Gary Paulsen's Short Story 'Stop The Sun'

The author, Tim O'Brien, is writing about an experience of a tour in the Vietnam conflict. This short story deals with inner conflicts of some individual soldiers and how they chose to deal with the realities of the Vietnam conflict, each in their own individual way as men, as soldiers.

The choices and decisions made control our lives and build our future. Regardless of whether individuals see it or not, the choices did influence today, impact our tomorrow. Once a choice made, the actions play out, and the results convey; at that point, must choose the option to live with those outcomes. In the short story "The Father," the author, Hugh Garner utilizes character development of John Purcell to demonstrate that one's irresponsible choices made have the ability to jeopardize an essential relationship in one's life.

With this part of the story, O’Brien is able to inject the theme of shame motivating the characters in the book. This chapter is about how the author, who is also the narrator, is drafted for the war. He runs away to the border between Canada and the United States, he stays in a motel with an old man for about a week and finds that he should go to war for his country. In the beginning it was about shame, he didn’t want to look like a coward because in truth he was scared. He was afraid to face the pressures of war, the humiliation and the fact of losing “everything”. This man was an average person who lived an average life with no problems, until he got the notice about the war, which caused the shame and fear of being seen as a bad person to come out.

Parenthood was a factor in the boy’s life, this ideas gives you an insight on what he wanted the reader to convey. here are two different emotions running through this story from both the boys. In the author Wes Moore the emotion you feel while reading it is hurt and compassion.

In addition, Tim is torn between both sides. He asks why Sam has to be not nice to Father and tells him that he had it nice; he had money for books and studies that Father sent him. He asks, “Listen, Sam, why do you always have to get into a fight with Father?” (Collier and Collier, 15). According to later chapters Tim looks up to both his father and brother. The split between father and brother causes his dilemma. After being torn between sides and fighting about the sides, it is evident that war tears families apart.

The emotional pain of reliving the story arouses sympathy in the reader, which as a result allows the audience to identify with Tim’s struggle. He also mentions having to “live with it, feeling the shame, trying to push it away,” which evokes empathy in the reader. It is certain that throughout one’s lifetime, they will experience an event that leaves them guilt-stricken or feeling shameful. By describing his feelings towards the story, O’Brien arouses sympathy in the reader in a way similar to the “ordinary world” phase of the hero’s journey archetype.

Hundreds of bodies littered the ground. Sounds of explosions and endless gunfire filled the air. Soldiers, with their uniforms splashed in crimson, fought viciously and ruthlessly. Their main objective, which was to win the battle, took a backseat to their newfound desperation to stay alive. After all, war is not a game, especially one such as the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and left its survivors haunted by a multitude of atrocious events. Terry Erickson’s father and George Robinson, who were two fictional characters from the short stories “Stop the Sun” and “Dear America”, respectively, were veterans of the Vietnam War. The differences and similarities between Terry’s father and George Robinson are striking, and they merit rigorous scrutiny.

     The narrator is torn between two worlds. In his heart and mind, he knows that the war is wrong and unjust. In his family, town, and nation, however, he was expected to fight. He must cross a number of hurdles on his way to a life altering decision. It seems the man has gotten beyond the idea of self embarrassment. The problem for Cross, it seems, is the fact that his decision affects everyone around him. Like any young man in those times, he was scared. Not scared of death, but scared of life after the war. He knows that is he does not go to the war, his mother, his father, and all his friends will share the burden of his embarrassment. That is why he must go to the war. In a noble sort of way, Cross saves his family the embarrassment of draft dodging. In his mind, however, he is a coward, a man who simply put, could not stand up to himself in a time of turmoil. This lack of confidence and self assurance is something

Stop the sun, just like terry’s dad tried to do. Imagine your only chance of survival Is to stop the sun from rising, what do you do? Terry and his dad struggle to understand each other since terry’s dad went through a war, the Vietnam war. When the dad’s eyes start “going away” more and more, Terry becomes obsessed with trying to figure out what happened to his father. Gary paulsen the author of Stop The Sun, focused on multiple craft moves: simile, foreshadowing, and Onomatopoeia to help the readers visualize and understanding what is happening in the story.

The story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is an enormously detailed fictional account of a wartime scenario in which jimmy Cross (the story’s main character) grows as a person, and the emotional and physical baggage of wartime are brought to light. The most obvious and prominent feature of O’Brien’s writing is a repetition of detail. O’brien also passively analyzes the effects of wartime on the underdeveloped psyche by giving the reader close up insight into common tribulations of war, but not in a necessarily expositorial sense.. He takes us into the minds of mere kids as they cope with the unbelievable and under-talked-about effects or rationalizing

Wright writes about the soldiers as persons that are very little culturally informed because of the parent(s) non-present upbringing.

(pg 459) This is a huge characteristic of the young man showing how fearsome he is, while his father is something to pity. In the opening the father is already showing a very fatherly side this establishes the fathers care and worry and it slowly grows from there. Throughout the storyline the author keeps developing and adding to the character from what he had established from the start rather than changing the way the characters are seen, this reassures the reader that fathers bond is and will stay there and but unlike his father the kid is so fright that he rather hate and push away. Unlike in The Things They Carried the characters are not really built on, the way O’brien develops the character is by listing the things they carried rather than by the action that the men did, also this list show how meaningless the war was to some men as in one of the list on of the men took “ A condom just in case.”

In the story “Stop the Sun” by Gary Paulsen the theme is some people have problems that sometimes we can’t understand because it isn’t something that can’t be understood, but the knowledge that we obtain when we ask questions is more beneficial than when we don’t try to seek understanding. The story “Stop the Sun” by Gary Paulsen is about a boy named Terry that has a father and sometimes his father’s “eyes go away,”. This worries Terry and causes him to want to know more about what’s happening to his Father. He looks for answers to his questions everywhere because he justs wants to understand.

From the beginning of the story, Terry knew that his father's eyes went away but it came to know now where he decided that he was going to find out what happened in Vietnam. Terry looked through all the books in his school library that had the vietnam war in it. It was said that

It was always a personal struggle for Andrew to come to terms with his identity, and it wasn’t until the endings of his intermediate school that he accepted his individuality. He was gay. Contrary to his belief of removing a mental burden, challenges aroused to create scars deep that couldn’t be healed by a bandage. Flying papers like a hurricane revolved around Andrew, and being treated like a personal punch-bag was creating scar tissue that veterans’ have.