as if she had been on Broadway. I think that is where my love for reading as well as theatre first started, just watching her so focused and completely into a book. It always amazed me and to this day it still does. I’ve also had some amazing teachers throughout my school years. Have you ever had those teachers who would do anything in the world for you? The teachers who just made you so excited to learn? I know that I have a few; they are the ones that you could never forget. From my English teachers to my theatre teachers, they have all made a difference in my life. I know that it sounds crazy that theatre ties in with all of this, but it does in so many ways.…
The common phrase, "Don 't judge a man until you 've walked a mile in his shoes”, tells the world to never put a label on an individual before you have truly experienced what they have gone through. Tim O Brien 's work, In the Lake of the Woods, shows how men who have all experienced war, truly have walked in each other’s shoes. These traumatizing experiences impact the human spirit dramatically because once back from the war, veterans struggle to live normal lives. Only men and women who have experienced this brutality can begin to understand why veterans from every war are left traumatized and haunted by the terrifying scene called war. O’Brien’s novel shows the journey of a narrator trying to heal from his own war experience by living vicariously through John Wade. Through his reconstruction of John Wade’s life, the narrator is able to come to terms with his identity. He realizes that his own experiences have affected him tremendously, and through his research he can slowly begin to heal.…
Jack Hodgins displays a significant contrast in character between the husband and wife in “By the River”. Crystal Styan’s selfless and meek personality is evidently over powered by her narrow-minded spouse, Jim Styan. Their ambitions and desires in life are on completely different paths, making their marriage surprising. Every aspect involving life goals, care for tasks, and priorities differ between Crystal and Jim.…
Growing up in the safety of a neighborhood highly populated with children, the back yard was my kingdom. Its vast expanse gave me hours of tag and hide and seek, not to mention catching countless butterflies. I remember the feeling of the heat of the summer months pouring down on me and my friends like it was yesterday, probably because I still feel the same way about the outdoors now. One of the biggest memories I have of my old neighborhood is the hill we used to live on. We rolled down the hill, ran up the hill, sledded down the hill, and lived on that hill all year round. I remember the challenge of running up that giant hill. I recently visited the place I used to live, the hill that used to seen so big to me now looked like a tiny slope. Funny how those things change when perception changes…
This is the story of an Afghan girl whose life had a change she always dreamed of. Saima, the main character, relates the story. Since the moment when Saima´s father stated that his daughter would be stronger than a thousand Pashtun boys, and different than any other Pashtun girl, Saima´s firm ideas became even stronger.…
The results of this revolution would completely change the way humans acted. How they worked, the amount and type of goods they bought, the family structure, the social structure, and the way individuals thought were all changed. But, despite its advances, the industrial revolution made life harder for most people at the time because of poorer health and low wages. While some may argue that living in the cities meant access to better health care the evidence supports the idea that the health of working people during the industrial revolution was dramatically worse than before. By the mid 1800s the life expectancy in cities averaged between 25 and 30 years.…
While the neighborhood that I live in is fine by my standards, there are a few problems that if they were solved, would make the neighborhood a better place. One of these problems is coyotes. A few times when I went outside, I would see the garbage rifled through. I used to think it was a raccoon until I realized I was mistaken. One night, I was coming home from my friend's house and I had to put something from my car into the garbage. As I was walking to the garbage I heard a noise like someone moving the garbage. As I turned the corner, I stopped dead in my tracks. Not even fifteen feet in front of me, was a coyote. It had been picking away at scraps of food that my family had thrown away. When the coyote saw me, it got startled and darted…
As I made my way down stairs, my house looked creepier and creepier with every step. I entered the living room expecting to find a home. Instead, I found nothing. Nothing but plain walls with no life. The room was completely emptied, the walls were bare, and dust bunnies outlining where the furniture should’ve been. Even though my house was full of people, boxes and furniture; it was empty. There was no color, expression, or love. This wasn’t my home anymore, and I had to accept that.…
I can't move without a plant touching my skin. Everything I loved about this rainforest just this morning is elevating my heart rate and killing my logical thinking capacity. The sheer denseness of the foliage had made me feel cozied, like in all this space I could still be snug. The thousands of noises had crashed over me as refreshing as any waterfall, overriding my senses and setting my brain to the same chemical soup it was in when I first fell in love. In that cocktail of endorphins, I have wandered too far, now the closeness, the sameness, the noises are like robbers at the door, banging for entrance and the phone line is dead.…
Living in a neighborhood has the risk that your experience is good or bad; however, my experience at my old neighborhood was extremely great. Astoria which was the first neighborhood where I lived when I first came to this country fourteen years ago, and the combination of factors such as the shopping, transportation, and the location has made this neighborhood a great place to live, and an unforgettable experience. Definitively I have a lot of good memories of this great neighborhood.…