Between two different chapters, O’Brian talks about the man he killed during the Vietnam War. In “The man I Killed” he speaks with sympathy and distress, and imagines what the boys life would have been like had he not killed him. He wonders about his childhood and how his life used to be before he entered the war. O'Brian also describes him in less gruesome detail than he does in the next chapter titled “Ambush.” In this chapter he tells of the same event but imagines that he is telling it to an older version of his daughter Kathleen. In this version of the story he goes into much more detail about the killing rather than looking at the dead body after the fact. In this text-to-text connection, O’Brian tells of the same event but from a different perspective; and the comparing of the two allows for the reader to get a deeper understanding of his experience. This also shows O’Brian coping with his guilt in that when he first describes the event he speaks of how things would have been if he did not taken the boys life. He then begins to realize the consequences of his actions. In the second version of his story he goes back and relives this horrible nightmare that he has been avoiding for so long and finally takes responsibility for his actions.
I found that your text-to-text connection shows how well you know the material. You did a good job recognizing this event in the book. I also noticed this in the book when I was reading it. I actually thought of using this example in my text connections assignmant.
ReplyDeleteWhen i think of text connections, I imagine how I can relate it to my own life or to stories I have read, your ability to connect it to something within the book itself threw me off. It was interesting that the author could do something like that in his writing and the change in emotions in each of the versions of his story. Whether it be gory or simple each of his stories played off each other and this was a very insightful recognition.
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