Tim O’Brien talks about death in different ways. In the second vignette he makes a statement about the death of a soldier’s puppy. He says, “Ted Lavender adopting an orphan puppy- feeding it from a plastic spoon and carrying it in his rucksack until the day Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed [...]

Comrades: Yet another word we use without understanding the etymological significance. Tim has comrades; Henry has comrades. Check out this definition and etymology at Dictionary.com and compare that with Henry’s relationship to his comrades in the first fifteen chapters and O’Brien’s interrelationship of characters (especially in “Friends and Enemies”). Pay particular attention to the way [...]

This chapter explores the idea of “traditional heroism”. Tim O’Brien presents starts the chapter off by saying that he is telling a story that he has “never told anyone” because it would cause “embarrassment” (39) He tells about himself being drafted into the war. At first he sticks around and gets a low-paying job at [...]

This chapter presents the idea of controlling reality and memory through story. The narrator (Tim O’Brien) tells us how reality and memory can be twisted by a story, and that a story is the only thing that will remain in time. He says, “Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing [...]

1.) Five tangible things the soldiers “humped” on their trecks were, “pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent…” (2) They carried alot of tangible things, and they tell the exact weight of most of the tangible things they carried. Most of the things they have were out of necessity. Five intangible things the [...]

Lesson 36
THE FIRST READING
1.) What is the occasion of the poem? What literary device does the poet employ? Describe what you know of the speaker, the listener, and the “she” referred to in the poem.
This poem is about a young man courting a young woman. The poet uses envoy in this poem because the [...]

Lesson 29.)  1.) Describe the subtle changes in setting and analyze how these shifts reveal Eve’s fall from grace.The subtle changes in setting reveal Eve’s fall from grace. In the initial setting she is innocently picking fruit in the garden. Then when Satan tries to temp her (as the snake) The setting is described as a [...]

1.) Describe the form and structure of the poem. What is the occasion of the poem? What two reasons does the speaker give for refusing to promise a committed love? What does she suggest at the end?
-This poem has 3 stanzas of equal length (eight lines each) with alternating rhyme (ababcdcd) The occasion of the [...]

1.)      What imagery does Shapiro use in the first three lines to evoke sound and sight? How do these images become increasingly significant in the context of the entire poem?Shapiro uses color and sound imagery in the first three lines to evoke images within the reader. The “quick soft silver bell beating, beating, And down [...]

1.)  Describe the form called rime royal: meter, rhyme scheme, stanza form.  The rime royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c. 2.) What is the structure of this poem? How do the imager and argument of each stanza develop and intensify the appeal?This poem is four stanzas long. [...]