The things they carried
How was your understanding of cultural and contextual consideration of the work developed through the interactive oral?
Through this discussion, I noticed how easy it was to relate to the social and cultural context issues that the soldiers went through in this book. For example, when Tim did not want to go to war and almost fled to Canada he realized that he rather go to war and die before he gets talked about by his community. This shows how far a person will go to prevent being embarrassed and talked about in a bad way, which we can relate to as high schoolers. It was difficult to relate to the book at the same time because I have never been to war and cannot understand what the soldiers went through.
I also considered time and place in the text more after the oral discussion. The book was written by Tim O’Brien, somebody who did not want to go to war. I imagined how different the point of view of the book would have been if it was written by someone who actually wanted to go the war. Also, you were drafted into the war once you graduated high school which means most soldiers were as young as 18. They were very immature and had different effects as someone who would have gone into the war at age 30 or older. An interesting technique brought to my attention during the interactive oral was reality vs. fiction. Fiction was used to explain the most bizarre realities. O’Brien used this because he believed that the truth could be more effectively communicated that way. He thought that the idea of creating a story that technically was false yet had truthful aspects portrays war stories in the best way. Also, precise facts do not connect to a reader emotionally and do not help the reader understand to the full extent of what they went through away at war.
Through this discussion, I noticed how easy it was to relate to the social and cultural context issues that the soldiers went through in this book. For example, when Tim did not want to go to war and almost fled to Canada he realized that he rather go to war and die before he gets talked about by his community. This shows how far a person will go to prevent being embarrassed and talked about in a bad way, which we can relate to as high schoolers. It was difficult to relate to the book at the same time because I have never been to war and cannot understand what the soldiers went through.
I also considered time and place in the text more after the oral discussion. The book was written by Tim O’Brien, somebody who did not want to go to war. I imagined how different the point of view of the book would have been if it was written by someone who actually wanted to go the war. Also, you were drafted into the war once you graduated high school which means most soldiers were as young as 18. They were very immature and had different effects as someone who would have gone into the war at age 30 or older. An interesting technique brought to my attention during the interactive oral was reality vs. fiction. Fiction was used to explain the most bizarre realities. O’Brien used this because he believed that the truth could be more effectively communicated that way. He thought that the idea of creating a story that technically was false yet had truthful aspects portrays war stories in the best way. Also, precise facts do not connect to a reader emotionally and do not help the reader understand to the full extent of what they went through away at war.