American Literature (A)

“All that crap about how if we had a pussy for president there wouldn’t be no more wars. Pure garbage,” (O’Brien 103). Whenever it comes to war, women are often excluded among the violence and stories that have been told despite their presence. However, that is not the case in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. In his novel, women take an essential part in forming the soldiers and the war in various ways. Throughout the story, there are appearances of minor female characters like Kathleen (O’Brien’s daughter), the Vietnamese girl dancing, and many others that add a diverse perspective to the novel. However, it is the three main female characters: Martha, Mary Anne, and Linda, who had immense power which steered the novel the way it is and arguably, the birth of this novel.

The first line of the first page of the book was already about Martha. Like many romantic war tales, Jimmy Cross is utterly in love with this college girl in her junior year while being halfway across the world. Unlike many romantic war tales, Martha does not give a thought about Jimmy and has no intention to. But Jimmy, Jimmy the twenty-four year old lieutenant who had no clue what he was doing, was head over heels for Martha and “more than anything, he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her,” (O’Brien 1). His love was heated and intense, but somehow it had gotten to an alarmingly perverted rate that led to the idea that “he should’ve carried her up the stairs to her room and tied her to the bed and touched that left knee all night,” (O’Brien 4). But no matter how freaky it got, Martha never reciprocated his love, in fact, like Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, she was implied to be queer. It was never mentioned directly, but throughout the novel, her negligence “when he kissed her, she received the kiss without returning it, her eyes wide open, not afraid, not a virgin’s eyes, just flat and uninvolved,” showed either she was extremely disinterested in Jimmy Cross, or maybe just men in general (O’Brien 11). Jimmy Cross knew this, he knew that there must be a reason behind those girl’s eyes, why they refuse to sparkle over his kiss, and “it occurred to him that there were things about her he would never know,” (O’Brien 27). This ambiguous language surely reflects some secret about Martha, perhaps, a secret that would not be accepted in the 1990s: being an LGBTQ+ person. All these hints point strongly towards Martha’s queerness and her reluctance towards Jimmy Cross, and this affected him greatly. His mind was constantly clouded by her image and words, but there were so many things that he did not know about her that made her so far away; his feelings were conflicted as “he wanted her to be a virgin and not a virgin, all at once,” (O’Brien 11). Jimmy did not want Martha to be a virgin because that would reassure him that she had sex with a man, but he also wanted her to be a virgin, so he could be the first one to get his hands on her. Very sketchy.

All of this shows how much of an impact Martha has on Jimmy, because later, she became the reason he blamed himself for Ted Lavender’s death. It might not have been Jimmy’s fault, but “he felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead,” (O’Brien 16). This whole course of events happened without having Martha’s physical presence once, all merely from her letters and a pebble. However, because of Martha, a layer of depth is added to Jimmy as a character and readers learn things about both of them, how Martha is just a girl who wanted to live with her sexuality, and how Jimmy was just “a kid at war, in love,” (O’Brien 11).

Not only Jimmy Cross was a kid at war and crazily in love with someone. Mark Fossie entered the same situation here with Mary Anne. Mark’s girlfriend had decided to visit him during the war. She came as a fresh wind, bringing the novelty and memories of home to the soldiers with her “long white legs and blue eyes and a complexion like strawberry ice cream,” (O’Brien 90) all unscathed and safe. Yet, she seemed to change. Mary Anne was interested in the war, she was not afraid to get dirty and bloody. Soon, she was changing in a more conventionally masculine way with her gun skills, working with medics, and coming in late at night. Eventually, readers found out that Mary Anne was actually involved in a cult that did drugs. At this point, Mary Anne was not herself anymore, more importantly, she was barely even human anymore. When Fossie and Kiley saw “at the girl’s throat was a necklace of human tongues,” (O’Brien 105) and in the corner were piles of bones, presumably the Vietnamese, they realized that they could never bring her back anymore. The girl has become one with the land, but in an absurdly sexual way with her desire to “eat this place. The whole country – the dirt, the death – [she] just want to swallow it and have it there inside [her],” (O’Brien 106). She was wholly gone, and none of it would come back. They have rot in the land along with her reputation, which fertilized into a myth that scares the men on patrol at night. In short, like Rat Kiley said, the sexist attitude the men had for Mary Anne and any other women is garbage. How it turned out shocked all the men who knew her and loved her, romantically or not, that Mary Anne was not as tame and quiet as they thought. She was the embodiment of their past, and now she is just as wrecked as they were from the war, even worse. Mary Anne ended up shattered in the men’s eyes, but to herself, ironically, she had never felt better and happier.

The final major female character that determined Tim O’Brien’s decision to write this novel was Linda, his childhood love. Tim was madly in love with her as a nine-year-old:

“I just loved her”

“Even then, at nine years old, I wanted to live inside her body. I wanted to melt into her bones – that kind of love,” (O’Brien 216).

Amidst the love and lust of a nine-year-old, O’Brien found out that Linda was dying of a brain tumor. As this was a traumatic event for any child, Tim used stories as a way to cope with Linda’s death. When he “[lies] in bed at night, [he] made up elaborate stories to bring Linda alive in [his] sleep,” because only by imagining her and envisioning the memories he would have had with her that he could keep Linda alive. With this method, he entered the war where he sees more and more people die beneath his eyes. Tim was recording his life at war by writing about them, maybe not what happened exactly to them, but the story-truth of their lives. By doing so, he keeps the dead alive, relives his memories with them, and lets people who did not go through the war to understand partially what happened. These all came from his experience with death for the first time, and unfortunately, it was Linda’s. However, it was her death that taught him that no one really dies, as long as you keep writing and remembering them.

One way or another, all the women mentioned in the novel had an impact on the soldiers and the course of the story, whether it was negative or positive, minor or major. Minor characters that appeared rarely, Kathleen, for instance, had great contribution to the highlight of the ignorance of people back home and later generations in their lack of appreciation. However, Martha, Mary Anne, and Linda were significant contributors of The Things They Carried. Even though Martha only appeared in a few chapters, she was the one that made a man like Jimmy Cross lose his mind to devastation. And Jimmy Cross was not the only one. He is the embodiment of all the soldiers who have been left alone, in need of love and affection from someone. Mary Anne represented the things war does to people, how it contorts a person’s life and personality regardless of gender. She was the proof that war and drugs do not always limit someone’s brutality, but in fact, frees them like how Mary Anne was freed. All the men, including Rat Kiley, were in love with her, not because she was charming and lovable, but because she was a piece of memory that reminded them of home. Yet now she was crushed, just like them, fallen beneath the spell of war and drugs. Lastly, Linda, Tim’s love that he carried with him to the war and after, inspired the birth of this novel as a way to keep the dead alive with stories. All these women shaped these young men during their service and even way after the war ended. Unlike any utopian war stories, Martha, Mary Anne, and Linda did not bring beauty and sweetness to war, they brought pain, brutality, and death into these men’s lives. But it is for these female characters that the stories told become more real and authentic. So much for “if we had a pussy for president there wouldn’t be no more wars”, is it not?

Maggie died. Maggie died a prostitute. How she turned out to be a prostitute is unknown and will forever remain a mystery to readers. However, it is not how but why she ended up in that position and whether she deserved it at all. Stephen Crane has left an ominous ending for readers to interpret the story in their own way, but acknowledging that it’s a realist and naturalist novella, Maggie: a Girl of the Street was an example of American life’s brutality. Maggie, the protagonist of the story, was born into a pit of poverty since her birth and became a puppet of opulence. Readers would often sympathize with Maggie and call her the tragic hero who is flawed due to her circumstances. Maggie did die living a very tragic life, but she was never a hero, not to others or to herself.

In Maggie: a Girl of the Street, it was clear that Maggie’s background was impoverished and negatively influenced family. Within the first few chapters, there had been a violent conflict happening with “howls and curses, groans and shrieks, confusingly in chorus as if a battle were raging. With all was the crash of splintering furniture.” (Crane 17) This was a routine in the Johnson’s household: alcoholic and violent parents and an ignorant brother who paid no attention to Maggie. The community around her was not supportive and constantly mocking her. So it is predictable that she grew up with no childhood memories that would inspire her to be more than what she was. Everyday was a battle for Maggie, that was doubtedly why she turned to Pete to depend on. To her, Pete was a new spectacle that would enable her to enter a completely new world of wealth, or so she thought. Everything Pete did amazed Maggie, from the way “her heart warmed as she reflected upon his condescension” (Crane 34) to the plays he took her to that sparked a thought that maybe all the glorious drama could perhaps be “acquired by a girl who lived in a tenement house and worked in a shirt factory” (Crane 40). She started to built up this hope of a miracle that would eventually come to save her from poverty, and that miracle in her mind was Pete. However, because of her blind naivety to reality, her dependency on Pete led to her downfall instead. Maggie so far has grown up in a poor and destructive family that taught her no love nor knowledge. She seeked help from Pete, which in the end made her a prostitute and eventually her death. Maggie had a rather tragic life, but she did not choose to be born so.

Maggie is not a hero seeing that she is overly dependent with a lack of heroic characteristics. According to Dictionary.com, a tragic hero has been defined as “a great or virtuous character in a dramatic tragedy who is destined for downfall, suffering, or defeat”. Even though Maggie is the protagonist in this story, she is unfortunately in no way great or virtuous. She has been shown to be overly reliant on Pete after being with him for three weeks. “Maggie was pale. From her eyes had been plucked all look of self-reliance. She leaned with a dependent air toward her companion” (Crane 57) Maggie was soon in the process of losing herself. She now sees herself as Pete’s companion; she’s the toy that comes in a kid’s meal in McDonald’s. Calling her a hero when the only person she is supposed to save is herself and she can barely do it is untrue. Regardless of the fact that she had no support or community to be there for her, Maggie was unable to flip her life around or change her fate. She failed at saving herself or anyone else around her, and saying that she was destined to be so is false. Maggie had the choice to stay in the factory and continue her monotonous life until she saves enough money for an independent life, but instead she spent them on a lambrequin. Maggie’s only choice was not to be with Pete and then become a prostitute; that could have been avoided. She did not have to become “a girl of the painted cohorts of the city [that] went along street” and “threw changing glances at men who passed her, giving smiling invitations” (Crane 79) It was not her desire to become a prostitute, but it was her desire to change her life by depending it on someone else that made her a prostitute. One could say that all Maggie had been exposed to was the melodrama she has seen in plays that romanticized real life, hence, her ideal life would follow that. That is not true. Maggie has been exposed to more than that.

Maggie was the lead of an incredibly tragic life, but it would be unfair to put the blame all on her shoulders. The fact that she grew up in a poisonous environment with alcohol and violence had inhibited her from maturing and becoming aware of the world around her. Her mother, Mary, would go as far as claiming Maggie is with the devil and she has “fall so low as to bring disgrace upon the family” (Crane 60) when the mother was drinking and beating up her family since day one. The irony in this situation is extremely bitter. Mothers are usually the one children turn to for help and support, but not for Maggie. It was impossible for her to seek support from family, let alone her community. Maggie did have the courage to come back after being discarded by Pete, but rather than welcoming her or offering comfort, she was greeted by children ogling her and nosy women discussing her as if she was a philosophy theory. If only she had had a more understanding community support around her, it would not have to end with her death. Her circumstance is not her fault. And then there was Pete. Pete is ignitor for the downfall of Maggie’s life. He was the one who flirted with Maggie and gave her a false impression of his life and cruelly abandoned her when Nellie came. Maggie did make unwise choices that led to her downfall, but it could have been prohibited if she had a trustworthy assistance to rely on.

Maggie is indeed a tragically developed character with misfortunes that sadly led to her death. She did not have a say in where she was born or who she was living with, and that had hindered her exposure to the world. She also had flawed ideas of the differences between real life and theatre that formed her dependency on a man. The blame cannot be all on her; there are always external forces that take part. However, no matter how devastating her life went with all the wrong decisions, it does not compensate for her being a hero. Maggie is not a hero. Despite not being entirely her fault, she has failed in rescuing herself and in return, lost herself. Maggie is not a tragic hero; she is merely a tragic girl.

It has been 545 days since I confessed to someone about this for the first time; it was also the time I decided to never tell anyone about it again. However, 338 days later, I could not handle holding it in and knew that I needed to tell someone. Here is a story about my sin: “Kurt”. Many would refuse to say that having Kurt is a sin, he is not a choice. I agree, it was not my choice to be like this, yet somehow I still feel responsible for not being able to carry out a well maintained life with Kurt around. I have kept my mouth shut for so long, it feels odd to open up and talk to you or to myself about Kurt.

The first time Kurt and I met was in my bedroom, under the covers. I was bawling my eyes out, my teeth biting the end of the blanket, hands clenching around the pillow. Kurt was there in the corner, watching me. I felt desperate, alone, and terrified at the sight of him, at the sight of myself. My head seemed like someone just smacked a brick into it and ripped every single strand of hair from my scalp. Every cells in my body wanted to go in different directions, pulling me apart. Before I even realized, I had been spending months going to school and socializing with people only to come back into my locked room then crawl under the sheets to cry. Kurt? I know I said he fazed me, but Kurt was there for me, when no one else did, or at least when no one else knew what I was going through.

The worst part is not having saggy eyebags after an extensive night with Kurt, or when he comes up to me at school and punches me in the stomach, but the fact that I do not know why Kurt was in my life. It was utterly frustrating to cry repeatedly everyday and not knowing the cause. I wanted reasons, explanations, and hopefully, solutions. As a result, I went on an obsessive research on my symptoms with the help of internet , and funnily enough, I matched up perfectly with Kurt. I could not wrap my head around how I could end up with someone like him. He was so manipulative, so aggressive and yet, I accepted him the way he is. Kurt, however, wanted me to become like him, to become everything I never wanted to be. As much as I hated it, I gave in. Only because the way he held me at night as my tears stain his shirt when two rooms away, my parents are sound asleep in their tiring dreams. How he would nibble in my ears tenderly: “I’m here for you, always. I’ll never leave your side” reassured me. I would fall asleep to his hand gripping my neck and seizing every ounce of air in my body. Everyday, every night, for months, the last thing I see before my eyes closed was Kurt.

Our relationship remained hidden as I refused to have friends or family know about him; no one knew about Kurt, no one would like him, we are too polar to be together. Every part of me wanted to leave Kurt. Sometimes, I dream of running away from him, to a faraway place where I am at peace, but when I turn over, he is there. Vivid and haunting, the presence of him never fails to amaze me. As time passed, our feelings grew stronger, but conversely. The more he loves me, the more I loathe him. Until when I decided to runaway, hoping to escape from him with anything America has to offer. We lost in touch for a few months and I was on the route to find myself again, and ironically enough, he came to see me right when I had just settled in.

At this point, I knew I needed help. Unlike Vietnamese, Americans were familiar with Kurt. Apparently they have all met Kurt at some point in their life, he messed them up like he did with me, but the people called for support and protection whereas I did not. Hence, with the help of friends and experts, I was determined to called him out. I confronted him with all the pain he had made me go through and the fact I realized this was an abusive relationship that does not work for me. As the words came out of my mouth, I could feel exhales of relief accompanying them, setting my body afloat. He listened closely to every syllable I made, staring deep down into my pupils as if he could see right through me. His eyebrows arching as if to ask me whether I truly believed in what I was saying or not. When I finally finished, a silent followed as we both consider what to say or do. I tried to hide my trembling hands by twisting them together, thinking if I had overreacted. I snapped and told myself this was the right thing to do, that I was doing this for myself since Kurt had screwed me up in every way possible. “Tsk-tsk, I’ll miss you. I’ll visit sometimes”, he said and just like that, I have detached myself from him.

The moment clicked on me like struggling with a math problem and realize the solution is there all along, or when running around searching for my glasses when in fact, they are on my head. Naturally, I could not forget about him in an instant. For some split second, I would be reminded how it felt to be in his arms as he sunk the knife deep into my spine, but I learned. I have learned to be stronger, to not let what he has done get into my way of living my life. Without the support of such unbelievable friends in my life, I would not be here right now, writing this. Sure, Kurt visits every once in a while, but people in my life sees him immediately and keeps him away from me. They take away the pain, and I cannot be more grateful. Now, I have everything I need to protect myself and to start treating myself better. So here’s to you, Kurt, my depression, bring it on.

“How do you say your name?”

“Đặng Minh Hạnh”

“Wait what?”

A question that has been answered too many times and an answer that has been questioned too many times. An inquiry that would make me shift uneasily from side to side as the inquirer eyes me with intensity. How much can a Vietnamese person take when someone says “Ni hao” to them? How much can a Vietnamese person take when someone passes by and says “Happy Chinese New Year”? How much can a person supposed to take when entering a foreign country with indistinguishable features from a neighbouring nation? These questions never really occurred to me until stepping foot in America, the land of diversity. It made me question my identity of who I was and where I came from. Identity home has always been Hanoi, Vietnam to me, but if I can’t bring myself to say my native name, do I really deserve to call it home?

I’m a firm believer that real sense of home is within yourself. If you cannot feel home in your own body, you will struggle to find a home for your body. It has taken me an extensive span of time to make myself at home in my own skin, and I am still working on it every time, everyday.

When an American child (or even an adult) sees me and speaks Chinese, my heart drops involuntarily. It takes a deep breath for me to turn around and clarify that I was from Vietnam. You see, I am proud of my home, and like a mom who’s proud of her cleanly mopped house. I want people to come, to visit my home, and allow me to show them around, but somehow, someway people always get lost on their way, intentionally or unintentionally. So after justifying myself, there’s always the expected awkward pause of shame from the opponent that followed with me laughing it off because so many people have made the same mistake. It doesn’t hurt any less though.

I will shamefully admit that I’ve always taken Vietnamese for granted. Learning English at a young age, I had the advantage of avoiding the usage of my native tongue. I sugarcoat it with a fluent English accent, never tasted the bitterness of my family’s effort when they first taught me how to speak,  never rolled the tongue into what should be familiar tones. As a result, I ended up being more comfortable using English than Vietnamese. My tongue was more comfortable rolling off the word “Mom” rather than “Mẹ” to the Vietnamese woman who had given birth to me on this land and had raised me to be a dutiful Vietnamese daughter, well she tried. I turned out to be a rebellious daughter who can’t speak a coherent Vietnamese sentence that happens to be in a very accepting family who haven’t kicked me out yet. I wonder if you can imagine surrounded by what’s familiar to you: from people to culture to scenaries, and feeling like drowning. It’s scary.

For the sake of this essay, I could make up a story about how I’ve found home and learned to appreciate my native language and how it tastes on my tongue. But I don’t. I still feel the artificial sugar melting on the tip of my tongue and dissolving in my mouth. Like a child I refuse to stop feeding myself more sweets and gnaw until I forget what bitterness taste like and everything becomes numb. But I’m so ashamed of it that I keep my mouth closed all time to stop the bittersweet from dripping out like a forbidden poison. Home is somewhere I do not know. Home is somewhere I still struggle to find. That is fine though, it might be challenging for me to find home, but when I do, it will be worth it. Vietnamese, afterall, is a beautiful and complex language that only if you’ve been speaking it since you were born, you can fully understand the beauty of each word. English is the cab I take for shortcut, when all along, I should’ve been walking on my bare feet, just like my ancestors.

Carefully, nervously, and cautiously I slide my wobbly legs onto the feet straps of an auto-wheeling chair that spins me across the room. “These darn robots,” I thought as my breakfast rolls to my throat after the excessive spin for a 967-year-old woman. Back in the old days, we roll our own wheels, ain’t that right?

“Your Majesty, Your Majesty, it’s time for our stories!!,” a herd of children come flapping around me like little chickens. These were my very great grandchildren. Um, that’s Rosie, that’s Llama, that’s Milenna, and that’s . . . as far as I’ve got. I am an old woman, and remembering 200 children’s name was not something I signed up for. Oh, why “Your Majesty”? I lived until now to tell them stories they would never have heard before, I think I deserve to be a queen. Anyways, it’s time for the monkeys to hear their story:

“Did I tell y’all about Barbara Waterman?”

“Yes, Your Honor (Majesty can get boring sometimes). She broke the record of having the most raisins in the world.”

“Ah yes, I do remember that. Great woman.”

I sigh and flatten my midi dress, which is apparently out of style now, and proceed to rack my memory a story I could tell them. Then it hits me.

“Petricia”

“Petricia?”, the kids said in unison as if they were some kind of military veterans.

“Let me tell you the story about Petricia,” I said.

It was a day 400 years ago, I don’t know nor care how the weather is like since it was 400 years ago, but it was on this day that Petricia woke up. She woke up completely effortless. No anger, no frustration, no oppression. Petricia was a .. free woman. You see, back in the old old days, woman weren’t free. They were anything, but free. But Petricia was different. She wanted to be free, and she knew she was destined to be free. So she woke up and all that. She got up to prepare for her work and all that. And you know what she wore? (They shake their head in anticipation). She wore a tight blue skirt and this beautiful corduroy blouse that showed off her skin tone. She was confident, and she was gorgeous. So when all that ordinary stuff went on with Petricia. Y’all know what she did? (They shake their heads) She went to work! Because ain’t no woman can live in this world without going to work, I’ll tell you that. So she got out –”

“Your Highness, this is boring,” one of the kids yawns with its dull little eyes, “this is basically the story of every woman on Earth.”

“Shush, you little racoon. You don’t anything, and don’t talk back to me or I’ll tell yo mama,” I grunt. They shrink their necks in timidness and a long silence followed.

Petricia made her way down to work. She had to walk, you see, down the roads. And she was beautiful, you see. The way she walked and how her heels clicked, she was the goddess of that street. So she walked, click click, and she walked, click click, until –

“HEY SEXY, WHERE YOU GOIN’?” (The kids jumped and impressed by how loud I could be)

Who was that, you ask? Believe it or not, it was this RANDOM man on the street who took notice of Petricia and tried to grab her attention by yelling so. Petricia was used to this, so she kept walking and striding her strides, ignoring the man once and for all. But the man, the man was livid. No one has ever, ever neglected him. He was fearless, he was to be feared, he was a man and he was the alpha. So the man huffed and puffed, his face got red and veiny, and all you could see was the anger in his eyes.

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, BITCH? YOU’LL DIE ALONE ANYWAY!!,”the man screamed in resentment.

“Granny, you can’t say that to the kids,” one of their moms called out to me from her working room, worried that their children heard “bitch” as if she has never heard it before.

“They’ll need to learn it, Madeleine,” I replied and went back to my story.

So she kept on walking, like a goddess she is, and reached her destination. She sat down in her cubicle and worked very hard so she could earn the money she deserves. Until this random guy came up to her cubicle, his hair glued back and his teeth too white, and asked Petricia on a date. She said no. The guy kept on insisting, questioning her why she would not go on a date with him, and that had money to afford both of their lives so she didn’t have to work so hard anymore. She said no.

“Why does he keep asking her when she said no already, your Majesty?” my favourite little one, Pris, asked.

“Ah, Pris, yes, good question. It was because back in the old old days, boys did not understand the meaning of ‘no’, because the world has said ‘yes’ to them too many times, they never knew what ‘no’ meant”

Anyway, the guy left embarrassed and irritated, because that means he had to cancel his reservation at this Michelin star restaurant. For the rest of the day, he talked crap about her to his co-workers, about how much she was a bitch and how one day she would come back begging for him.  Petricia kept on working, and that one, she was determined. She wanted that money and she was going to work for it. Then her boss called her over for a paycheck, and kids, you had no idea how happy Petricia was. She imagined herself bubbling in the bathtub with a good glass of wine, and she would go on a shopping spree and buy all the books she wanted. Petricia daydreamed about it as she walked to her boss’s office. This man was fat and stubby, and he liked to smoke the cigar. He tossed her an envelope that had her name on it. Petricia took the package with joy and realized how thin it was…  but she had worked so hard for the past month. And she noticed her colleague’s envelope, the guy who just asked her out, was thick with bills. She opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by her boss:

“Not today, Petricia”

And so she walked back to her cubicle with her dreams of a good glass of wine gone.

“Why did that guy get more money than her? Why is her boss such a toad? WHY?”

The boys in the group of children look horrified. The realization of their ancestors shook them to the core as they passed glances at the girls, who are vexed. This is what happens when you tell kids the truth.

“What happens next, Grandma?” This only happens when they are completely entranced in something and forget about everything around them.

“Nothing. That’s the end,” I look at them dead in the eyes and swirl around, heading to the kitchen to grab some toast. Behind me, I hear screams of frustration, sound of tables being kicked over, noises of confusion, and anger, mostly anger. One of them, the leader supposedly, hollers: “GO ON EVERY SEARCHING TOOLS TO FIND A WOMAN NAME PETRICIA FROM 400 YEARS AGO WHO WAS TREATED LIKE SHIT.”

“JAMES, DON’T TALK LIKE THAT IN THIS HOUSE,” his mom calls out.

I chuckled and sighed, looking at their little fingers searching for a name called Petricia on anything they could put their hands on. Little do they know, they didn’t have to search for Petricia, they only needed to search women who were treated like shit and there they have it.

The stories of many, many more Petricias.

I turned my wheels and head out of the door. As I walked down the streets, I see successful business women driving down the hill and I see men asking women out, and when she said no, he accepted it and wished her a good day. I see women wearing what they want and being complimented in a non-sexual manner by other people walking by. I see little girls wearing whatever colors they want, little boys wearing whatever colors they want, and little kids wearing whatever color they want. And I see — my little grandchildren running towards me, losing their breaths, waving out at me:

“Your Majesty, Petricia wasn’t the only one!!!”

THE END

“[Alice Dang] carried a black pen and the responsibility for the life of poetry.”

Alice Dang is sick of putting words together so she decided to replace her name in other people’s work.

She certainly feels terrible for doing so, but it’s better than making up words.

I am done with words, I am done with letters, and I am done with poetry. Ever since my first poem about my period that had made me leap with joy, poetry has become a branding iron that plummeted itself on me, hot and sizzling, leaving an aching scar. It felt exuberant at first,  exciting, thrilling, all the synonyms. It was as if I had finally found myself after a long time hiding from myself, and discovered that I was, in fact, a great poet. It was not a ‘great’ in a self-conceited way, but I realized that words unravel before me so effortlessly when it comes to poetry. Words that I wasn’t able to say, feelings I wasn’t able to express, there they were, on a piece of paper in stanzas. And that was then I have decided to care for my burn.

I caressed poetry like a baby. I fed it, raised it, showered it, and made sure it grew properly. And it did. I wrote poems that made me happy, I wrote poems that made me sad. I put myself into poetry and I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote more. I wrote until I decided I wanted to share.

Sharing was not an easy task. I’ve always winced at the sight of people reading my writing, let alone me reading it out loud for others. But I found out that my experiences were not rare, they were common among others too. So I decided to share my first poem ever, and it was great. It was like there were a hundred more Alice in town. People nodded, smiled, and sighed a relief at me. That was when I knew my words could do something other than made me feel, it made others feel.

So I started on this adventure of making people aware that they were not alone, that they never were, since the beginning. I succeeded (or I think I did?). The success was not something like the Nobel Prize, it was more something like teaching people that it is okay to be sad. And it was a beautiful thing: to connect with people through arrangement of words. And how relieved I was that to know I wasn’t alone.

But then people start to see my face and see poetry. My face deformed into a stanza, my body is a repetition, and I was not myself anymore. The scar where the branding iron was started to burn. It stung. The sacred word “poetry” was branded across my back in lowercase. And it weighed me down. My dragged feet were heavy with chains, and my shoulders sagged in pain. This title of a poet that I have been flashing to people in public was now a giant bouncing castle. People come and go, see the fun of it and leave. And I’m always left battered and deflated. So when night comes, I try to find my breath to blow the castle up all over again.

And I am officially pleased to announce that I, Dang Minh Hanh, Alice Dang, the Asian tall girl in class 2020, am deflating my own bouncing castle, folding it neatly and putting it in my cupboard. Poetry has been something that brought me joy, and made me discover sides about myself I never knew. But poetry also wore me out. So I am putting poetry down and reminiscing the good times with it, and waiting for the time when I can pick it up like the first time I had.

The Road Critical Essay

Whether one holds religious beliefs or not, religion itself surrounds every aspect of everyday life. It could be Islam, Christianity, Judaism,  but regardless of what religion, there are multiple instances of religion seeping into entertainment, art, and culture. Commonly, authors tend to incorporate religious allegory into their work. In the novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy, there are many examples of religious allegory referring to Christianity used throughout the text. The clearest example of religious allegory is the boy serving as a Christ-like vessel throughout the novel because of his hope and kindness towards humanity, and the way he is described by the father throughout the novel.

The boy is seen as a Christ-like figure in the way that he still has a kindness and hope towards humanity in a post apocalyptic world. During the man and the boy’s travels, they ran into a man that had been struck by lightning, and the boy and the man argued “‘What is wrong with the man?’ ‘He’s been struck by lightning.’ ‘Cant we help him? Papa?’ ‘No.’ ‘We cant help him.’ The boy kept pulling at his coat. ‘Papa?’ he said. ‘Stop it.’ ‘Cant we help him Papa?’” (McCarthy 50). Even though the boy had never talked to this man, and the man was a complete stranger, the boy still wanted to help, alike to how in the Bible, Christ heals and helps those around him, whether they are strangers or not. The boy also repeatedly was ‘carrying the fire’, but the word ‘the’ means that this is not a literal fire, and represents something bigger than the boy as a whole, a sense of humanity and light in times of darkness. The fire was mentioned in Secular Scripture and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, “in the context of the still burning holocaust of the world [the fire] represents at least the sacred fire of human spirit, in opposition to the demonic fires of apocalypse” (Shaub 161). This fire that the boy is carrying represents a sense of good and hope to build the world again, and establish something similar to the world before the apocalypse. Also this fire is opposing the ‘demonic fires’ of the apocalypse, in a holy sense like how Christ would oppose demonic entities and events, and helping others in times of need and trouble. The boy does not only appear this way to the reader, but also to the father, who was the boy’s only consistent companion throughout the novel.

The father sees the boy as a sacred vessel, and heavily alludes at the boy being a Christ-like figure throughout the novel. At the very beginning of the novel, when the reader is first learning the story of the man and the boy, the man says “‘If he is not the word of God God never spoke’” (McCarthy 5). This line spoken by the man is almost directly implying that the boy is Christ or very much alike to Christ. Christ carried out God’s word, and the man is saying that the boy is doing the same work and acts similarly to Christ. The man also “sat beside him and stroked his pale and tangled hair. Golden chalice, good to house a god” (75). The father consistently throughout the novel implies that the boy is ‘godly’ or serving as a vessel in which God speaks through. These implications, like the one written above, help the reader understand that the boy is much more than a human being, and represents the good that is left in the world, and a new hope, akin to what Christ represented. Also, the father says “There was light all about [the boy]” and that “when [the boy] moved the light moved with him” (McCarthy 277). This light symbolizes a holy presence of the boy, and it follows him with his movement, symbolizing a goodness and light that follows the boy, that he will carry on with him even after the father has died. This light is similar to the holy light that surrounds Christ in many of the stories written in the Bible, and pictures/interpretations of Christ. In Secular Scripture and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, it is also pointed out that “The father never tells the boy he carries the ‘light’ or that there is light all around him” (Shaub 163). The father knows that the boy carries a new hope for humanity, much like Christ did, and it is noticed very early on, up until the end of the man’s life.

The boy serves as a vessel in which the reader can see similarities to Christ throughout the novel through his kindness and humanity, and the way his father describes him as a good and almost holy figure. Through helping others, and wanting to help others, and creating a new hope for the world towards the end of the novel, and his father describing the light and hope that surrounds the boy, it creates a Christ-like disciple represented throughout the novel. The boy serves as a moral compass, and creates a hopeful feeling for the future of himself. It could be argued though that the boy is glorified by his father, out of the father’s pure love for the boy. Regardless though, the boy serves as a beacon of hope, and continues to spread kindness, even in times of darkness. Though this figure of the boy, being Christ-like and holy, brings forth the question: Who would be our beacon of hope in times of apocalypse and chaos? Who would be the one to help humanity?

 Works Cited

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. Vintage International, 2006.

Shaub, Thomas H. “Secular Scripture and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.” Thomas H. Shaub.

The Road Critical Essay

The world is ending, little life remains, the hope of humanity is falling fast and yet there is a single boy and his father left, it seems the only remaining “good guys”. The Road by Cormac McCarthy, is a novel that describes the humanity of the boy and his relationship with his father as they attempt to survive in this lifeless world. The boy starts off the story completely dependent on his father and oblivious to the world around him, as the novel progresses he develops knowledge and skills and slowly becomes less innocent. The father spent the limited energy he could produce to protect the boy’s innocence, but the more they saw the more the boy became less innocent; eventually, when the father can no longer protect the child, all of his innocence is lost forever.

The boy was a child, vulnerable, scared, and blind to the world around him and his father believed it was his job to protect the boy and keep him like that. The world they were living in was not a world a boy should grow up in so the further from reality the boy could be the better his life. The boy’s attitude is demonstrated by his playfulness. A quote reads, “The boy took his truck from the pack and shaped roads in the ash with a stick. The truck tooled along slowly. He made truck noises”(McCarthy 60). The boy is sitting on the ground playing with a toy truck, completely oblivious to the apocalypse happening around him. He makes roads out of ash. He makes truck noises despite the danger they would be in if they actually heard a truck. He has little understanding of their situation and lives his life making the best of everything like children often do.

As the boy grows this innocence slowly trickles away. While on the run, the boy and his father encounter some life threatening experiences and meet the “bad guys” that are out to get them. Only so many of these experiences can happen before the boy losses that child- like obviousness to the world around him. The father is still working hard, “but when he bent to see the boy’s face under the hood of the blanket he very much feared that something was gone that could not be put right again” (McCarthy 136). In this quote the father is referring to the boy’s innocence, gone forever and never able to be replaced. The boy understands the world they are living in and expresses his opinions about the circumstances they find themselves in. Although his innocence is gone his morality and belief in humanity remains present in everything his says and does. The boy develops survival skills from his father and slowly becomes less dependent on him. The man knows that his son is growing up and is only sad that he can no longer be oblivious to the horrible world they are living in.

Eventually the pair reaches the coast, their goal as they travel throughout the novel, and it is there that the roles of father and son truly reverse and the boys completely loses any innocences he had left. The man can no longer protect him, this is highlighted when, “In the shallows beyond the breakwater an ancient corpse rising and falling among the driftwood. He wished he could hide it from the boy but the boy was right. What was there to hide?” (McCarthy 236). The father want so much to move that corpse, hide it from their sight, pretend the world is at peace but even if he moved the corpse the boy would still know. The father can no longer spend any energy protecting the boy’s innocence because there is no longer a point, it is gone forever. On the coast, the boy starts to take over the role of father, he uses the survival skills he has developed along the way and starts to care for the man. The man becomes sick and it is clear he is unable to go on. He tells that boy that is is his job to continue, to keep “carrying the fire”, and to leave him behind. Once the father dies that is what the boy does, he meets another man with a wife and a child and continues with them.

The boy is no longer innocence, Carla M. Sanchez discusses the characteristics of the boy in her article, “Survival and Morality in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: Exploring Aquinian Grace and the Boy as Messiah”. She discusses the boy’s and the man’s characters in comparisons, but within her augrument she points out, “the Boy is an “incarnation of fertility” (McCarthy 226) with a luminous innocence that shelters the family from the malice of the outside” (Sanchez). This is the characteristic of the boy that keeps the man and the boy moving. They tell stories of their fantasy worlds, they pretend they are living in peaceful life. Sanchez highlights that bright innocence that the boy had before losing it, but when he lost it he continued to “carry the fire”. In the beginning losing this could have been bad for the man and the boy because it is what keep them going each day, but as the boy developed skills for survival and a better understanding of the actual circumstances they were living in he was able to do more to help. He was eventually able to leave his father and continue to spread his fire to more people.

The father devoted every bit of energy he had, to caring for the small, innocent child, he protected him from the dangerous apocalyptic world they were living in. As a young child the boy did not understand much and brought hope to the father in the hopeless world. As they go on the boy loses his innocence, the father worries that it can never be put back, but this loss helps the boy understand the world he is in and allows the boy to develop the necessary skills to survive. When his father dies he is able to leave and go out on his own, only to meet up with another family. The boy still carries his fire, his hope, his morals, and his belief in humanity. He may not be the happy little innocent boy anymore who plays with trucks using ash to build little toy roads, but now he can survive without his father and spread his hope for the world.  

Works Cited

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. Vintage Books, 2006.

Sanchez, Carla M. “Survival and Morality in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: Exploring Aquinian Grace and the Boy as Messiah.” Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse, 7.05 ed., 2015, www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1031/survival-and-morality-in-cormac-mccarthys-the-road-exploring-aquinian-grace-and-the-boy-as-messiah. Accessed 20 May 2019.

There was a feeling of excitement in the air. Yesterday I practiced my roping skills in preparation of today. This morning I woke up and worked my way downstairs, ready for the long day ahead. I felt stiff from those practice sessions yesterday, but I was prepared. I got ready for the day by putting on my worn leather cowboy boots, shiny belt buckle, and cowboy hat. And I walked outside in a confident manner, prepared to take on the physically challenging tasks of the day.

Every time I stepped outside I felt a feeling of gratification. I felt the earth beneath my feet, the coolness of the morning, and the wholesomeness of the entire world.

At least ten trucks and trailers barreled down the dirt road toward the barn in preparation of the day ahead. At 8am the riders unloaded their horses from their trailers and saddled them whilst happily chatting with the neighboring trailers. At the same time my father, brothers, and I were busy corralling the cows into the roping ring and separating the roping cows from the non-roping cows.

By 10am everybody has finished getting ready. The riders have gone to the roping ring and are slowly galloping around the outer perimeter as the roping cows stand in an impatient manner. I watch as the riders position their horses one after another in the middle of the ring to prevent the cow from veering right on the chase.

Two of the more courageous riders step out from the line, one trots to the header box, and the other to the heeler box. They act calmer than trained professionals. Once positioned the header draws in a breath deeper than any other, and nods.

Suddenly the chute is open and the cow inside lurches forward, the horses activate their great muscles and launch forward like fighter jets; sand is sent everywhere and the rider holds on for dear life. The rope is thrown and hooks the horns of the cow; it is quickly tightened and wrapped around the horn of the saddle. Excitement is in the air.

Humanity has continuously struggled with deeming something either right or wrong. The morality of each individual is tested repeatedly over the course of his or her lifetime, and what is the verdict? Are we moral people? Within humanity, morals are divergent. They are subject to constant change and interpretation not only by the ones who carry them but also by the people that surround them. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, individual morals are constantly tested and scrutinized by societal standards. Thus the question is asked: have we become more or less moral since these Puritan times? Morals can shift and change as time passes us by, but the foundations of society stick to us like a magnet on metal. By comparing the 1600 era American colonies to present day America, it can be judged that society has become more moral than it previously was. Some of the most significant changes in morality are the following: a much more principled court, the abstinence of shaming one based on their beliefs, and the willingness of helping others in need. These changes made America an ideological powerhouse not only in the minds of their citizens but in the minds of the world.

Since the start of time, humanity has constantly sought trustworthy people to lead them. With the formation of governments, that trust was both gained and broken. In 1492, Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas; one hundred and fifteen years later, the first British colony named Jamestown, was founded. Some of the colonizers that left Britain to start fresh, yearned for religious freedom. Back in Britain, Christianity was heavily frowned upon; Catholicism was the religion of the state and anybody who defied it would be brought to court. Some of these colonizers escaped from Britain to North America to exercise their religion freely without oppression. By 1732, all thirteen North American colonies were formed, and the hate for the British grew to a mutual push against the oppressive and tyrannical crown. By 1776, the colonies gained their independence and created the worldwide phenomenon of the United States of America. One of the most significant constitutional rights is the esteemed sixth amendment, this amendment was significant in the fact that there must be a fair process. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, proves the fact that during the Puritan times, fair process was completely thrown out the window for religious and individual beliefs. The following quote is derived from the Salem Witch Trials during 1692-1693:

In an ordinary crime, how does one defend the accused? One calls up witnesses to prove his innocence. But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime, is it not? Therefore, who may possibly be witness to it? The witch and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims—and they do testify, the children certainly do testify. As for the witches, none will deny that we are most eager for all their confessions. (Miller 239-243)

The Salem Witch Trials were a perfect example of why the sixth amendment was written; by letting religious beliefs get in the way of fair and due process, it created an immoral society. And to demonize one on the belief that they committed an act of religious sin is extremely immoral. The induction of the amendment allowed one to have a fair chance at winning their innocence, and to not be put up against a court that has outside influence to convict the accused. This kind of principled and fair court is what made America what it is today. By leaving behind the so-called “just” court Britain created, It created a nation based on fair and superior morals.

A fair court is not the only thing that changed between the 1600s and modern-day America; the shaming of one’s beliefs by society has changed drastically. Shaming one based on their beliefs has been a human trait ever since humanity existed. By creating a society that is open to new ideas and beliefs, it helps progress not only the nation but the individual as a whole. In 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne published the novel The Scarlet Letter, which was based on the Massachusetts Bay Colony around 1642-1649. This novel spoke on the idea of how society would shame one if they committed the act of adultery. Thus the question must be asked; is this belief moral? Is it justifiable to shame and possibly kill one based on societal standards and beliefs? One will always shame another in some sort of way, but the morals of this nation have progressed past the point that an entire country will support the killing of another because of petty differences. The following quote said by the narrator about Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter, when he crumbled before the crowd on the platform, shows how extensively society can affect an individual in a negative way.  “All the dread of public exposure, that had so long been the anguish of his life, had returned upon him.”(Hawthorne 143) The character Dimmesdale speaks on the feeling of ‘dread’ that enveloped him like a black cloud, and how he felt when the fact that he committed adultery was unveiled to the world. This is the shame that Puritan society inflicts upon an individual. One should not be afraid to unveil his or her secrets to their fellow beings around them. These are Puritan times though, and shaming one occasionally went to the point of that individual being killed. In this current day and age, degrading acts for all groups have been reduced to a minimum compared to what it was in Puritan times. This diminishment in shaming has progressed society as a whole, showing that America has evolved to gain healthier morals.

Healthy morals are the key to any and every society or group; whether it be cavemen, animals, tribes, or governments; the people must agree with each other. Every group has different morals. Some are destructive, others are good, but every single society has the same set of healthy morals. One of these healthy morals is helping others. Helping others has dated back thousands of years, therefore showing that it is a human trait. Entire governments can be aided as well as individuals. Allies in war help governments in need, individuals help societies, societies help individuals, and most importantly, individuals help individuals. Companies and institutions have been known to aid others. Recently there was an explosion in Armenia, someone lit a cigarette at a celebration where “clouds” of balloons were floating over the crowds. The balloons were filled with highly flammable hydrogen gas, rather than the traditional helium. By lighting the cigarette, the gas exploded within the balloons, melting them and showering extremely hot rubber all over the crowds below, significantly burning many.  Though rare, some companies have very healthy morals. In the following quote, Michael Sparks, the CEO of Quanta speaks about his view on companies giving to those in need.

We believe that companies have an obligation to give back to those in need. We have seen first-hand the impact that our lasers can have on those who may otherwise not have access to the devices. The chance to take a Quanta laser to Armenia, train local doctors how to operate it, and then donate the device to the Arabkir Pediatric Hospital so it can bring healing for years to come — that blesses us as much as it will the children of Armenia. (“When Burn Victims Needed Help Most This Tech Company Stepped Up”)

This company made the decision of giving away lasers worth thousands of dollars to people in need. Though Quanta is not an American company, there are plenty of instances where small American business owners have stepped up to create a better community and society.  This illustrates that in today’s age, healthy morals such as helping others, has progressed significantly compared to Puritan times. In Puritan times, societal aid was very uncommon. Most lived in the fear of death, not only by disease but by others willing to kill them for financial or political gain. In The Crucible, Giles accuses Putnam of having the girls fake being under the spell of witchcraft in order to gain land through execution. Giles says to Danforth that: “If Jacobs hangs for a witch he forfeit up his property—that’s law! And there is none but Putnam with the coin to buy so great a piece. This man is killing his neighbors for their land!” (Miller 89). By killing Jacob, the land that he owns would be sold, and the only person that could buy that land was Putnam. Therefore showing that in Puritan times, people would kill for financial gain. These types of killings were quite common and came to be accepted for many years. The good thing is that in modern America, it is quite uncommon for these types of killings to happen. Yet with this age, it has become easier and much more accessible to give to charities and to even help others yourself.

Helping others will always be within each and every individual, whether it be helping commit a terrible act, or aiding an elder walk across the street. Morals such as helping others, a fair court, and abstaining from shaming one another has changed our nation and individuality. Though we as a people have hiccups and downfalls in morality, we will never stop progressing as a whole. Therefore: Have we become more or less moral since Puritan times? Yes we have. We will forever progress as not only a nation but humanity as a whole.

Works Cited

Gray, Sherry. “When Burn Victims Needed Help Most This Tech Company Stepped Up”. Entrepreneur, 2018, https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/287015. Accessed 8 Nov 2018.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. AmazonClassics, 1995, pp. 143.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. Penguin Books, 1996, pp. 239-243, 89.