Blog post 2: The Things They Carried

Last time in the previous blog post, In The Things They Carried I talked about themes and conflicts that are currently happening in the book. I talked about how the troops fear shame from their families. I also talked about Ted Lavenders death as one of my conflicts. In this post I will post about a couple characterizations and archetypes of what I have read so far.

LT. Cross is who I will be doing my characterization on. Jimmy Cross is a young boy and doesn’t know much about being a leader. Lt. Cross functions as a metaphor for the war, specifically its lack of meaningful structure. Like the war, Lt. Cross is characterized by a lack of purpose. Lt. Cross's role should be a strong leader who gives his troops clear instructions for attacking the enemy. The Vietnam War, however, makes this kind of leadership impossible because the steps to achieve the objective of the war are undefined and confusing. Similarly Cross is distracted with his profound liking of Martha. He keeps wondering if Martha is a virgin. Now ever since Ted Lavender died, he blames himself for what happened as if somehow it would be his fault.

Archetypes that relate to this book would be the situational archetype of The Initiation. The situation that leads me to use the ignition archetype is when Jimmy Cross discovered that he needed to be an actual leader. On page 25-26 it says “Jimmy cross reminded himself that his obligation was not to be loved but to lead.” Cross figured that if Lavenders death was his fault that he needed to step his game up and he needed to be a little more cautious in this war because it was a death trap.

K Byee.

"The Things They Carry" Blog Post 1

I am currently reading the novel The Things They Carry. While reading this book I have recently been looking for themes and conflicts. One theme I’ve noticed a lot this far in the book is that the troops have a fear of shame from their families and fathers. They say that the fear of shame is the only thing keeping them fighting in the war. On page 25 the novel says “They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment.” The troops knew that if they went back without dying or getting any medals then their families would think that they didn’t try their hardest. Lieutenant Cross, for example, is one person who felt like he didn’t try his hardest.

         There are many conflicts going on in this book, because after all it is a book about war. One of the main conflicts is the death of Ted Lavender. While walking back from peeing Ted was “shot in the head.” Ever since then, Lieutenant Cross has internally had the conflict of blaming himself for Ted’s death. “He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry for the rest of the war.” Cross felt responsible for the death because he thought that he must’ve not been paying attention when he was really thinking about Martha.

Hunger Games Blog Post 3

Hunger Games Blog Post 3

     Hey. Here we are again my third and final post. This is gonna be a great post where I try to get even more descriptive with my post. Then I will talk about the theme of the book and what the author is trying to convey, I will draw a symbol for a character and explain what the heck a symbol has to do with a character from the hunger games, and lastly I will tell you guys how I would convince a librarian to put this book in a library.

     I’m just going to reiterate what I said before because there isn’t much else to say about the book for the most part but anyways. “The Hunger Games” is about a girl and a boy whom defy all odds. They survived the Hunger Games and also the government hasn’t killed them yet. I feel like the president is not happy and it will not take long for him to kill one or both of them probably “on accident.”

     In this book I feel like the author is trying to convey that the government is starting to get to controlling. I think Suzanne is trying to give us an example of what really could happen if the government gains too much control. She is trying to convey that if one day this does happen or something similar happens in the future, there will always be that one person that wants to not conform to the rules or that wants to break free somehow but subliminally blackmailing the government.

     If I were to draw a symbol for this book it would probably be a girl and boy running while holding hands with fires in the background. I would want this to be my symbol because it relates to the book and the characters in so many ways. The boy and the girl represent the boys and girls from each district, but mostly Peeta and Katniss. The holding hands represents the trust between each other and also the disobedience towards the capital. Lastly the fire in the background represents the danger involved the games and how the tributes are always trying to get away from the danger to stay alive the longest.

     This book is a great book and I’m sure it has many awards. If I asked my librarian to put this book in the library and she questioned it for some reason I would explain the book to her. I would tell her hat this book explains a lot and can be read from any age group in Timber Creek. I would tell her that this book is great because it explains the possibilities of what could possibly happen if North America was run instead by a totalitarian government. I feel like the librarian would like this book and want to put it in her library because it is also a very popular book and a lot of people read it. Also the book probably got a lot of awards already.

     Okay well thanks for watching my blog. Come back and visit next time I post because I know you must love reading these, whoever you are about. All I know is that there's about 60-100 of you so keep on coming back? Bye.