What have I learned? A LOT

This class was different from any English class I have ever taken before. I have never really had to analyze literature, and the literature I have had to read has been dry textbook literature. I really enjoyed the change of pace for this class. It also introduced me to a better way of blogging and looking current literature. I hope that I can take what I have discovered in this class into my future career. I have learned to look beyond what I normally see, and discover some of the hidden features in writing. The most important thing that I have learned during this course, is to use someone to proof read my writing other than the people I have used in the past. If you use the same people over and over for years (such I have) then you generally learn the same responses. If you get an outside opinion from someone that has never seen your work before you get a completely different response. (But this is not always available to do, but I will always try.) I have enclosed a website I have found for free proof readers!

http://www.grammarly.com/?gclid=CK_w9_bOjaoCFSN5gwodGnnO0g

Tim O'Brien Biography

I couldn't help but do more research on the man himself. He seemed like such an interesting character both in his book as well as in the way it was written. My research was difficult. I could not find any real literary source on him after spending a whole day in the library. So these are the sites I eventually went to:

"Tim O'Brien (author)." Wikipedia. Web. .

"Biography of Tim O'Brien." n. pag. Web. 17 Jul 2011. .

"Rising Star Tim O'Brien." n. pag. Web. 17 Jul 2011. .


"Biography of Tim O'Brien (1946-)." n. pag. Web. 17 Jul 2011. .


All of these gave me great detail on his life (past and current). He really is an interesting man, and his style of writing is right up my alley. I love reality with a fictional twist (which does have a genre itself interesting enough).

The above picture was taken when the author was in Vietnam.

Green Berets

But the story did not end there. If you believed the Greenies, Rat said, Mary Anne was still
Somewhere out there in the dark. Odd movements, odd shapes. Late at night, when the
Greenies were out on ambush, they whole rain forest seemed to stare in at them- a watched
Feeling- and a couple of times they almost saw her sliding through the shadows. Not quite,
But almost. She had crossed to the other side. She was part of the land. She was wearing her
Culottes, her pink sweater, and a necklace of human tongues. She was dangerous. She was
Ready for the kill. (O, 110)
O, Tim. The Things They Carried. 1990. Print.

The whole paragraph summed up so much for me after I read it. I could feel how a person could become so entrenched in a situation that they become a factor in that said situation. It seems to me, that while the men were shocked that Mary Anne understood the wilderness and patterns of this foreign country and culture better than the men that surrounded her. She became what she saw and felt, which is something that the men had been trying to do, and now they can’t help but envy her for being able to actually do it. It felt to me that O’Brien himself would have stayed out in the wilderness and been one with the culture and land. And the image of the tongues hanging in a necklace to me stood for every the fact that no one ever really talked about what happened and the truth of the situation. It symbolized that one must hold one’s tongue before they lose that tongue.

The above picture is something that came to mind when I imagined Mary Anne with the Green Beret's and the way that their hootch was described earlier in this tale. (Well, not the exact picture,but something similar).

Witness of Violence

The two poems that struck me the most were the two that seemed to be the most violent. First of all, The Colonel, the ears. What a vivid image that leaves in ones mind. The idea that you are a dinner guest at a foreign colonel's cottage that seems to be in the midst of a war in itself, and then to finish up your meal and walk out of the room having to walk on the severed ears of who all knows what races and what those poor people did to have this done to them.
 The second poem that stuck with me was Song of Napalm. The reader becomes entranced by a young woman running away from something that can not be out run! And to have to watch her destroyed before your very eyes is horrible! Coming from someone who works with clients that sometimes do suffer from PTSD, I realize that there has to be some sort of release of these memories, and that is exactly what these poems said to me, that these authors have seen unspeakable horrors that are always with them when they close their eyes, and for them to write so others can read is amazing in itself.

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ev2dEqrN4i0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This video does get a tiny bit graphic, but it shows the effect of napalm on a naked child in Vietnam. This is the video I instantly thought of when I read Song of Napalm.

Introductory Video

I forgot to post this on the blog, just submitted it through black board, oops.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/12204227/playgoz-movie

Summary vs. Analysis

To summarize a story or a poem, one takes the entire written piece and condenses it to a short description of what the long version is. You don't quite get all the details that you would in the original piece of literature, but you do get the main ideas of what is written. In an analysis, one actually takes a deeper look at the written piece. You take a look at specific parts in a different context than what you seem to think is what is intended. Often times, what is written has a deeper meaning, and it takes analyzing the written text to discover what it could all possibly mean. I like to think of these two different approaches as sitting through a church service. Most often, a Bible verse will be read, a Bible verse, is a story, but a true story that is being written down, so it is a summary of the past. And from there the pastor will analyze what was written in the text that was read. And with as many different beliefs there are and the different languages, each person is going to analyze the same text in a different manner. I have attached a good link that I use when deciphering when I have to summarize and when I must analyze something.

http://www.westga.edu/~mhenry/summary%20vs%20analysis.htm

Good Readers and Good Writers

Nabokov has a great point in that a great reader is really a re-reader. Upon first reading, the brain can not properly absorb what is being read. This is because it is the first time you have seen this content and your brain is busy wrapping itself around what you are reading. When a person goes back and reads again what they have already read, they will remember more of the detail, and they will absorb more  of the finer details that weren't understood when the content was first read. I feel that the best reader is one that has a genuine interest in the content that they are reading, the reader should have a memory for what they are reading, along with this must come some kind of imagination. When it comes down to it, after reading this article, I re-examined my ideas of being a reader, and while I am an avid reader, I can always improve upon my reading style.