Works Cited Page
1. http://www.illyria.com/tob/tobbio/html
Autobiography: Tim O’Brien
This American contemporary writer was born William Timothy O’Brien in
After discharge from the army, O’Brien attended Harvard for graduate studies in government and worked as a reporter for the Washington Post. In 1973, he published his first book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. Although he invented the dialogue, O’Brien calls the work war memoir since it describes his experience in
Tim O’Brien’s work greatly influenced work because he was in the Vietnam War. He was involved in the
Historical Event Research
The conflict known as the Vietnam War (1957-75) was centered in the publically-divided country of
In March 1969, one tragic episode in the pages of American military history is the massacre at
Soon, the order came to Captain Cally, that there were many North Vietnamese soldiers were in the next village over and to attack with everything you’ve got. The boys of the Charlie Company started shooting, all of them, into the village. When the smoke cleared, they found dead woman caring children, old men, and babies. The report came across that 567 civilians were killed. This was a mistake.
I wanted to relate this historical event to the chapter in Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, How To Tell A True War Story. Tim O’Brien comments on the massacre at My Lai, but he also talks about
This is the same story but told differently. In the historical event, the town of
This research has helped me to understand this chapter because I think it was a real piece of history. Tim O’Brien, claims he was there. This is a sad point of history and it is a real side to war. This is a great correlation between history and our story we read.
Work Cited
Topic Proposal
The war is why all of this is happening to the girls; wanting to get pregnant, the secrets, and the Commander. How the world got to this point. It is interesting to correlate between fiction and nonfiction. To relate the two is strange. I think this could help me to better understand Atwood because during war, people do things to survive.
Lisa Manning
Thesis Statement
Identify the weak thesis statement:
This is weak because it states what it’s going to talk about. Instead, it should have a sentence about one main concern and then support it through quotes.
-Or-
2 a. Darwin’s concern with survival of the fittest in The Origin of the Species leads him to neglect a potentially conflicting aspect of his theory of evolution-survival as a matter of interdependence.
b. An important part of one’s college education is learning to better understand others’ points of view.
This sentence is the weakest because it isn’t clear. It is confusing; Although, it is argumentative. It seems that it is an opinion of the writer.
-Or-
This sentence is the weaker of the two because it is a run-on sentence. It isn’t clear of what the writer is trying to make a point of.
b. By inventing terms, such as “loose fit” and “relaxed fit”, the jean industry has attempted to normalize, even glorify, its product for an older and fatter generation.
-or-
a. The jeans industry targets its advertisements to appeal to young adults.
b. Othello is a play about love and jealousy.
This sentence is the weaker one of the two because it tells WHAT the play is about. It isn’t argumentative and it just gives the answer of what the plot is about.
-or-
b. The songs of the punk rock group Minor Threat relate to the Feelings of individuals who dare to be different. Their songs are just composed of pure emotion. Pure emotion is very important in music, because it serves as a vehicle to convey the important message of individuality. Minor Threat’s songs are meaningful to me because I can identify with them.
This one is the weaker one because it has a lot of topics that COULD be the thesis but isn’t clearly stated. Why is the emotional music important to her?
-or-
5. a. The punk rock group Minor Threat uses emotional lyrics to appeal to their target audience, which considers itself individualistic and therefore the lyrics must convey a message of individuality.
Thesis Statement
The black market, today in our standards, sell and trade anything from gorilla hands, children, and off the market medications. In, Margret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, there is mention of the black market. Could the black market bring Offred freedom?
“The cigarettes must have come from the black market, I thought, this gave me hope” (Atwood 14). This gave her something to look forward too; a way out. I think the black market is a way for her to get her freedom; to live her life that she remembers as normal. A trade “even if there is no real money anymore” (Atwood 14) for her freedom for a story of her triumph from her oppressor.
I think this is a great thesis statement because it could be argued that there isn’t really a black market. She just mentioned this without evidence of her own. She remembers there was something called a “black market”. I feel this is specific because it pulls one detail that is mentioned a few times in the book. I do have support from the book as mentioned above.
Work Cited
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. New York: Anchor Books, 1998.
Dear Mrs. Darrow,
I have been thinking about this class so far I have been pleased. I have read chapter’s to some fascinating books, written essays and developed a blog! I have looked forward to the weekly readings. I read The Things They Carried in 1999 and enjoyed it then as I did this time around. Reading The Sand Storm, I realized I don’t want my son to join the Marines. These have been some of the things that I enjoyed so far.
We have submitted two essays so far; the essays have been a challenge for me. I have noticed that my paragraphs were not as focused as I had intended. They tended to stray off the subject. Although, after your comments to help me to relate back to the book or poem, I will use it for future essays. Another challenge for me was the literary analysis; I had used this in another English class. I didn’t use this aspect of writing only once before, like I mentioned. This way of writing is different because you have to dig deeper into the reason behind what is written. I would like to look at things in an analytical way, like you had mentioned, to apply it to my everyday life. Why are they doing that? What is the real intention? I would like to work on this to strengthen this aspect in writing. So, for my second half of this summer semester, my goals are to improve my writing skills as a whole, produce focused paragraphs, and to sharpen my literary analysis skills.
Tim O’Brien Blog #2
Response to “The Things They Carried”
He had to let her go,
He had to live.
Burned in a foxhole,
Martha’s letter lie.
She belonged to another world,
Far beyond his own.
She did not love him,
Signed letters Love Martha.
His love was too much for him,
He felt like he couldn’t move, he wanted to sleep inside her
He wanted to know her.
Her eyes grey and neutral,
Not of flies or swollen black and bruised.
They were not love letters,
This was not Mt. Sebastian,
It was a world where men died from carelessness.
Without negligence and guilt,
He carried his men.
He had to let her go,
He had to live.
In Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried, is a chapter called On the Rainy River. It was the summer if 1968 and Tim was working in a pig slaughter house in his hometown of
My analysis of this story is that Tim O’Brien is very insecure and cannot make his own decisions. He was bossed around from his father all his life. As he grew into a young man he wasn’t sure what direction to take. “At dinner that night my father asked what my plans were nothing” (O’Brien 49). Tim was a lost young boy: In the evening I’d sometimes borrow my father’s car and drive aimlessly around town, feeling sorry for myself, thinking about the war and the pig factory and how my life seemed to be collapsing toward slaughter (O’Brien 41).
Works Cited
O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried.
HAMILL
This short story was very moving and powerful. I felt the passion that Sam Hamill felt
regarding the war, broken women, and the abusers. How true is the fact that abuse and death
happens all to often and it is silent. Our silence contributes to shame..misery..and deaths of
millions of unborn children”(Hamill 550). Our silence. That is a very strong idea. 4 or 5
generations ago, silence was the norm. What I mean is, mothers didn't talk about “that stuff”
with their daughters. Fathers would only nod to their sons'. Getting married was what you were
supposed to do. My mother was brought up to not speak up, not to question. There were 4
sisters in my moms house growing up. I am not sure how many are happy today.
No silence. No more. We are to speak up against attacks and attackers. Don't let them get
away. The prison is filled with men from back grounds in abuse. Beatings. Rapes. So that means
the abuse happened to their fathers and mothers and theirs before them. Why? Why does it
continue? To break the cycle. When will it stop. Is it possible? Men grow up and go into war for
their country. So, what if the men that go into war, were raised without violence in the home.
Would that make him any less stronger, tougher, able to kill? Could it be that violence is with
every creature on this planet? Lion cubs, they bite and tackle their brothers. Is that violence in
the home?We as human beings have a responsibility to one another. But I think that we don't
want to over step our bounds. To care for a stranger. To help an elderly woman to put groceries
in her car. Would it be to much if we drive her to her house? I think that trust and mistrust has
left us to not help on another, to be silent. Has media contributed to our idea of how we aren't
supposed to be towards another. Sam Hamill has made a great discussion. His story along with
“Song of Napalm” by Bruce Weigl has war woven in them. In Bruce's story a young girl runs
down her dirt street, flesh from her young body drips off her. The war had happened. Napalm
bomb. In Sam Hamill's story he discuss how bombs are 180,000 stronger than the one that hurt
the young girl in“Song of Napalm”.
I will reread this story of Sam Hamill, to remind myself of how tender we really are. To
remind myself of reality. Or do I just need to watch my local news?
My response to the Norton Reader
Nabokov thinks that a good reader should have imagination, memory, a dictionary, and some artistic sense. I believe that. I think an imagination ties a reader to the book. To imagine the black shirt, to feel the hot wind brush by your cheek, and to “hear” the voice while reading a story. “The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be the only instrument used upon a book.”
Some books are forgotten some are not. I need to immerse myself in a story to remember the plot, character, or even the title. “A situation in a book is intensely felt because it reminds us of something that happened to us or to someone we know or knew.” To relate to a story is something even more powerful. The author and the reader are on the trail, sort of speaking.
I believe that I am good reader.
