Sherman Alexie’s short essay “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” is about Alexie’s personal struggles and joys of literacy. Early in the essay Alexie explains how he started to learn to read by first understanding how paragraphs worked. Alexie started using the analogy that his reservation was a small paragraph within the United States just like a paragraph is a small part of a much larger story. Once he understood paragraphs, he then moved to Superman comics. Alexie also read from his father's vast collection of books, which were acquired mostly from pawnshops and second hand stores since paychecks were far and few between on the reservation.
He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (103). Cross was ashamed; he is a leader and was not there for his soldiers. Now he has the burden for a soldier that died at his hands. The last personality trait that First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross demonstrates is bravery.
When you hear Dr. Seuss many people think back to their childhood of reading books written by Dr. Seuss. Not only did he write books for kids but he also was a propaganda maker in World War II. Many people; however, do not know that his real name is Theodore Seuss Geisel; and even fewer people know about his inspirations. Theodore Seuss Geisel’s inspiration for the ideas in his writing came from World War II, his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts, and sights and sounds that he encountered on his trips. Many people may not know that Dr. Seuss wrote political propaganda for World War II, most people only know about the stories that he wrote.
The Things They Carried, a novel written by Tim O’Brien, raises the question of the extent of truthfulness of stories that are told from experience in which the novel is solely based on the accounts of war-veterans and their lives in Vietnam. The soldiers fighting in the war describe certain stories that have affected them the most and from that reader’s can interpret that the armed forces are able to capture the attention of their listeners through providing immense detail of the conditions, adding false information in order to increase suspense, and to evoke emotions with listeners to create parallel feelings with the story at hand. Through O’Brien’s techniques of writing these war accounts he blurs between actual truth and fiction. As a
The Weight of Emotion in “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien, author of “The Things They Carried” shares the idea that humping emotions outweighs the physical agony that those in war must carry. “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, logging—these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight” (126). O’Brian argues that fear, longing, responsibility, and uncertainty that the soldiers experience far outweigh the physical torture that they must endure in order to stay alive, these emotions are lightened only a little by the hope of returning home. The emotion that probably weights the most on these men is fear.
Courtney Marra ENG 100 RR # 3 September 24, 2013 Superman and Me In the article “Superman and Me”, Sherman Alexie talks about his struggles learning to read and how the Superman comics and his fathers love for books, helped him understand certain aspects of reading. He says that even though the words were foreign on the page, just looking at the words and spaces in the book, he could understand that paragraphs were fences that held words. He compared a paragraph to his family, saying that each family member existed as a paragraph, but still had the genetics and common experiences to link them. Using the Superman comics, even though he could not read the words right away, he got a main sense of what was going on in the plot and story based on the pictures and graphics. He states,” He has a red, blue and yellow suit.
O'Brien creates an intentional paradox for his readers when he writes the violent, but grabbing story of Rat Kiley and then at the end of the story, tells the reader that the characters and events of the story did not happen just as he described them, but that they happened in a totally different way to other people. But he insists that the story is true. With this, O'Brien challenges the reader to discover the truth of the event. O'Brien gets the reader to figure out what fiction of this book is actually worth. Firstly, did O'Brien confuse the reader when he said that the events did not happen after the reader became involved in those events?
Dunstan Ramsay, the novel’s protagonist exhibits the issue of how a rough childhood can impede on relationships later on in life. Dunstan’s relationship with his mother leads him to develop three problems that arise in his dating life. The first problem is Dunstan’s trust issues; he can never fully trust a woman due to his betrayal of trust with his mother. The second problem is Dunstan’s negative depiction of sexual relations. Due to his mother’s stern moral beliefs, he does not have much interest in sexual relations and has negative views on it.
This affected a lot between C’s and Sonny’s relationship, it affected everyone’s relationship with Sonny. Being feared rather than love gives Sonny the feeling like everyone respects him. The bad result of that is no one to love, you get lonely, and no one really understands you. C’s and Sonny’s relationship was based on both fear and love, mostly fear though. Sonny didn’t trust C with all his heart, and that ruins the relationship.
Like many of us, McCandless had grown tired and frustrated with everyday life in modern society, and had longed to get away and live a more meaningful existence; however, the reason many of us do not walk away is because we have responsibilities, we have a duty to the people that love us. Unfortunately McCandless was too selfish to ever realize that he can’t just live for himself. Instead Chris decided to abandon his family and leave them to deal with the heartache and pain of his departure; left to forever question and wonder where he was and whether or not he was safe. “I don’t know how I’ll ever get over it. I wasn’t dreaming.