Notesale: Turn your study into money

Document Preview

Extracts from the notes are below, to see the PDF you'll receive please use the links above

---

Last Name 1
Student Name
Professor Name
Course
Date
Argumentative Essay
In the book Memories of a lost war: American poetic responses to the Vietnam War,
the author recounts the deaths of at least fifty-five thousand American soldiers during the
Vietnam War
...
org)
...
In O’Brien’s novel, The things They Carried, O’Brien recounts
carefully the various things that the soldiers carried to the Vietnam war, reminding the reader
about the purpose for which the soldiers carried each of the things
...

When considering what the soldiers brought to war, it is essential to understand the
contents of the letters and photographs Lt
...
According to O’Brien’s novel, a
woman named Martha and who Lt
...
Cross
...
Cross
...
The letter had a significant effect on Lt
...
They “were not love letters, but
Lieutenant Cross hoped they were” (O’Brien, 4)
...
The photographs on their part contained various scenes and instants, which
also profoundly affected Lt
...
For example, one of them showed Martha as “she stood
against a brick wall… her eyes were gray and neutral, her lips slightly open as she stared
straight on…”(4)
...
” These and more of
the ways Martha was portrayed were a significant distraction to the soldier who depended on
being alert to protect both himself and the rest of the people at war
...

The love letters and photographs represent some life-sustaining power for the
Lieutenant himself in many ways
...
Cross’s motivation to stay in the war
...
For example, the good luck charm Martha
sent him during the first week of April before Ted Lavender’s death brought him a new
meaning to life
...
His imagination of the incidents
leading up to Martha collecting the pebble and the figurative language in her poetic
description of the pebble affected his preparedness and willingness to fight to the end very
profoundly
...
However, while the pebble, letters, and photographs
helped him sustain his life with hope, it was a significant impediment to his wellbeing
...
Cross “wondered what her truest feelings were…” (8), portraying how

Last Name 3
the letter would destroy his own life through demoralization
...
There is a duality in what the letters Cross carried and how they affected him as
an individual
...
Cross
...
This aspect is one part of the dualities concerning the letters
...
On 16th April,
Lee Strunk was charged with searching out an elaborate tunnel before Lt
...
It was a risky endeavor for both Lee Strunk and the other men who were
expected to keep watch of the area to prevent a possible attack from the enemies, and Cross
was no exception to the duty
...
But he was not there
...
In this distraction, the enemy gained access to Ted
Lavender, who had gone to pee in the nearby bush
...
This way,
the letter once again had acted both as a psychological relief to Lt
...
This duality in the letters’
effects is a portrayal of the metaphor of both life and death
...
It became impossible for him to
dissociate Lavender’s death from the memories of the pictures and how they distracted him
till his fellow soldier died
...

Lastly, the letters, photographs, and other items that Cross carried with him were also
responsible for the emotional baggage he carried
...
After all, it was
customary for soldiers to keep correspondence with their families and loved ones (Shay,
175)
...
Grief, terror, love, longing
...
This
weight was responsible for the way the soldiers fought in the war, since it motivated them
...
Therefore, the positive feelings that
the soldiers developed from interacting with their loved ones’ letters and photographs
signifies one of the dualities
...
Most of the soldiers
became more willing to die in battle than to go home defeated and having to fight shame
throughout their lives
...

They died so as not to die of embarrassment…”
...
The same feelings that drove them to want to live more pushed them closer
to dying
...
Finally, therefore, the motivation they got from the love letters and could both save the
soldiers’ lives by encouraging them to fight more vigorously with the hope of going back in
the “big silver freedom bird” (22), or die in the process of fighting so vigorously
...
Memories of a lost war: American poetic responses to the Vietnam War
...

Hagopian, Patrick
...
Univ of Massachusetts Press, 2009
...
Trained to kill: Soldiers at war
...

O’Brien, Tim
...
Mariner, 2009
...
ACHILLES IN VIETNAM; Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character
...

vvmf
...
THE WALL OF FACES
...
vvmf

---