Creative Writing: Maude

More than 5,000 families in the United States, have sedulous relative fighting for our country’s freedom. Many of those families have not the slightest idea of what war is like, and all of its physical and mental effects. The author uses descriptive words to take the reader on a mental voyage. The soldier keeps a conversationalist tone and uses rhetorical strategies such as imagery and rhetorical questions to show how miserable he is living. The e-mail begins with the solider mentally describing your living area; he describes it like a million dust particles that are glued to you.

When the children first arrive, the negative description of the place sets the tone. The tone created is dull and boring. For instance, the narrator describes the town as colorless and plain. “A string of houses, weathered grey or peeling gray paint” (39-40). The addition of cold weather also sets the tone since cold weather creates a gloomy atmosphere.

War, in whatever form it may be, significantly affects an individual’s life and postwar identity. The experiences one must endure place a tattoo, an imprint on one’s past and future. This permanent marker of the atrocities of war and of the psychological effects of violence remains with a soldier throughout his or her life. In the novel, The Things They Carried, narrator and protagonist, Tim O’ Brien, uses his gift of pen to illustrate his personal experience in the Vietnam War. His collection of stories, blurred by lines of fact and fiction, highlights the importance of the act of storytelling rather than the objective truth of a war story.

The image is mesmerizing: The small, sleepy town of Starkfield, shrouded in a blanket of gently falling snow, is lit up by the rosy reds and the bright yellows of the morning sun. The snow glows and sparkles in the light as the sun rises higher and higher in the sky. However, the protagonist, Ethan Frome, often doesn't recognize the beautiful scenery and instead, sees the dreariness of the town, mirroring his equally bleak life with his wife, Zeena. As Ethan falls in love with Mattie, his house maid, he becomes more aware of the radiant world around him. In Ethan Frome, author Edith Wharton often uses colors to depict Mattie's growing influence on Ethan.

Scout: Scout doesn’t really know how to handle the situation. She is very worried about Miss Maudie.

“ The rain was the war and you had to fight it. ”(O’Brien,p.104) The reader could sense not only the fighting struggle of the war, but also the things they couldn't control. No matter how the war went the soldiers were always thankful if they made it back

Response to “The Things They Carried” Whether fiction or partial non-fiction, in this short story of the “Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien tries to place the reader in the soldier’s daily life during the war. He did this by introducing the characters not by describing their personalities, but by using the things they carried to give us a picture of that character. Out of respect or confidentiality he prefers not to use specific characteristics of each person, but instead opts to use symbolic representations through what they carried. He uses this method on each character individually and then proceeds to use the same method to describe the platoon or all the characters as a whole.

The lasting effects of war are more than anyone could ever imagine. War is a traumatic experience for many soldiers and oftentimes they are unable to return to the way things were before. In The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien uses sadness in people's eyes and life after war to convey the idea that it is nearly impossible to relate to the feelings during and after war if people did not experience it. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien emphasizes the effects that war has on different soldiers. It illustrates their separate but similar struggles.

In the story written by Tim O’Brien called “The Things They Carried”, he tells a story set during a war about the evolution of young soldiers as their mindset is affected by what they see and feel. The soldiers each carry physical and emotional weights that allow them to keep their humanity but in war, the same things that are valued in the outside world become a distraction and potentially fatal. While Martha is not physically fighting the mind with them she is subconsciously in the mind of Lieutenant Cross. Martha represents everything war is not, she represents innocence, love, and affection, that to him is a way to get away from what’s going on around him. Martha is described as a very artistic person; she is a junior at Saint Sebastian college and in the letters Lieutenant cross carries with him she writes in a very beautiful way about trivial things like her professors, roommates and her midterm exams.

The hopes of Wes, Mary, and many others can be depicted through the sight of their new neighborhood in which “flowerpots were filled with geraniums or black-eyed Susans, and floral wreaths hung from each wooden door” (Moore 56). Not only does this use imagery to describe the beauty of Dundee Village, but the metaphoric aspect contributes to the message that Moore is trying to

Although the soldier he killed was an enemy soldier, instead of vilifying him he was able to humanize the man. O’Brien was able to describe the physical appearance of the soldier and imagine her life before war. The author was able to portray an emotional connection and made the line between friend and enemy almost vanish. This was able to reveal the natural beauty of shared humanity even in the context of war’s horror. O’Brien is able to find the beauty in the midst of this tragic and horrible event.

“The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the waste land, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it and contiguous to absolutely nothing” (28). The apartment is simple, because the Wilson’s are simple people, living apart from the drama of the two eggs. The closeness of the Wilson’s home to their business represents George’s dedication to his work, while Myrtle sees it a as constant burden from which to escape. They live in the valley of ashes, a place ruined by the pollution and excesses of the rich, just as the Wilson’s lives will be ruined by the rich. Their home lies under the watchful painted eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg.

When reading “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, he writes a captivating story of sorrow, terror, love, and a desire to gain freedom from the war within. Within this war, these men face emotional baggage and in Lieutenant Cross’s life, he carries the burden of death. However, within this story is a sense of love, an imagination of affection, and the freedom with safety. O’Brien envelopes the reader saying, “True war stories do not generalize…It comes down to gut instinct.

Alice walks through the hallway her long blonde hair flowing in the wind, the sun blaring on her baby blue eyes. She walks around only to spot a rabbit with a gold pocket watch. She becomes curious and she chases the rabbit in her long white dress and her tall high heels. As she chases the rabbit she hears the rabbit mumble something “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date” the rabbit says as he jumps into his rabbit hole.

“The girl was running. Running for her life, in the hope of finding a safe haven for her and her family. She never looks back, the only indication her father was still behind her was his ragged breathing above her head, forming puffs of air in this cold morning. She suddenly stumbles on a root, but her mother secures her fall with a small wisp of air. They lock hands, all three of them, and continue pushing themselves, desperately trying to find the others they lost on the way.