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Paper 2: The Great Gatsby and The Fundamentalist

Exam Question: How does narrative perspective shape the reader’s perception of events and characters in
two literary works?

The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a hopeless romantic who spent his
life trying to impress his past lover, Daisy. He is an incredibly wealthy man, but also troubled and insecure.
Nick Carraway, his next-door neighbour gives a fly-on-the-wall recount of the events of Gatsby’s life in the
first-person point of view. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid follows Changez, a young Pakistani
man who moves to New York for better opportunities. He narrates his own story in a second-person point of
view which allows the reader to understand his thought process and not be judgmental. The narrative
perspectives of both the Great Gatsby and the Reluctant Fundamentalist give the reader insight into the main
characters’ identities and insecurities through their romantic relationships and description of the setting.

The narrative perspectives of both novels allow the reader to gain a deeper understanding of the main
characters’ romantic relationships, which gives insight into their identities. As Nick learns about Gatsby’s past
with Daisy, he expresses to the reader Gatsby’s insecurities and hopes. Nick tells the story of a young soldier
madly in love with the girl of his dreams and explains that Gatsby gave so much of himself into becoming a
man Daisy would love. Fitzgerald transfers the affection Nick has for Gatsby unknowingly to the reader,
making them feel sympathy for him. Nick’s narration is very reliable in comparison to Gatsby’s which would be
swayed by his desperate romantic hopes. Having an honest recount of this relationship is key to
understanding the novel. This can be seen in the novel when Gatsby is anxious about seeing Daisy. Nick
captures his agitation and insecurities by using diction, comparing Gatsby to a “little boy”. Understanding this
relationship is key to understanding Gatsby as a person, which is why Nick’s narration is crucial in the
development of the story. Both Daisy (from The Great Gatsby) and Erica (from The Reluctant Fundamentalist)
symbolize the hopes and insecurities of the main characters, and while Gatsby would be an unreliable
narrator, Changez is the only one who could tell his story honestly. Both authors use diction and the
recounting of events to portray the main character’s insecurities and ambitions through their relationships.
However, what is different about the two is that Fitzgerald chose Nick, a minor character, as the narrator,
while Hamid used the main character as the narrator. Erica is arguably a character that symbolizes America.
She is hung up on the past, which stops her from modernizing. This is similar to how the US holds its past in
high regard and believes that the country can never again reach its past glory. As well as that, Erica opens up
Changez’s life, giving him new opportunities in different friendship circles and events, similar to how the US
gives him opportunities. No one understands this symbolism as well as Changez. Being a Pakistani man in the
US, he is so easily judged. Only he knows how much of himself he sacrificed for Erica. For example, Changez
tells Erica that she can imagine making love to Chris when she makes love to him because she misses her dead
boyfriend so much. He also knows how much of himself he had to give up to fit in with his American
colleagues. This could be analyzed as the difficulty of achieving the American dream, how if one were to
achieve those dreams, they would have to sacrifice much of their identity. If told from a different perspective,
readers would not understand his relationship and would perhaps even judge him for it. This is why the first-
person point of view is so crucial. He tells his story the way he knows it to an American at a cafe in Lahore,
using a second-person ‘you’ in his monologue, which is more-or-less a one-sided dialogue. He tells his story to
the American, addressing the American’s biases and, by doing so, the reader’s biases, which makes the novel
much more profound. The major difference between both books is that while Gatsby would be an unreliable
narrator, Changez is not. As well as that, both authors use the main characters' relationships to comment on
the American dream, and while it is achievable for Gatsby, it is not for Changez, who decides to go back to his
roots. Both narrators can tell the story in a way that includes emotion and gives insight into the characters’
identities.
The narrative perspectives of both books influence the reader's understanding of the setting. In The Great
Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses Nick, who just arrived in the neighbourhood, as fresh eyes. He explains the dynamic of
East and West Egg to the reader, how West Egg was “the less fashionable of the two.” This immediately instils
a bias in the reader, reflecting the bias of the society in The Great Gatsby that old money is valued more than
new money. Through what seems like neutral observations, he can convey his thoughts and biases. This can be
seen when Nick describes the “white palaces” of East Egg, clearly portraying his impression of East Egg’s
superiority, when in fact both East and West Egg are wealthy neighbourhoods. Nick’s bias and opinions of the
neighbourhoods also affect how the reader views Jay Gatsby. No matter how hard he tries, he is still seen as
inferior to those who were simply handed money. No matter how hard he tries, he will always be seen as less
due to his upbringing. This comments on the accessibility of the American dream; Gatsby achieved it, but at
what cost? This makes the reader feel sympathetic to Gatsby. Nick uses a stream of consciousness narration,
and for this reason the reader experiences the setting and dynamics of the novel in a more intimate way.
Changez’s narration in the Reluctant Fundamentalist also allows the reader to feel closer to the setting of the
story. Like Nick, the first-person point of view allows the reader to discover New York with Changez. The
reader also learns about the American dream and how Changez seemingly achieves it before 9/11. He
describes how he didn’t fit in initially, but found comfort in finding similarities between New York and Lahore.
He rejoices in the fact that taxi drivers spoke his mother tongue of Urdu and that he heard Pakistani songs in
parades. These connections between New York and Lahore are so personal that only Changez would be able
to portray his homesickness and nostalgia in a way that makes the reader sympathetic. Understanding the way
he misses Pakistan is crucial in understanding Changez as a character. From the outside, the reader might have
judged Changez harshly for the anti-American views he adopts. However, having understood his background
and his connection to his country, the reader can feel a little more sympathetic. Changez had already achieved
the American dream, but as a patriotic character, he put his country's ideals before his own successful future.
Understanding his connection to the setting allows the reader to understand its connection to the American
dream. While on the surface, Changez starts being more accepted into American societies, he is deeply
conflicted in terms of his values. Understanding the setting through Changez’s nostalgia allows the reader to
understand the essence of his character. Using the second person allows the reader to form a connection with
Changez and judge him less harshly. Both novels convey the setting to connect to biases and judgment, but
while the Great Gatsby uses imagery and descriptions to do so, The Reluctant Fundamentalist uses nostalgia.
However, with different techniques, both novels can incite sympathy for the main characters through the
setting, allowing the reader to gain a deeper understanding of the characters and their access to the American
dream.

Using narrative perspectives, both novels can build a deeper understanding of the characters and create
sympathy. This is done through the setting of the novels as well as the main character’s romantic
relationships. Through the observations and analysis, the reader can make about the characters, it is clear that
the authors made the right choices of narrators and narrative perspectives for their novels and the reader can
view them with fresh eyes. Both narrators are sympathetic to the main characters (Changez to himself). One
can only begin to wonder how different the novels would have been if different narrative choices had been
made and whether they would be as profound and philosophically polished as they are.
Paper 2: A Doll’s House and A Streetcar Named Desire
Exam Question: In what ways and for what reasons do two literary works that you have read appeal to their
audiences’ eyes and ears? Compare and contrast the ways in which they appeal to the auditory and visual
senses of their audiences.

By nature, plays appeal to an audience’s visual and auditory senses, as they are meant to be performed. The
play A Doll’s House, written by Henrik Ibsen in 1879, depicts the struggles of the protagonist, Nora, in a
patriarchal Norway. A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams in 1947, portrays a similar
struggle, where the protagonist Blanche Dubois is pitted against Stanley Kowalski, a dominating man in a
patriarchal New Orleans. Both works criticize the times and places in which they were written through a
variety of techniques, such as symbolism, stage directions and music. These three techniques appeal to the
visual and auditory senses of the audience and help convey the authors’ message that women deserve equal
respect to men.

In both plays the authors have included symbolism, which adds depth to the plays and conveys their messages
in both convincing and aesthetic ways. Perhaps the most effective symbol in A Doll’s House is the Christmas
tree, which depicts the transformation of Nora, the main character. In the beginning of the play, the tree is
decorated, symbolizing Nora’s festive and happy mood. She is happy to be celebrating Christmas without
worrying about money. The decorated Christmas tree helps establish a joyous mood with the audience, as it is
a symbol that the original target audience, Norwegians in the 19thcentury, could relate to. In the second act,
however, the tree is stripped of its decorations, symbolizing Nora’s distressed and disturbed mood after her
conversation with her husband, Helmer. At this stage in the play, she feels like poisoning her own children, a
mood which is captured by the tree that is stripped of its decorations. The symbol of a bare Christmas tree
conveys a very effective message that this marriage is not all that it is made up to be and comments critically
on gender roles in Norwegian homes in the 19th century.

In A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams employs the symbol of the paper lantern with similar
effectiveness. Mitch, one of Stanley’s poker friends, is instructed by Blanche to place a paper lantern over a
bare light bulb. Blanche hates bright lights because they reveal the reality from which she is trying to hide. The
paper lantern helps distort reality and makes it more difficult for Mitch to tell her age. The paper lantern is
also fragile and it tears easily. When Stanley tears down the lantern, the audience feels that a part of Blanche
is torn. She is exposed for who she is: an emotionally instable woman who is running away from her problems.
The torn lantern is a symbol that signifies that the era of the Southern Belle is over and that men like Stanley
Kowalski are now in charge. Like the Christmas tree in A Doll’s House, the paper lantern in A Streetcar Named
Desire is a sign that times are difficult for women in a male-dominated world.

Secondly, the stage directions in both plays help create an atmosphere that appeals to the audiences’ eyes
and ears and sets the stage for social criticism. In A Doll’s House, Ibsen states in the beginning that the stage
includes “bound books in shelves, polished furniture and firewood by the fireplace.” These stage directions
indicate that the Helmers are rather bourgeois, upper middle-class. As the play progresses the audience feels
all of the pressures which come along with this setting, where everything must be in its place, restricting one’s
freedoms. The nice home also acts as a false façade that covers their marital problems.

In contrast to A Doll’s House, A Streetcar Named Desire is set in a rougher neighborhood of New Orleans in the
1940s, which is bordering on poverty. As Williams describes in his stage directions: “The buildings look grey,
there is warmth in the atmosphere, the stairs are crooked.” The audience understands that New Orleans has
departed from its decadent, aristocratic past, and has become more working class. There is no room for the
refined manners of the old South and the world of Blanche Dubois. Although Williams’ set is significantly
rougher than that of A Doll’s House, the effect on the audience is quite similar: They show audiences how
women are trapped by the order or disorder of the world that men have created.

Finally, in both plays, music plays an important role in establishing the atmosphere and conveying the authors’
message of social criticism. In A Doll’s House the audience sees and hears Nora dance to the Tarantella, which
adds to the tension of the play. The audience of the time would have known the dance and the myth of
tarantism. The song is named after the tarantula spider, whose bite would make victims dance wildly. In
actuality many women in the 19th century suffered from hysteria, because they were under so much pressure
from men. Women were encouraged to dance this dance until exhaustion, as a kind of ‘cure’ for hysteria. The
dance, however, is meant to be danced in pairs. Since Torvald shuts himself in his office, Nora must dance it
alone. She begs him to watch her dance wildly, so that he is distracted and cannot read the blackmail letter
from Krogstad, which would ruin her life and expose her secret. In fact she is dancing to save her life, and, in
the context of 19th century Norway, the audience would have realized this. Ibsen included this music as a
social criticism of his times, where women were driven to hysteria by the men in power.

In a similar way, Williams employs music in A Streetcar Named Desire as a means of expressing his social
criticism of his times. The Varsouviana Polka is a motif that runs through the play, as Blanche hears it every
time she thinks of her dead husband. The Varsouviana Polka is like a carousel tune, which was playing when
Blanche’s husband committed suicide. Because it plays throughout the play, the audience understands that
Blanche cannot escape his death. The audience feels her shame and guilt as she feels responsible for driving
him to his suicide after discovering his homosexuality. ‘Paper Moon’ is another song motif that the audience
hears in the play. Its lyrics are sung by Blanche as she lies in the bathtub: “Paper moon, sailing over a
cardboard sea. It wouldn’t be make-believe, if you believed in me.” The words seem appropriate for Blanche,
who tries to keep up appearances with her cheap dresses and paper lanterns. Just as ‘Paper Moon’ and the
Varsouviana Polka make the audience of A Street Car Named Desire pity Blanche, so too does the audience
of A Doll’s House pity Nora when they hear the dance of the Tarantella, as the music symbolizes the pressures
under which the women are suffering in these respective patriarchies.

To conclude, both playwrights, Henrik Ibsen and Tennessee Williams, employ visual and auditory techniques,
such as symbolism, stage directions and music, to create an atmosphere and convey a message that
comments critically on society. Both playwrights depict how times are changing in their respective societies.
Both audiences can see how the pressures on women in a male-dominated world are hard to bear, and as a
result, they are more open to the ideals of feminism.
Paper 2: A Farewell to Arms and As I Lay Dying
Exam Question: Storytellers often play a role in the credibility of their story. Compare how two works
establish credible or incredible stories through reliable or unreliable narrators.

Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner were both pioneers in modern literature and Modernism in the 20th
century. Both authors took artistic liberties to create their characters. In Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, the
narrator, Frederick Henry, presents a clear and honest window into his mind and thoughts. He often uses a
stream of consciousness to give an unfettered look at his feelings and insights. This form of narration is used
even more heavily in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, where the author shifts narrators across each chapter and
provides readers with multiple perspectives on events. Both authors are very successful at illuminating
characters through narrative techniques. Through the use of archetypes, stream of consciousness and
unreliable narration, Hemingway and Faulkner both illustrate how well-intentioned protagonists can be driven
to insanity by their circumstances.

Both novels set up their characters with clear and well-rounded archetypes that evolve throughout the
characters’ journeys. In A Farewell to Arms, Henry is a noble but flawed protagonist who wants to help the
allies in WWII but is held back by his own shortcomings. His alcoholic tendencies and battle with jaundice are
related to the reader through his use of plain diction and few adjectives, which contributes to his archetype of
a manly man. He barely expresses emotion, and when he does, as he does for Catherine, it is only in short,
punchy sentences. He believes that emotions should come second to action, which is why the reader sees him
as a typical army man. Faulkner uses a similar narrative technique though Darl. He is a quiet, humble and
intellectual type, who goes along with what his family wants, complains little and rarely thinks about personal
gain. In the chapters that Darl narrates, Darl uses the present simple tense that is absent of opinion or desires.
Darl is also a man of action, as he helps Anse with his work, Cash with the wagon and Dewey Dell with chores.
In the beginning of the novel, his thoughts are about helping his family and taking action to do so, just like
Henry is about helping the war effort and taking action to do so. Both authors use archetypes to make the
reader think that the protagonists are simple men.

As both novels progress and the narrators start to experience adverse circumstances, the narrators tell their
story through a stream-of-consciousness narration, which makes the reader realise that these characters are
more complicated than originally imagined. Henry sees the horrors of war but is not sure how to deal with it.
In an unexpected bombing, someone’s leg is blown off and bodies are mangled. Henry is unable to describe
the blood dripping onto him. His descriptions become jumbled and he becomes frightened. Although he also
kills people in the novel, which he describes in a merciless tone with plain diction, he later shows remorse,
confusion and feelings. His love for Catherine brings out his emotional side. He describes his dreams about her
in a stream-of-consciousness style which includes more expressive diction. The reader realises that he is more
conflicted and complicated, as events progress. Similarly, in As I Lay Dying, Darl becomes more conflicted and
troubled as the story progresses, and this can be seen through his use of stream-of-consciousness narration.
Two scenes in particular act as turning points for Darl in As I Lay Dying: the burning of the barn and the river
crossing. Whereas he is removed from the drama of the family at the beginning of the novel when they are
dealing with his mother’s death, he reaches a breaking point. He starts to realise how crazy his family is and he
snaps. The reader can see his thoughts turn darker as he tries to burn the barn with his mother’s corpse inside
and abandon the coffin during the failed attempt to cross the river. He wants to help his family bury his
mother, but he also wants to protect his brothers and sisters from their selfish and incompetent father. As the
situations of both novels grow more complicated, so too do the thoughts of both narrators, which can be seen
through their stream-of consciousness narration. The simple archetypes from earlier chapters evolve into
troubled characters who struggle during adverse circumstances.
In the end of both novels, the reader is left with a broken protagonist who is defeated by circumstances.
Because the characters return to the state from which they started, readers question if they are reliable. In A
Farewell to Arms, Henry never overcomes alcoholism, and his actions make readers wonder if he is a reliable
narrator. At the end of the novel, when Catherine is going into labour with their child, Henry is mentally
absent, as he stares into the rain. When the doctor shows him their baby boy, he does not even notice that
the child is dead and tells Catherine that their son is healthy. Then she dies, and Henry describes her death
without emotion, using the language of the masculine man from earlier chapters. It seems he has learned
nothing about living life after having experienced so much death. Readers experience a similar frustration with
Darl, who is admitted to an insane asylum. Whereas he started as the only rational person in the Bundren
family, he ends up laughing uncontrollably as he is dragged through the mud to the insane asylum. Either his
dysfunctional family drove him to craziness, or he was crazy to love his dysfunctional family all along. The
reader wonders if Darl plays the insane brother for his family so that Bundrens are not held accountable for
his burning of the barn, or if he is actually crazy. Both Hemingway and Faulkner use unreliable narrators in
their novels to make readers question the sanity of humanity.

As I Lay Dying and A Farewell to Arms use unreliable narrators, archetypes and stream-of-consciousness
narration to shine a light on people’s inherent flaws. In these works, Faulkner and Hemingway show how
humanity can be cruel. The authors show how adverse circumstances, such as war and death, can break
seemingly good men. What’s more, their works suggest that human existence will always be a struggle, which
readers should come to understand and accept.
Essay question: In what ways do two of your literary works act as a voice for the oppressed?

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison tells the story of a group of young black girls in Lorrain, Ohio in 1940-1941
and how they interact with their community. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi tells the story of Marjane’s early
life in Iran during the fall of the Shah and the Islamic revolution and her teenage years in Austria. Both of these
works are written to show how people have been oppressed during these times. The Bluest Eye specifically
shows people of colour and the hardships that black women have faced. Persepolis specifically shows women
living in Iran during the Islamic revolution. Both Morrison and Satrapi are very successful in using their
respective stories as a voice for oppression, as they both tell their stories through the first-person perspective,
as well as using imagery and symbolism.

The use of point of view, specifically the first-person perspective in The Bluest Eye and Persepolis makes the
novels an even stronger voice for the oppressed, as they allow the readers to view the oppressive situations
from the point of view of those being oppressed. While many chapters are told from an omniscient third-
person point of view, several chapters about the young, black girls are told in the first-person point of view,
through the eyes of Claudia. Although Claudia is not Toni Morrison, she acts as a vehicle for Morrisson to tell a
story about what it was like for her growing up in Lorain, Ohio in the early 1940s. One of the scenes shown
through Claudia’s perspective describes how she rips a white Raggedy Anne doll to pieces out of contempt.
The use of first-person perspective allows the reader to understand the hatred Claudia feels towards white
people and how unfair she thinks it is that there are no black dolls or role models. The reader understands
how confusing oppression is to young children who still have an innocent view of the world, as Claudia does
not understand why she lives a completely different life to young white girls such as Shirley Temple. In fact,
she resents her black friends for idolising Shirley Temple, and she resents Shirley Temple for tap dancing with
the famous black actor and tap dancer, Bojangles. She feels that Bojangles betrays his entire race by dancing
on Shirley Temple’s command in the movies. Just as an older and wiser Claudia looks back on her youth and
tells the story of her friends, as a frame narrator, so too does Marjane Satrapi look back on her youth and tell
the story of how she was oppressed during the Islamic Revolution. In one scene, for example, Marjane tells
the story of how she is stopped by the Guardians of the Revolution on the street for wearing Nike trainers and
a jeans jacket. These women who police other women and girls threaten to take her to the committee, where
Marjane knows that she would be tortured. Fortunately, she is allowed to go free, but she goes home scared.
From her point of view, the reader sees how real her fear is. What’s more, the medium of the graphic novel
allows her both to show events, using drawings of herself and speech bubbles, and to comment on events,
using voice-over boxes and hindsight wisdom. Morrison and Satrapi’s use of first-person narration amplifies
their stories’ effectiveness as being a voice for those who are being oppressed which includes themselves.
They do this so that readers can feel for the oppressed and act out against the injustices that cause this
oppression.

Furthermore, Satrapi and Morrison use images and imagery respectively to paint a clear picture of this
oppression in the readers’ mind. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison clearly describes the situations where the girls
are being oppressed, such as when Pecola is surrounded by a group of young boys who are taunting her about
her skin colour and her father’s sleeping habits. Such detailed descriptions of bullying are exemplified further
in the description of Cholly, a character who is forced to have sex with a girl by two white men with shotguns.
Morrison describes this situation with such graphic detail, referring to the berry stains on his girlfriend’s dress,
enabling the reader to visualise the angst, struggle and oppression that the characters experience. The graphic
novel Persepolis, in contrast, uses a very simple, cartoonish art style to illustrate the various forms of
oppression that take place in Iran in the 1980s. Her abstract, child-like drawings reduce violence to their basic
forms. For example, her depiction of tortured, dismembered prisoners is absent blood, guts and colour. This
simple style engages the reader. By not drawing the details of murder and torture, the reader is forced to fill in
the gaps, much like Marjane as a little girl is forced to imagine unimaginable acts of violence. Satrapi and
Morrison’s use of images and imagery respectively as a means of engaging readers’ imagination and helping
them visualise the atrocities that people endured in these oppressive societies, giving the oppressed a voice.

Symbolism is another literary technique that both Satrapi and Morrison use to get readers to think about what
it is like to live under oppression. Throughout The Bluest Eye, the young girls return to the symbol of blue eyes,
as it is Pecola’s greatest wish to have blue eyes. In The Bluest Eye, blue eyes symbolise the privilege, wealth
and beauty that is defined by and enjoyed exclusively by white people. Even though young white girls with
blue eyes are part of the group oppressing the young black girls, they are still viewed positively in the eyes of
Pecola and Frieda. Pecola wants nothing more than blue eyes, even though this is a genetic impossibility that
is never explained to her. Claudia is the only one who detests blue eyes, as they symbolise the oppressors she
hates. In contrast, these young girls in The Bluest Eye who want nothing more than to be just like their
oppressors, Marjane, in Persepolis wishes to be as different from her oppressors as she can be. The graphic
novel opens with a chapter called The Veil, which depicts how school-going girls do not understand why they
have to cover up. Throughout her graphic novel, Satrapi returns to the veil as a symbol of the oppressor. The
Guards of the Revolution tell women not to show any hair, though several, like Satrapi and her mother, show a
little hair to show their defiance of the regime. The use of symbolism allows the reader to understand the
relationships between the oppressed and the oppressors in both stories. While Marjane is an educated,
secular young girl who realises what’s going on is not fair or just, the young, uneducated black girls strangely
admire their oppressors for having what they will never be able to have.

Although Toni Morrison and Marjane Satrapi have written their stories using different media, they both rely
on narrative techniques and symbolism to give oppressed people a voice. While Morrison depicts the struggle
of growing up black in Lorain, Ohio in the 1940s using imagery, Satrapi shows the horrors endured by many
during the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War during the 1980s using simple, cartoonish images. The
messages of their stories are very similar: the injustices suffered by many people at the hands of a few will not
go unnoticed. Satrapi and Morrison depict the stories of the oppressed to give readers the strength to rise up
against such injustice.
Paper 2: Slaughter House V and The Things They Carried
Exam Question: Authors sometimes tell their stories in a non-linear fashion. Compare how and for what
reasons the authors of at least two works that you have read have told their stories in a non-linear fashion.

Readers are often intrigued by war stories, because they want to know if people can persevere in adverse
circumstances. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut both show
how soldiers struggle to deal with war and its aftermath unsuccessfully. The authors both use a disjointed and
non-linear narration to show readers how soldiers remember, experience and suffer from the horrors of war.

Both novels are written by authors who remember their experiences of one war in the context of another war,
using non-linear narrative structures. In 1990, during the Gulf War in Kuwait, Tim O’Brien wrote the novel The
Things They Carried, which is about the Vietnam War of the 1960s. O’Brien, who is a Vietnam veteran, writes
as a soldier who is traumatised by the violence that he experienced, mixing ‘truth-story’ with ‘happening-
truth’ to create a work that is neither truth nor fiction, neither memoir nor novel. For example, one chapter,
called ‘Love’, is about how O’Brien meets with another veteran, Jimmy Cross, years after the war to drink
coffee and gin and remember the atrocities for which they could not forgive themselves. His friend tells
O’Brien about a woman he loved, Martha. But his love was unrequited, because Martha was scared to be with
a veteran who had experienced such violence, and this left him heartbroken. There seems to be an
inescapable stigma surrounding Vietnam veterans. This story within a story shows the reader how war never
stops damaging the lives of its veterans, long after it is over.

Through a similar use of frame narration, Kurt Vonnegut shows how the effects of World War II have haunted
its veterans even after it ended. The novel, which is semi-autobiographical, is written at the height of the
Vietnam War in 1969. Vonnegut begins Slaughterhouse-Five with a dialogue between him and a fellow veteran
O’Hare and his wife Mary. O’Hare’s wife is angry with Vonnegut for writing a novel about the war, because she
assumes that he will glorify war. Vonnegut promises her, though, that his novel will discourage young men
from fighting in wars. He explains that it will be short and jumbled because there is nothing intelligent one can
say about a massacre. Furthermore, he dedicates the novel to her, which is a clear sign to readers that he aims
to uphold his promise to Mary. In the context of 1967, when this work was written, the protest movement
against the Vietnam War was growing. This use of frame narration shows the reader how Vonnegut finds war
senseless. This extra layer of narration is very similar to O’Brien’s way of telling his stories in The Things They
Carried, which the author uses for the same purpose of showing the adverse effects of war on its veterans and
warning against the senselessness of the Gulf War. The non-linear, broken narration, which includes veterans
remembering war, acts as a reminder to people how the atrocities of war live on.

The disjointed and non-linear narrative is also used in both novels as a way of showing readers how soldiers
experience and deal with extremely violent situations. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien remembers killing a
young Vietnamese man, distancing himself from the violent action by describing the gruesome destruction of
the young man’s body without emotions. The victim’s eye was shot through like a “star”, his body was
“oatmeal” and parts of his face were “missing”. Instead of writing about his feelings of guilt and disgust,
O’Brien uses imagery. Furthermore, he fantasizes about the young Vietnamese man’s youth, growing up at
school, possibly being teased by others for his love of calculus. This flashback is contrasted with the
description of a butterfly landing on the young man’s nose. O’Brien’s platoon mate rationalises that if O’Brien
hadn’t killed the boy, someone else would have. This use of dialogue, imagery and non-linear structure allows
O’Brien to retell this violent act without facing his pain or showing remorse for killing the young man.

The main character of Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim, uses similar though different devices for coping with
posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Billy Pilgrim, a fictional character, is, like Vonnegut himself, a WWII
veteran, Prisoner of War (POW) and survivor of the bombing of Dresden. The novel ends with the protagonist
climbing out of a mountain of dead bodies. The imagery is very gruesome and graphic. Every time Billy puts
one dead body behind him, another appears on the horizon. In a sense, this is an analogy of war itself, as
Vonnegut suggests that once one war finishes another one begins. “And so it goes,” the narrator states
throughout the novel after someone is killed, which is frequently. This passive phrase suggests that death and
destruction are inevitable. The language makes the reader feel as helpless as the protagonist but willing to
accept the atrocities for what they are. In a similar way O’Brien adopts a helpless tone throughout The Things
They Carried by using phrases such as “this is true” to suggest that the horrible events should be accepted for
what they are. Just as O’Brien’s mind wanders and scenes flash forward or backward every time there is a
violent situation, so too does Billy’s. Billy believes that he was abducted by aliens, the Tralfamadorians, who
taught him to time travel, using “the fourth dimension.” This allows him to look back at the horrors of war as
just one time in his life and also to flash forward to other, better times. This device for coping with
posttraumatic stress disorder is more extreme than O’Brien’s use of imagination and “truth-story,” though it
serves the same function. The non-linear storylines of both works show their readers how veterans deal with
post-traumatic stress disorder.

Finally, both works use non-linear structures to show readers how wars inflict mental damage to veterans.
In The Things They Carried, several characters are depicted as mentally instable. One story is about Mitchell
Sanders, who went on patrol and eventually went crazy after hearing strange noises, like talking monkeys,
cocktail parties and chanting. Even after he ordered for the whole region to be burned down by air strikes, he
still heard the noises. Eventually Sanders admits to O’Brien that he had embellished parts of his story, which
makes the reader question Sander’s sanity and reliability as a narrator.

In a similar way, Billy Pilgrim is insane and Vonnegut’s story is nothing but fantasy. While Kurt Vonnegut claims
that “most” of his story about Billy is true, it would be impossible for anyone to have such knowledge of
another man’s thoughts and actions. What’s more, Vonnegut’s story about Billy’s encounters with the
Tralfamadorians, his sexual contact with a movie star and his time travelling must be fantasy, despite
Vonnegut’s very matter-of-fact tone. There are hints that Billy is perceived as crazy by other characters, such
as his optometry clients and his daughter, who finds him freezing in a house with a broken boiler. The reader,
however, suspends all disbelief in Vonnegut’s story, because it is based on the premise that nothing could be
more absurd than surviving the firebombing of Dresden, which killed over 135,000 people in one night. In fact
Vonnegut himself survived the bombing as is described in this fictional tale, as a prisoner in a meat locker.
Vonnegut and O’Brien both earn a certain right to tell fantastical, non-linear stories that comment critically on
war, because they both survived the horrors of the war.

To conclude, both novels use a non-linear, disjointed narration to show the reader how veterans remember,
experience and suffer from war. The novels are written in the context of one war about another war as a
warning that war will always be horrific. Both Vonnegut and O’Brien mix fact and fiction as a means of making
the senselessness of war sensible to readers.

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