Friday, January 27, 2012

Enemies


O'Brien's book The Things They Carried, has so many great stories in it. The real challenge is picking my favorite. All of his stories have a great meaning and really can help people to understand how war is. This story has some comedy linked into it, but it is also very serious and I believe it affects a lot of people in real life. When someone wants to get revenge on someone, it can cause the person they are seeking revenge on to be extremely scared. It makes them just want that person to get their revenge so they can go on with their lives. Even though beating a person up feels so good, the backlash and the time leading up to the revenge is worse than the good feeling. This is evident in this story. O'Brien says, "Eventually, after a week of this, the strain began to create problems. Jensen couldn't relax"(O'Brien 63). Revenge puts your whole body in a different state and until that person gets revenge, life can be a challenge.

3 comments:

  1. The weird part about it is that Jensen was the one who did the beating up and he was the one who went crazy

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    1. I would have to say that this is my second favorite chapter. Its amazing that during war people can feel so scared of the people they are with. Its sad that revenge can make someone so anxious. I also love the picture.

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  2. I think the stress can eat at yo until you do things out of your normal character. Imagine the stress of war couples by the guilt and stress of being a war within your own troop. The stress will have to release and probably in a hazardous way.

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