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A Short Story Of Gary Paulsen's Stop The Sun

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Gary Paulsen’s,”Stop the Sun,” is a short story surrounding Terry Erickson - a 13-year-old boy - trying to understand his father’s syndrome (post-traumatic stress disorder). At the start of the story, Terry was puzzled to why his father’s eyes ‘would go away’ and what caused him to change after coming back from Vietnam. Seeing someone he loved changed for the worst hurt him. Terry questioned his mother, but she wouldn’t give him a straight answer, seemingly that she did not know the answer to the question either. So he took matters into his own hands. Everything happened at once - his father’s explanations and the truth about his condition. He had to grasp all the information that was coming all at once at him. Terry afterward became insightful of his father’s experiences and what happened when he couldn’t ‘stop the sun.’ Although Terry was puzzled and conflicted with the fact his father’s experiences and syndrome at the start of the story, through the understanding discussion they had together, Terry became insightful while learning not to be ashamed of his father. At the beginning of “Stop the Sun” Terry was puzzled of his father’s experiences in the Vietnam War. He was confused and ashamed to find out there were many more downsides to his syndrome other than the blank looks. “Words. They gave him words like Vietnam Syndrome, and his father was crawling through a hardware store on his stomach” (Paulsen 640). Here it is demonstrated how Terry has yet to learn the reasons for why his father ended up acting this way. When Terry saw his father’s face, he knew that this wasn’t his father on the ground. “Terry realized that he had to do something. He had to do this thing, had to understand was what wrong with his father” (Paulsen 640). Nothing was going to stop Terry getting down to business about his father’s condition. Tension filled the air while Terry made the decision to have a talk with his father. He tried to break the silence by giving his father some soda, but it was no use. Stalling was the only thing that Terry could actually think of doing at the moment. “I still can’t do it, Terry thought. Things are bad, but maybe not as bad as they could get . . .” (Paulsen 642) Terry here is

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