Reading #11 Question 2
Trey Smith
"I guess this was your first look at a real body?" O'Brien responds
that, "[the corpse] reminds [him] of...I mean, there's a girl I used
to know," (O'Brien 228).
In what way does the premature and unwarranted death of a nine-year-
old girl equate to a casualty of war?
Maeha Karlow
Trey, this question is, to some degree, difficult to answer. In O'Brien's case, it seems like the girl equates to the war casualty because their innocence brings O'Brien confusion. Both deaths astound him. In the first instance, he can't believe Linda dies. He is too young to understand the reality. How could his young love die? Because she has done nothing wrong, "it d[oesn]'t quite register" (O'Brien 237). Similarly, the old man's innocent body takes him by suprise. He can't believe the way the soldiers approach death; for O'Brien, "it's too real...way too real" (226). He can't handle the reality that people who do nothing wrong have their lives taken away, and how others act like death is no big deal.
The similarly could be based on other factors; O'Brien does mention quite a few.
Maeha Karlow
Trey, this question is, to some degree, difficult to answer. In O'Brien's case, it seems like the girl equates to the war casualty because their innocence brings O'Brien confusion. Both deaths astound him. In the first instance, he can't believe Linda dies. He is too young to understand the reality. How could his young love die? Because she has done nothing wrong, "it d[oesn]'t quite register" (O'Brien 237). Similarly, the old man's innocent body takes him by suprise. He can't believe the way the soldiers approach death; for O'Brien, "it's too real...way too real" (226). He can't handle the reality that people who do nothing wrong have their lives taken away, and how others act like death is no big deal.
The similarly could be based on other factors; O'Brien does mention quite a few.
>
> On Feb 23, 2011 9:07 PM, "Trey Smith" <tsm...@brvgs.k12.va.us> wrote:
> When O'Brien witnesses h...
Robin B.
were both so young and hadn't had the chance to witness the world yet,
at least past fifth grade. No matter how young or how old a person is
when they leave the world, their death affects people in the same way.
Everyone goes through the same sadness and grief, maybe even anger. I
think Linda's death equates to the death of the soldier because Linda
was someone he had feelings for which could possibly equal to a lot of
people dying that he doesn't know. When an individual is around war
all the time, it will take a toll on them as if their best friend
died, at least thats how I see it. Anyone, like O' Brien, takes time
to accept death. Some may not accept it at all because their feelings
may get in the way. "At some point I had come to understand that Linda
was sick, maybe even dying, but I loved her and just couldn't accept
it" (O'Brien, 236). The memories of both Linda and the war come back
to him and they always will, death is inescapable.
On Feb 27, 3:40 pm, Maeha Karlow <karlo...@gtest.lcps.k12.va.us>
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
Megan
I believe that innocence does play a large role in how the death of
the young girl and a casualty of war are alike. Linda was a "nine-year-
old girl, just a kid" (O'Brien 238). She was fighting death, yet she
was only nine years old. She had barely experience life; Tim had
barely experienced life. "Linda was nine then, as I was, but we were
in love. And it was real" (228). When Tim lost Linda, it was really
the first death he experienced. He went through a time of sadness
where he didn't know what to do or think. When he went to see her
body, it "was fat and swollen" (241). He recognized that it was Linda,
but it wasn't her at the same time. She was dead, "she looked heavy
and totally dead" (242). The deaths in the war are similar in some
ways to the death of Linda. Not all the casualties counted were
soldiers. Some were children, women, and innocent bystanders. Some
soldiers were straight out of high school and just about to begin
their lives. They would never experience so many things because they,
too, were dead. The way the dead bodies looked were also similar, but
mainly the innocence of the young girl and the casualties of the war
was how they equated to one another.
On Feb 27, 6:17 pm, "Robin B." <brizendin...@gtest.lcps.k12.va.us>
wrote:
Lindsey
unasked for. Of course, in real life, no one necessarily wants to die
but at the ages of around 21 and 9, it's highly unexpected and catches
people off guard. The two deaths are similarly shocking to the public
eye. The war deaths are a tad less shocking because most people
expect it to happen but the numbers of the Vietnam war were incredible
and who has ever heard of a nine year old girl getting a brain tumor?
hardly anyone. I agree with Megan when she says that innocence plays
a huge role in the similarities between the two deaths. Before
Linda's death, Tim is completely innocent to actually losing someone
and it was "what I needed, I suppose, was some sort of final
confirmation, something to carry with me after she was gone" (O'Brien
240). This is also another similarity because with the soldiers that
die, O'Brien confesses that "There were many bodies, real bodies with
real faces, but I was young then and I was afraid to look" (O'Brien
180), from the previous reading, just like he found it hard to look at
Linda at first. Even though when O'Brien deals with war death he
seems like he's not a wuss, it's because all the stories are made up.
In real life, like the story with Linda, he really cares too much.
Emily Barnes
equates to a war casualty because of the suddeness of the death. The
harsh suddeness of a young girl dying, especially if you love her, can
be hard to understand. It's even harder for a young boy, like O'Brien,
to grasp the meaning of someone you love being dead. "All I could do
was nod. Somehow it didn't quite register" (O'Brien 224). The last
time O'Brien saw Linda, she was alive and fine, but then he gets the
news right out of the blue that Linda's dead. The stark suddeness of
her death made it hard for O'Brien to understand, and the same is true
furthur on in the war. In war, one minute someone is alive and well
and the next minute that person has been shot and killed. The sudden
reality of death is "Way too real" (O'Brien 214) for O'Brien to
internalize at first. What I'm trying to say is that both Linda's
death and the death of others in war are the same because they happen
so fast that it takes a longer time to understand what happened than
if one knew that their life was going to end in a few months.
Ben
death is similar to the death of the American soldiers because many of
the soldiers were young boys having been drafted, and had full lives
left to live when they got home. Their death deprived them of their
opportunities before they had a chance to live their lives. “I shook
my head. All day long I’d been picturing Linda’s face the way she
smiled” (O’Brien 128). O’Brien was not the only soldier with a life
and memories back home, however like the girl there life was cut short
and no one would ever know if their lives would have amounted to
anything.