"The Kite Runner"- personal

"'Tell him he's wrong. War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace" (page 115).

While reading, this excerpt jumped out at me. Not only does this episode characterize Baba, but it is also inspiring. This is the passage when Baba risks his own life for that of a woman he barely knows. He helps to save this woman from being raped by a soldier. It shows how Baba is really all about tradition and standing up for what he knows is right. He is courageous and sometimes reckless, but no matter what, he won't let such evils happen in his presence. The quote itself stuck out to me because Baba is pointing out that even in war, people deserve respect and he forces the Russian soldier to give it. He truly is a good man.

This section also causes more guilt to resonate within Amir. He sees Baba standing up to prevent a rape of a woman he barely knows, while Amir could not even stand up for Hassan who was his friend and like a brother. He questions his own worth once again and this highlights the differences between Baba and Amir once again. This whole section was inspiring to me and gave me a better outlook on Baba.

Entry #17

'"The thing is,' he wrote 'there's no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It's almost like I got killed over in Nam... Hard to describe. That night when Kiowa got wasted, I sort of sank down into the sewage with him... Feels like I'm still in deep shit'" (page 150)

War is selfish! It takes and steals from everyone who is involved: the men and woman fighting and the countries. And what does it give back? Nothing, except maybe the assurance that your country won, but don't forget about the thousands of men who died for this victory and the thousands more who were killed.
It seems odd to me how war affects everyone differently. For O'Brien, he came back and it was almost like nothing had happened. He went on to grad school at Harvard like he had originally planned and seldom told stories about the war, except through his writing. For Norman Bowker, the war was the end of him. It took parts of him that he never got back. I think that Norman's story seems more realistic than O'Brien's because I couldn't see many people just getting over such a traumatic experience.

Entry #16

"I had already pulled the pin on a grenade. I had come up to a crouch. It was entirely automatic. 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. I crouched and kept my head low. I tried to swallow whatever was rising from my stomach, which tasted like lemonade, something fruity and sour. I was terrified" (page 126).

When I read this quote, I wonder if this was O'Brien's first kill, his last kill, or maybe just one where he saw his victim up close and personal. The other men found it to be odd that he was acting the way he did after he killed the man. It was war they would say. But does war really make up for the fact that men on both sides are being massacred because they're governments can't work things out? Men are turned trained to be animals before they go to war and in some countries, they are trained from a young age. They are told to go out for the kill and not to think twice about it or even look back. O'Brien did not do this; he acted like a true human being and grieved for the other HUMAN BEING he had killed. He mourned for his fiance and his family and everything that young man might have become.

O'Brien killed this man out of instinct. He didn't do it for the normal reasons: hate, eminent danger, politics, or duties. He had been taught that the other person is a danger to him and this had been pushed into his brain so much that killing had become automatic. I think that often times, people get into the routines of life and they too begin to do things because it comes automatic to them. We need to open our eyes to life and not always follow what comes naturally. O'Brien is a perfect example to that. He did what came automatically to him, and this only brought him a life time of pain, regret, and agony.

Entry #15

Allusion- "'Tim it's a war. The guy wasn't Heidi- he had a weapon, right? It's a tough thing, for sure, but you got to cut out that staring'" (page 120).

When O'Brien killed a man and then saw the same man he killed, he went into shock. He kept staring at the man and his buddy, Kiowa is trying to comfort him here. He throws in the allusion to Heidi in order to point out that the man wasn't an innocent bystander or a young child. The man was coming to kill O'Brien and the other men and he only did what he had to do, but the guilt is still too much for him.

This quote shows how truly difficult the war was on the men who were fighting it. They had to see the terror they were reaping on others and although some acted like it was no big deal, it was. They knew that it was at any moment they fired their weapons they were choosing a persons fate. These men were basically playing God, choosing who would die and who would live. The only difference was that if they didn't choose correctly, it was their own life at stake.

Entry #13

"She wanted more, she wanted to penetrate deeper into the mystery of herself, and after a time the wanting became needing, which turned then to craving" (page 109).

Like Mary Anne, I think that many people's demise comes from want. We want people or objects or money or fame. Eventually, this want turns into all we can think about and eventually, it becomes the end of us. Take an addict for example, they want their drugs or alcohol and even though they know it will hurt or maybe even kill them, they still want it, or need it, or CRAVE it. Mary Anne's craving was a little more severe than just the everyday usual cravings. She craved the mystery of herself. I believe that she never knew what mankind and she was capable of until she fought alongside men in the war. She was naive and innocent like most 17 year olds were and still are. Her demise was craving knowledge and wanting to understand what she was capable of. She became so obsessed with this, that she left behind everything else. Mankind truly is a mystery and I don't think a person knows how they will react or behave until they are faced with a difficult situation like Mary Anne was.

Entry #9

parallel structure- "War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead" (page 76).

O'Brien uses an abundance of parallelism here. He uses this in order to show all of the contrasting facts of war. By using this he shows that stories that generalize about war are obviously not true because there is so much to war and so many facts about war that it is impossible to really convey it when generalizing.

I think that all of the contrasting explanations he gives of war are confusing but also extremely true. Especially when he says "war makes you a man; war makes you dead." While war often makes a boy a man, it is also the demise of him. This is sad to think about because many soldiers became so much and matured because of the war, but then they were murdered before they even had a chance to really live. This makes me think that we are lucky to have the freedom we have been given. It also makes me happy that I have been given time to grow up and have not been forced to like these soldiers were.