1. The story that has meant those most to me, was On The Rainy River. This story meant the most to me because Tim had to make a very hard decision, to run away to Canada and be a coward, or stay and fight a war he didn't believe in and risk dying. He decided he would run and almost made it to the border where he spent six days with Elroy Berdahl, an owner of a fishing lodge on the Rainy River. During his time there he made his decision to stay and fight in the war, "The day was cloudy. I passed through towns with familiar names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie and then to Vietnam, where i was a solider, and then home again. I survived, but its not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war."
2. The character that I can relate most to is, Rat Kiley, I say this because like Rat i always try to make the best of a situation like when they were humping through mine field and he came up with a rhyme. I can also relate to him because, like Rat sometimes I have strange ways of copping with my feelings. I if I'm pissed off or hurt about something I sometimes go out and shoot stuff or blow things up with Pyrodex, however I never go as far as shooting a baby buffalo just to hurt it. Some of Rat's qualities are he's a captivated story teller and a good friend.
3. A narrative that I would like to point out is, Tim's description of Elroy Berdahl. He not only describes Elroy's physical appearance but he also describes how Elroy made him feel by just looking at him. Tim rights that Elroy's gaze sliced him open and made him feel guilty.
4. The passage that I chose to write about comes from the chapter Friends, it is about Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk, who in the past chapter got in a fist fight and weren't considered "enemies", however they grew to be great friends. "In late August they made a pact that if one of them should ever get totally fucked up -- a wheelchair wound -- the other guy would automatically find a way to end it." This has impacted me because I couldn't imagine making a pact to kill my best friend under any circumstance. I couldn't bring myself to it. that just shows how much a war can impact you, how strong their friendship truly was. I imagine killing an enemy, another human being, would be hard enough to do let alone you're best friend.
Tim does really well with characterizing Elroy Berdahl and the other characters.
ReplyDeleteThe passage with Dave Jensen and Lee Struck where they make the pact with each other was a touching moment in the novel that showed how even during a war people can still come together through hardship.
ReplyDeleteThe story "On The Rainy River" was a very emotionally evoking story, that shows Tim making a very difficult. life changing decison. I definately agree that it was one of the most meaningful stories told in the novel so far.
ReplyDeleteI thought Rat was a very intersting charachter. I hated what he did to the baby buffalo and I had to stop reading it, but then at the end Rat becomes kind of sensitive when he talks about how people should stop with sexism and the sterotypes arent true.
ReplyDelete