Writing About Redeployment [Categories: Life Choice, Course Reading, Re-Genre]: Please complete the following:
In the short story Redeployment by Phil Klay, Sgt. Price returns from a seven month deployment with the Marines. After coming home he realizes that everything is different know, whether that be the health of his dog or his own ability to live a normal life again. In the end, Sgt. Price must make the decision to shoot his dog in order to put him out of his misery, but was this in fact the right and the only decision? I took his collar. After it was over I took it off of him. I don’t know why; it just seemed like a good idea at the time I guess. I went home to Cheryl, and I handed it to her. It made me wonder if this is what it would have been like had I not made it home. It would have looked the same, I imagine. My wife, tears running down her face, unable to look at the person in front of her. They’d just be a different kind of dog tags I guess. That’s fucked up isn’t it? They call them dog tags. Maybe that’s because we have no choice but to turn into animals over there. I haven’t left the house in five days. I lie to Cheryl; tell her I went out for a run just so she’ll get off my back. I know she’s only looking out for me, but sometimes I wish she’d just leave me alone. She doesn’t know what it’s like, being outside with your head on a swivel, just waiting to gun down the next enemy. Only there’s no enemy and there’s no gun. There’s just Mrs. Anderson from down the block asking how I’m doing and why she hasn’t seen sweet Vicar around lately. It also doesn’t help that if I ever did come home, there would be no one to greet me. I did the right thing, killing Vicar. I put him out of his misery. He isn’t suffering anymore, lucky bastard. It’s been two weeks and I have to leave the house. I don’t want to but it’s my day with Weissert. I can’t believe how long we’ve been doing this, passing Weissert around like a hot potato, afraid that if he touches the ground he’ll fall apart, or kill himself. We all just feel so bad for the guy, losing everything the way he did. Although to be completely honest with you, he’s kind of lucky. He doesn’t have to keep up appearances. He doesn’t have to pretend that the man who’s back is exactly the same as the man that left. Everyone else seems to getting off so easy. Weissert, Eicholtz, hell even Vicar, they’re all free from the bullshit. I watch Weissert stumble out of O’Leary’s house clearly drunk even though it’s barely noon. He hoists himself into the car with a huff and tells me to drive, the stench of malt whiskey and stale cigarettes filling the cab with each breath he takes. I roll down the window. I don’t know where we’re going and neither does he, but there’s a comfort to driving I want to hold onto for as long as possible. He speaks first. “So what’s up man?” I can’t help but laugh. Civilian speech is still new to me, especially coming from him. “Not much.” “Well how is everyone? How’s Cheryl and Vicar?” “Cheryl is good. She works a lot.” “And Vicar?” “He’s gone. He was old.” “He died?” “I took care of him.” “You took care of him? Like ‘Operation Scooby’ took care of him?” “Yeah.” “Shit.” It is at this moment I’m so glad I’m driving. I don’t want to have to look at him. To see his face when I tell him I killed my own dog. It was the right thing to do. I’ve killed more dogs than I care to say. But this one, this one feels different. Killing here is not the same as it was there. There’s more emotion now, more of a sense of right and wrong. But he was old and in pain. It was the right thing to do. “He was old man. You should have seen him limping around the house. It was awful. I put him out of his misery.” He doesn’t answer me at first. After a while I finally bring myself to look over at Weissert. He is still and quiet, breathing evenly. For a moment I think he’s sleeping. Maybe he didn’t hear me. Maybe it didn’t matter what my reason was. And then he speaks. “Lucky bastard.”
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2) Writing About The Yellow Wall-Paper: Please construct a typed literary analysis of The Yellow Wall-Paper. Here is the framework we discussed in class:
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story of a woman, Jane, and her husband, John, who rent a home out in the country after Jane begins to suffer from postpartum depression. In the story you see how Jane’s actions are controlled by her husband in an effort to ease her pain, and how that lack of control leads Jane to spiral out of control. The Yellow Wallpaper was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and was published in The New England Magazine in 1892. The main character, Jane, is brought to a country house by her husband, John, after she begins suffering from postpartum depression. John insists that Jane sleep in the third floor nursery full of light and terrible yellow wallpaper. Because Jane has nothing else to do, she spends all of her time searching the patterns in the wallpaper. In it she begins to see the pattern of a woman trapped behind bars. This pattern, however, changes with the light becoming more active deeper into the night. Jane longs to free the woman trapped behind the bars and on her last day she rips down the wallpaper freeing the woman trapped inside. There are several motifs in the story, the main one being the wallpaper. Jane is so enthralled with the wallpaper because she sees herself in it. Jane is the woman in the wall trapped both behind her depression and her husband’s control over her. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Jane had virtually no control over any of the choices made about her life. She was trapped in this room in this house because her husband deemed it necessary. She was not allowed to write anymore because her husband thought it was a hindrance on her well-being. She was told she had to spend the day resting and had to increase her appetite. She was told she could not have company because she wouldn’t be able to handle it. She was told she shouldn’t dare consider the idea of having a mental illness for the sake of her husband and child. Put simply, Jane had zero control over any aspect of her life. It wasn’t until she came to this house and discovered this wallpaper that she had even the tiniest bit of control over something that was solely her own. Jane became obsessed with this wallpaper because it allowed her to control what she saw. Jane herself writes that this wallpaper belongs to her, only she can know what is trapped inside and only she can be the one to tear it down. The complete and utter lack of control Jane had over her own life pushed her deeper into her obsession, causing even the wallpaper to have control over her. My entire life my sister has been my role model and essentially the most important person in my world. From the age of five I did everything she did in an effort to be just like her. As a child this was seen as adorable, a little sister following after her older sister mimicking everything she did. As I got older, however, the novelty wore off and the obsession to be like my sister became a burden. It did not help my cause that my sister has always been effortlessly amazing. She was intelligent and athletic and eloquent and well-mannered, the perfect child. It was easy to understand why I would want to model my life after hers. I read the same books, watched the same movies, listened to the same music, and even wore the same clothes. I did everything in my power to be a carbon copy of my sister. It was exhausting. It also never allowed me to make choices unique to my own life. If I ever encountered a situation that was new, my sister was the first person I asked for advice. I would allow her to make the decision for me because to me there was no one more qualified to control my life. To this day I still consult my sister before making any significant life choices. While I have become more willing to make my own choices, my sister will forever be the one that influences the decisions I make. Please copy and paste the following bullet points into your blog post and complete the following:
What You Don’t Know by Lulu Wang tells the story of a family’s decision to keep a painful secret from their elderly grandmother. Wang explains why her family believed keeping their grandmother’s rapidly approaching death from her was the only option. What You Don’t Know forces you to ask yourself if, in the same position, you would keep a secret you knew would hurt someone, or if you would choose to keep the person blissfully ignorant.
The author of What You Don’t Know is Lulu Wang. She is a Chinese author who was raised in Miami, Florida. Wang’s story What You Don’t Know was featured on the podcast This American Life. Wang shared her creative narrative about the time she was forced to keep a person ignorant. She tells the story of how her family was able to keep the secret of her grandmother’s cancer from her grandmother. The very emotional story takes you through her personal struggle with keeping such a huge secret from someone she cares so deeply about. In her story Wang tackles the theme of ignorance being bliss. I am torn between whether or not I personally agree with the family’s choice to deceive Wang’s grandmother. In this particular situation, however, I feel as though keeping her grandmother’s cancer from her was probably the best thing to do. Early on in the story, Wang’s great aunt makes the argument that telling her grandmother about the cancer is going to kill her. Knowing now that her grandmother is alive, I can’t help but agree. There are so many stories of people dying from a broken heart and I believe that Wang’s grandmother knowing she was going to die would have killed her before the cancer got the chance to. I also believe in this case it was the right thing to do because Wang’s grandmother was very old. She had already lived the majority of her life and it would have been better for her to go peacefully, not anticipating her death every hour of every day. It is very likely that if the family had told Wang’s grandmother about her cancer she would not still be alive today. It would have given her a chance to prepare, yes, but it also would have essentially sealed her fate. Knowing you are going to die does nothing but deteriorate your mental health. That in turn takes a toll on your physical health and pushes you even closer to death. If Wang’s family had told her grandmother about her cancer it more than likely would have killed her. I am forced almost every day to make the decision of whether or not to tell the most difficult truth that surrounds my life. Four years ago, my father died of a drug overdose. His passing in itself took such a toll on my life, but the manner in which he passed hurt even more. As a college student, I am forced to meet new people every day. They ask about my family, or see my tattoo for him, or see the motorcycle pendant around my neck; all things that force me to explain that he is gone. Telling someone your father has passed elicits two responses: one of great sympathy and one of great curiosity. Every time I am asked how he died I have to decide whether or not I will be truthful. For my whole life I have heard people speaking ill of drug addicts, addressing them as bums and criminals. There is an idea that people who are addicted to drugs are these terrible people that are so below everyone else. My father was easily the greatest man I ever had the pleasure of knowing. I was so fearful of my father’s memory being tarnished that I would lie and tell people he died of a heart attack. In the moment it made me feel better for not having to explain that yes, he lost a battle with drugs but he was also a good man. In time, however, it made me feel like I had to be ashamed of my father. I would avoid talking about him all together because I didn’t want to have to decide whether or not I would have to be truthful. I came to the decision that no matter what I would be honest. I would show people that being someone who is addicted to drugs does not make you a bad person, it makes you a person with an illness. It is still very difficult for me to be honest about how my father passed, but in this case I know it is the best was to be honest with myself. |
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