The Quiet American - Taking Sides Is Human

Are moral standards in the eye of the beholder? According to one author, “we’ve seriously lost our way”, going on to state, “we are like mean adrift at sea without a compass” (Hulme). In literature as in biology, the mantra of form fits function applies and heightens a reader’s appreciation of a writer’s choice and how they contribute to a work of literature. In Tim O’Brien’s collection of short stories, The Things They Carried, the narrative, the experience of reading and the alternating Vietnam and modern day settings not only shape the author’s world view, but reflect upon his own experiences in the 1960’s and 1970’s war. The short stories within this work, “On the Rainy River” and “Speaking of Courage”, set at the American-Canadian border and a Vietnamese field of excretions, respectively, establish the overwhelming ambiguity, constant flux and uncertainty that characterizes the experiences of O’Brien’s protagonist (himself) thus reinforcing the author’s message about the relativity of truth. What they did was morally wrong.

“What is an American?” This speech, given by Harold Ickes in May of 1941, banded its audience together in a fight for World War II. The speech can be classified as many different things; some might say that it is persuasive, others motivational. Whatever title one might choose to brand it with, one thing is irrefutable; the speech itself does its duty by capturing the attention of its audience through language and technique.

Through characterisation, the author is able to express the main idea of disempowerment and also allowing us as readers to feel discontented and upset towards the main character.

This paper will be a unique interpretation coupled with an analysis of rhetoric in A Thousand Acre’s by Jane Smiley. This non-fiction novel is told in third person omniscient and is focused on the point of view of one of the main characters, Ginny Cook. A Thousand Acres was a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear; set on a large farm and small town in Iowa. This setting is important to the plot because it is more realistic compared to a far away mystical land that is detached from its audience. Smiley uses various rhetorical and literary techniques within her book to engage readers while still keeping to the basic storyline previously written by Shakespeare. Smiley’s use of language positively aids the imagery and emotions seen

The topic of war is hard to imagine from the perspective of one who hasn't experienced it. Literature makes it accessible for the reader to explore the themes of war. Owen and Remarque both dipcik what war was like for one who has never gone through it. Men in both All Quiet on the Western Front and “Dulce Et Decorum” experience betrayal of youth, horrors of war and feelings of camaraderie.

By interlacing these techniques, Silvey effectively engages readers, appeals to their emotions and manipulates their beliefs and values to make them think deeply on issues covered in the novel and agree with his opinions on said issues. Another strength is the characterisation of people and their relationships and reactions to the changing world around them. Whether they survive, change or sink, is what captures my attention and maintains

Damon Knight’s “The Country of the Kind” follows a narrator who the audience at first knows little about, who lives in a society that is different from the norm, but is also initially left ambiguous. This sense of the unknown exists up until the narrator stumbles upon a pamphlet which opens up new viewpoints to the reader. The pamphlet serves to create three new perspectives in particular, all of which significantly shift the reader’s understanding of the story. First, it gives the reader a chance to understand the narrator and sympathize with him. Second, it offers a new perspective on society and their overall conception of what defines a utopia. The third and final perspective is that of the people who live within this society, and their interactions with the main characters. These three new perspectives prove to be formative in understanding the main character, his interactions with other characters in the story, and the role of society.

In the beginning of the novel, it demonstrates that not only is Johnny “doomed” to remember Owen, but shows that his past continues to haunt him; although, he gains faith, the tragic events shape him into a whole different person (1). The beginning of the novel also shows that within

In the text’s earliest stages, O’Brien feebly muses on the ideas formed from both his pre- and post-college life, demonstrating a socially unacceptable unsureness brought forth from the desire to conform to both ideologies, which consumes him until he reflects on it in the 1980s. Soon after the brief description of O’Brien’s ideas of moral behavior and courage unfold, O’Brien’s novel jumps from his small-town American life to a place where O’Brien first began to develop ideas separate from his parents’ ridged ideals: college. Falling alongside many other students in the ‘60s, O’Brien is exposed to the idea of the war being unfounded and begins to tentatively form his ideas, taking a “stand against the war”. However, he does “nothing radical…just ringing a few doorbells for Gene McCarthy” (O’Brien 173). While aligning with the principles associated with the movement in a tentative manner, O’Brien makes the suggestion that these ideas were a governing principle when dealing with the war’s justification. However, he then echoes the other side’s rhetoric, stating he “could not claim to be opposed to war as a matter of general principle” especially when it was needed to stop a true evil, for then he “would’ve willingly marched off to battle” (O’Brien 175). Through the inclusion of these two contrasting ideas side by side in the novel, one can gather O’Brien seeks

During the novel, the characters' lives are all combined with each other's struggles and sexual experiences, some heterosexual, some homo- or bisexual. The most obvious victim of the novel is Rufus Scott, a black jazz musician who commits suicide at the end of the long first chapter. The other major characters also suffer as they struggle to find themselves and satisfy their craving for love and true happiness.

Characters of literature embody their unique personal qualities from elements of their lives. A merging of expectations and their environment, though neither in perfect balance, molds the two Wes Moore’s, Telemachus, and Elie Weisel, and determines their overall identity. Influencing expectations include those others form of them, or those they form for themselves. Living space, living place, stresses of life, and the people they live with are all factors of environment. Through these specific aspects of life, characters become further developed.

During the narrator’s description of World War II the reader comes across a scene that depicts a woman and a horse in which “He had a dirty picture of a woman attempting sexual intercourse with a Shetland pony. He had made Billy Pilgrim admire that picture several times.”(pg 40) Within in the novel this is the most explicit sexual scene and one of the reasons this novel may have been added to the banned book list seeing as beastiality is not apropiate for anyone let alone adolescents and is illegal. The author uses the second protagonist in his novel, Billy Pilgrim in order to display one of the first examples of a moral decision hence “There was a tap on Billy’s car window. A black was out there...Billy did the simplest thing. He drove on.”(pg 59) In  this instance the reader understands that there are certain reasons for several Billy’s decisions and while they may not be “correct by moral standards” he choses to follow through anyway in turn causes the readers to question both events within the novel and the outside world. The next example serves to let the author address how a negative situation could bring about positive change “Only the candles and the soap were of German origin...The British had no way of knowing it, but the candles and the soap were made from the fat of rendered Jews and Gypsies and fairies and communists, and other enemies of the State. So it goes.”(pg 96) Providing a positive outcome from a very negative situation the narrator forces the reader to chose whether the situation is a good thing or not which makes reading the novel more difficult form a moral standpoint. Secondly, not only is the decision difficult to make but the reader is also left astounded

Lester’s presence drags the rest of the characters down a dismal road of hostages, hatred, and suicide. Had Dubus omitted him from the novel, the conflict could have resolved itself in a non-violent manner. However, by adding Lester’s third-person point of view to the first-person perspectives of Kathy and Behrani, Dubus transforms the story into a three-dimensional

In recent decades, Cormac McCarthy has staked his claim as one of the all-time titans of American literature through publishing masterpieces like Blood Meridian, Suttree, and The Road. In his works his advanced level of technical mastery becomes apparent through his expertly harmonized coordination of literary elements toward certain narrative ends, such as the generation of suspense. In this light, McCarthy’s literary style is a practical one, in that he organizes literary elements in his works toward actualizing particular goals. In The Road, for instance, McCarthy directs his style throughout the text so as to maximize the feeling of suspense that readers experience throughout the book. This kind of stylistic maneuvering is expressed on pages 105-110 and pages 118-123 of the the text. But, it must be noted here that the generation of suspense in these passages does not result from similar stylistic approaches. McCarthy uses style in differently in Passage A and Passage B but ultimately toward the same end, namely generating suspense for readers of The Road. Passage A relies on dialogue to develop its suspense, whereas the style of Passage B relies on narrative action for its suspense.

How long can you sit on the fence and not get involved? How long before you're forced to choose sides? Thomas Fowler learns the answers to this dilemma the hard way.