Jacob's Ladder Essay

“Oh, Jake, we could have had such a damned good time together.’ ‘Yes, Isn’t it pretty to think so?”. Their final discussion is right where they started in the back of a cab. Brett has just dug a hole even deeper into the abyss of disappointment that Brett has already given him. Jake has lost his masculinity in more ways than one. He has to live without Brett, and with his disability, denying him any chance at all with women. He has finally accepted the loveless relationship that has become of them, and will push forward knowing how it will never be.

That’s the thing about death: it sneaks up and robs a person of their life, taking away all of their happiness. People indulge themselves in the idea of fearing death rather than facing it. Death is an unknown territory where no survivors have ever came back to share their experience. The US Army Private, Roy Scranton’s article “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene” shines hope where he explains how fear can be conquered if the idea of dying is accepted. It is fear that paralyzes people from moving toward the idea of death. If people started to embrace the present, they will understand the inevitability of death and start discrediting fear.

It is very apparent that Tim O’Brien, as of writing this story, is afflicted with what we now call PTSD. This is shown by how quickly the story turns from him being at home with his daughter, to back on the battlefield in the Vietnam War. He goes into great detail about this event. From the weather and environment, to him and his partner taking watch shifts, even to how the man he killed looked and what he was wearing. If you have PTSD one of the side effects is having unwanted memories of your experiences. It is shown that Tim has this by the sentence “I’ll look up and see the young man coming out of the morning fog.” He will be at home, sitting on the sofa reading a newspaper, but when he looks up he can see the man he killed. This is an unwanted memory to him. Having PTSD has truly taken a toll on Mr. O’Brien. He has since moved on, but he can never truly forget that experience. He tries to forget but he simply cannot due to his condition. “Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t,” is what he writes in his story “Ambush” as he tells of his struggles with PTSD. If he told his daughter what happened, not only would he most likely not be able to stop talking and describing the situation he was thrust into, but he would also remember the gunshots and explosions. He would be back on the battlefield. He would maybe even try to harm his wife or daughter due to

how) contributing to her death." (179) "Fawell later states, in the same article, "Jake is

She sees Jake as an unintelligent, brainless, violence obsessed marine who doesn’t deserve a place in her program. As time progresses, Grace grows fond of Jake, his helpful tendencies and selflessness.

“Why? What’s the point?”. Jake has a wife and a daughter and he hasn't spoken with his kid in months. His daughter refers to him as “the man that used to live with us” and he doesn't like speaking with his

These flashbacks remind him he is still a child, just caught in an impossible situation. Beah described “Things changed rapidly in a matter of seconds and no one had any control over anything. We had yet to learn these things and implement survival tactics, which was what it came down to” (35). He was eventually taken away from the war environment and escorted out of the village he was stationed at to the Benin home. This home was meant to brain washed child soldiers get the education nack that they missed out on and give them the right nourishment needed. For English they read passages from books, learned to spell words, and sometimes wrote stories in their notebooks. The teachers said it was just a way of refreshing their memories. Upon arrival, he and his friends are already craving the drugs their lieutenant had constantly filled them up with. It had been more than a month and most of the children had completely gotten past the withdrawal stage. Although some kids still had instances of vomiting and randomly collapsing, they were finally able to feel better. This is when their memories of war begins to soak in. From the withdrawal of these drugs, he begins to have reoccurring phantasmic nightmares and stressful visuals being followed by serious migraines. He would busy himself with work all day going back and forth to the nearby river and continuously washing dishes. It was the only way he could distract himself from the thoughts that would give him severe headaches. He tells a example of a visual dream as “In my mind’s eye I would see sparks of flame, flashes of scenes I had witnessed, and the agonizing voices of children and woman would come alive in my head”(103). Often times his nightmares would act as a barrier to remembrances of his family. It took him several months before he began to relearn how to sleep without the aid of medication. Sometimes

The memories that a person makes throughout their lifetime creates amazing stories. The book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien was based on memories from the Vietnam war. The protagonists in the novel is all the men that served and faced many obstacles throughout the war. The novel was written in parts of his memories from the war making the book nonlinear. O’Brien’s intended audience was soldiers and men, while discussing storytelling/memory and morality throughout the novel.

Henry being so consciously aware of the reoccurring violence and deaths of many soldiers causes him to constantly reminisce about the war in Vietnam and its horrific events. “PTSD” however, is very common amongst veterans. My father who had fought in the Vietnam War had “PTSD.” And even after many years of prior to the war, his past always seemed to have consumed his reality. The violent images and emotional feelings about the war in Vietnam have caused him to visualize the war in a form of a nightmare whenever he sleeps. This can explain his frequent sleep talks at night about the Vietnam War as he screams “giết tất cả” which translates to kill them all. Of course he had it coming that the cause of his children to become distant towards him was because of his unexplained actions. But nonetheless, it is the result of many pasts that is the responsibility of shaping ones fear and sensation towards life.

Jake is consciously aware that there is a problem, which is more than can be said about his friends. Perhaps the people that surround Jake are the issue, though. His close friends and the people whom he travels with include Lady Brett Ashley, Robert Cohn, Bill, and Mike. Brett, the target of Jake’s unrequited affections, is likely someone whom he should stop spending time with; however, it seems that he just can’t get away from her. She is a very strong and independent woman who isn’t known to behave in a traditionally feminine way. Jakes does remark that although she is very independent, “She can’t go anywhere alone.” Robert Cohn is a Jewish, wealthy expatriate; but unlike many of his friends, did not spend any time in the war. Cohn also falls head over heels in love with Brett, who soon rejects his affections as well. As a wealthy, Jewish, non war veteran Cohn stands out in the group and his fumbling attempts to court Brett are the source of much mockery and leads to many fights. Bill is also an American veteran who seems to be always drinking. He tends to use humor to try and deal with the emotional scars of war; however, is not immune to the immaturity and cruelty sometimes characterized by Jake and his friends. Finally, Mike is a very heavy drinking Scottish war veteran who is completely bankrupt. He is seen to have a terrible temper, which most often displays while he is drunk. Mike is also not comfortable with the

First, the religious concept views death as the commencement of a new life (Campione, 2004). Next, the

Many of the wives talked about the letter their husband/boyfriend sent home, and their inability to talk about anything other than the "weather". One particular wife stood out though for her husband's story. She said he husband left her a simple note that read “I love you sweetheart, but I can't take the flashbacks", before he went in to the garage and killed himself. In this case, it is obvious that whatever the soldier witnessed in Vietnam greatly affected him. He was unable to take seeing the atrocities that he witnessed in Vietnam anymore, he was willing to go to the extreme of taking his own life- dismantling not only his own life, but also his whole families- just to avoid seeing the visions anymore. This would lead many to assume that events the soldiers saw were horrific, and continued to affect them even after they had already returned home. One soldiers wife said "he lost his soul in Vietnam but it took 7 years for his body to catch up", soldiers were dehumanized by the things they had to in Vietnam and this cause them to "die" even though their hearts were still technically beating.

Lyons, the first born son to Troy, the step-son to Rose, and the half-brother to Cory. Gabriel,

It shows how Jake is persistent and dedicated to his job, even if it always seems like he is in over his head. Jake, however, also departs from the film noir tradition when he lets his emotions get the best of him. The greatest example of this is seen during the exchange between him and Evelyn when he is trying to find out the truth about Katherine. Resorting for the first time to violence against a woman, the near desperation with which Jake pushes Evelyn to confess is an expression of his fears and anxieties about being completely lost amidst the lies that surround him. The result is the humanization of Jake Giddes’ character. He simply is not perfect, and ultimately fails to see the bigger picture of what he is involved with until .

However, Jake is not married, nor does he live with a woman in Paris. The characters of the