Tim says that he kept Norman's name real in the book. I tried to look it up on a Vietnam database but couldn't find it. I don't know if there was something I was missing in my search, or again, this is a story. Because of the passion behind the story, something tells me this is a real one.
The question of being a hero comes in to play and how do we know what a hero is? Bowker was convinced he wasn't a hero and wasn't brave because he didn't save his friend and let something like the smell of shit keep him from bravery. I think through O'brien's writing, Bowker does become a hero in my mind. At face value of the events, he' not a normal hero, but when the emotion is added in, I think he's the perfect hero.
HAHAHAHA! Exactly! You thought it was real, you wanted it to be real, you were sure there was no way it could have been made up, even though time and time and time again, O'Brien and his publishers tell us that ALL of this is fiction. Imagined. Doesn't that piss you off? You feel as if you've been tricked, but, then again, you asked for it, you chose to ignore all the warning signs. I am wondering how I can incorporate this into my teaching of the book, because this true/not true is at the very heart of the novel, and becomes obsessively important to me in my reading of and discussing it. Any ideas on how to bring this in?
ReplyDeleteI like your question of what is a hero. It is just a title, right? Hero. But it becomes so fickle and important, and in some ways political.
Hmmmm I think you could bring in the truth of story telling easily in the classroom. We always believe authors. We believe history books. We think someone is behind us after watching scary movies. We think our friends' stories are true when they gossip to us about other people. This would be a good text to talk about trusting the author and doing what Gaughan is doing in his classes - questioning everything!
ReplyDeleteYeah the hero thing is very important..especially when he decides to go home and not to Canada he makes alot of comments about what a hero would do.. that would be a good place to examine courage.
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