Conflicts

I've never been to war and I don't know what it is like to kill someone, but after O'Brien's reflection about the man he killed, I have a pretty good idea of what it is like. He used such detail and his diction that I was able to imagine the scene in my mind. I can see the fog in the daybreak with the man slowly emerging (pg 126). The details make me feel like I was almost there with Tim and watching him throw the grenade. Then afterward with him still looking down at the man he killed laying "with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, one eye shut, the other was a star-shaped hole" (pg 124).

It is obvious that this scene still haunts him. He can't seem to forget what happened and why it happened. It is almost like it was yesterday that he was in the jungle with Kiowa on ambush. O'Brien can still remember all the detail from that day and still see the face of the man he killed.

Internal Conflict

The internal conflict that Tim O'Brien goes through in this chapter is intense. He has no idea what to do now that he has been drafted. He has two options: stay and fight, or leave for Canada. O'Brien kept running both option through his mind: "Run, I'd think. Then I'd think, Impossible. Then a second later I'd think, Run" (pg 42).

While I was reading this chapter, I felt surprised about how much this situation was actually bothering Tim. I didn't really understand how much conflict he felt until he was standing in Elroy Berdahl's boat crying about the fact that he was in a moral freeze. Then he asks the rhetorical question "What would you do?" (pg 54). My response is that I honestly don't know. I understand the difficulty of turning your back on all your family and everything you are, but in that moment, with all those emotions of hatred and distress, I don't know what I would do.

Overall, I feel like he made the right decision. One should not run away from fear, but find the courage to face it.

Lady Brett Ashley

Jake is in love with Lady Brett Ashley and she is in love with him. The only problem with this is that Brett is "getting a divorce and she's going to marry Mike Campbell" (pg 46). This is why Jake is so depressed: he's in love with someone who he can never have. This whole situation causes a big internal conflict for Jake.

What also makes this situation so messed up is that Cohn has formed an interest in Brett. When he asks Jake about Brett, he tells him how they met and what she is like. I thought that was a good way to tell the audience about the woman Jake is in love with. Instead of just flat out stating facts about her, the author incorporated it into a conversation between two characters. It made the novel more intriguing and I am anxious to keep reading to see what will happen between Jake and Brett.