Wang AP Lit

What role does God play in the lives of Faulkner's characters, and how does Faulkner "use" God to describe the nature of relationships between characters? Darl often describes scenes in which he is not physically present. What does this say about the reliability of his narration? Furthermore, what can we deduce about the nature of his character? Cash paradoxically keeps building Addie's casket because it pleases her and she stays alive to see its completion. Yet Cash, and the other characters, realize that as soon as he finishes the casket, she will die, and thus Cash may indirectly cause her death while trying to please her. What does this paradox convey about the slowly-deteriorating Bundren family?   

Tim O’Brien’s chapters titled “Ambush” and “Speaking of Courage” take the reader away from the thick of the war itself and instead focus on the war’s psychological consequences. According to O’Brien, memories of the war linger in the soldiers’ minds and seem to trap the soldiers in a cycle of remembrance and guilt. We often hear of soldiers who return from war with “shell shock” or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and thus have difficulty re-assimilating into American culture, and O’Brien effectively captures this struggle. In “Ambush,” he draws from his own experiences to describe how the image of the man he killed still haunts him. O’Brien tells how he killed a man whom he believed to pose a threat to the Alpha Company, but now, as he looks back, may have not. O’Brien states, “I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy; I did not ponder issues of morality or politics or military duty” (126). In the thick of the moment, O’Brien acted instinctually and thus blam...

“Without literature, life is hell.”-Charles Bukowski   Tim O'Brien's novel  The Things They Carried  is a poignant commentary on the Vietnam War. Since its conception, the Vietnam War has been truthfully portrayed as a war of bloody carnage, tragic loss, and horrific violence.  O'Brien recognizes these aspects of the war, but he also brings to light stories  that were not completely hellish; in his novel, he draws upon his own war experiences to chronicle the sense of camaraderie between the soldiers of the Alpha Company. O'Brien notes that writing about the war has become an obsession, but it  also  is therapeutic (33). By f ocusing on his fellow soldiers, O'Brien is able to memorialize those who did not return home and those who changed in the war.   O'Brien's first chapter, "The Things They Carried," serves to describe the literal and figurative burden that the soldiers of Vietnam bear. He describes in detail the weight of the com...

In her short story "Cell One," Adichie chronicles the strife that the family of a Nsukka university professor experiences. On a general level, Adichie details the turmoil that has overcome the university: horrific gang violence. Adichie's narrator describes how the serene Nsukka campus is  transformed into a cult battleground, where boys in rival gangs are  killed almost  every day  and people live in fear for their lives. B eyond this overarching problem, the narrator's family also struggles with a rebellious son, who is named  Nnamabia .  Nnamabia  first displays signs of misbehavior when he robs his parents and runs away with his mother's jewelry .  Nnamabia  does return repentant, and although he promises to change, he becomes caught in the middle of the university's gang conflict and eventually finds  himself in a prison with cruel policemen .  Yet, while imprisoned,  Nnamabia  seems to discover his own moral compas...