ipl-logo

Mr Wee Stillness Research Paper

998 Words4 Pages

Near the end of Mary Downing Hahn’s December Stillness, a novel about a teenage girl named Kelly who tries to get to know and understand a homeless Vietnam veteran named Mr. Weems, there is a tragic event. Mr. Weems is killed in what seems like a tragic accident. However, even though his death was tragic, it was not an accident. He, like many other war veterans, was severely haunted by the acts which he and others had committed in Vietnam. Due to the trauma of the war and losses he suffers in the course of the book, it is clear that Mr. Weems’ death was not an accident. Like many war veterans who return suffering from severe depression and mental illness he reached a point where he couldn’t go on and decided to end his life. Even though it may have appeared like an accident, he killed himself using a car. He intentionally walked out in front of the car which struck and killed him.
Mr. Weems was a Vietnam veteran and he came every day to the library with his bags and read war books. He is dirty and dishevelled. Kelly began by watching him and later talked with him. At first she was joking and was studying him only for a paper on homeless Vietnam veterans but as time went on she …show more content…

Weems’ isolation is seen when Kelly realized that the library was the only place that he could go to be warm and dry each day, before he would have to go, with all his belongings each night, and sleep in the woods. Kelly even came to worry about him if it was a holiday like Thanksgiving as he would have no place to go. As she says, “‘He won’t have anyplace to go, ‘“(Hahn 92). When he gets kicked out of the library she becomes even more concerned and exclaims, “‘He gets kicked out of the only place where he could stay warm and dry!’” (Hahn 144). The worry she shows in this statement shows how vulnerable she knew Mr. Weems was. These words reflect how important the library was for Mr. Weems. She knew that without it he would be totally isolated from then

Show More
Related

  • Death In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1152 Words  | 5 Pages

    Death is something that occurs often in a war due to the violence and dangerous areas. Everyone takes on the thought of someone dying in different ways, whether they maintained a close relationship with the person or not guilt could become an instant reaction of the persons' death because of a feeling of maybe being responsible for the death that occurred. The thought of maybe being responsible for one of the soldiers that you have spent day night serving with could leave an enormous amount of guilt in one person. When witnessing a death or anything traumatic it is easy to blame someone else or even yourself for the tragic accident. Multiple characters in the book The Things They Carried demonstrated the guilt and responsibility of another

    Read More

  • How Does Steinbeck Present The Psychoanalytical Lens In Of Mice And Men

    652 Words  | 3 Pages

    “‘No, Lennie, I ain’t mad. I never been mad, an I ain’t now. That’s a thing I want you to know,’” were among the last words George Milton would utter to Lennie Small before breaking the bond that the two shared with a single bullet. All throughout the course of “Of Mice and Men,” the reader is able to learn of the two men, George Milton and Lennie Small, along with their exploits before arriving at the small Californian ranch, moreover they experience the relationship between the two new hires with the rest of the ranchers, and each other.

    Read More

  • Truth In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    595 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Tim O'Brien's “The Things They Carried,” a fictional novel about an American platoon during the Vietnam War, O’Brien insists that the book and stories being told are real, only to contradict himself after a few pages. I believe O’Brien does not do this because he is an eccentric writer, but because he is trying to make us believe that these fictional characters’ deaths and hardships are real, in order to convey a message about how there is beauty in death. While reading through the stories it is often difficult to separate what is fictitious, and what is true. Throughout the novel we seem to find two different “truths”, which are “story truth” and “happening truth”. O’Brien uses war related imagery to demonstrate the power of storytelling by describing the brutal realities of death and how soldiers meet it and deal with it.

    Read More

  • In The Morning, After Gassing Up, By Tim O Brien

    265 Words  | 2 Pages

    In his short story, O’Brien uses words and phrases that help to create the intended setting of the work. The author establishes the setting by describing the social atmosphere around him. “The only certainty that summer was moral confusion.” Tim O’Brien uses this quote to explain the mood in America during the Vietnam War. Many details were not known, such as the type of war the country was fighting, whether a civil war or a national liberation, or who caused the war.

    Read More

  • The Vietnam War In Luis Valdez's The Buck Private

    834 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the protest play “The Buck Private” by Luis Valdez argues that the vietnam war was an immoral thing ; he uses a humorous and ironic narrator, Death, to show that he Vietnam War killed many young men. Valdez supports his argument by telling a story about a soldier who enlisted into the United States Army and later died while fighting for the U.S. Death tells the story using flashbacks. The author’s purpose is to show the audience the life of so many families to give emphasis on the harsh reality of war. The author writes in humorous and serious tones for the audience to understand the horrors of war. Johnny is mostly a tragic hero, because he is a good man with sincere character who dies because of it.

    Read More

  • Ted Lavender Character Analysis

    191 Words  | 1 Pages

    He depicts the struggle that war veterans go through since not every soldier can forget the death and move on. Some carry ghosts around, while others live their

    Read More

  • Minor Characters In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

    871 Words  | 4 Pages

    O’Brien includes Linda’s death as a comparison to the death of the soldiers that he saw. He implies that death affects veterans the same way Linda’s death affected him. Furthermore, O’Brien reveals that he copes with his troubles by writing novels. Through stories, O’Brien was able lessen his guilt and keep his friends alive. The purpose of this chapter was for readers to empathize with veterans and show more

    Read More

  • The Man I Killed Literary Analysis

    1122 Words  | 5 Pages

    “Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker... - slog through the emptiness and dangers of their Vietnam tour in this haunting and acclaimed collection …” (Tim O’Brien). By just reading the synopsis of The Thing They Carried on the back of the cover, it is presumably believed that the book is about a platoon of heroic and glorious American soldiers, who fought in the Vietnam War. However, there is no mention of any primary Vietnamese characters except for the chapters “The Man I Killed,” and “Style.” On the whole, the perceptions and experiences of American soldiers are reflected throughout the book. The absence of the Vietnamese characters from the rest of the text raises essential questions about the main purpose of the narrative for writing and distinction

    Read More

  • Morality In O Brien's The Things They Carried

    909 Words  | 4 Pages

    Moral degradation is a necessary evil in order to survive through war; therefore, construction of a new morality is inescapable. Within the stories in The Things They Carried, soldiers are required to do so during and after the Vietnam War. War breeds monstrosities and wanton cruelty. When faced with two evils, picking the lesser immoral option is not necessarily something to be frowned upon. This is what separates a soldier’s morality and a civilian’s morality.

    Read More

  • A Marker On The Side Of The Boat Analysis

    813 Words  | 4 Pages

    Regret is a powerful emotion that has the ability to scar someone for the rest of their life. Moments of regret can come from relationships, self-made decisions and life changing events. The idea of regret also applies to “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” by Bao Ninh and “On the Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien. Although these two literary pieces are very different in many ways, both authors describe the experience of the Vietnam War as a time of regretful decisions that negatively impacted people of both the American side and the Vietnamese side. Both authors tell a story about a character that recalls of flashbacks of the war, where they grieve over the past decisions that have affected them for the rest of their life.

    Read More

  • Moral Confusion In The Things They Carried

    645 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Vietnam War leaves a legacy of moral confusion with each and every soldier who serves. Soldiers are fighting for a cause they do not necessarily believe in, killing people who do not necessarily deserve it, and watching their brothers die beside them. Tim O’Briens’ book, The Things They Carried, illustrates the soldiers struggle to define morality throughout the confusion of the war. On the Rainy River, Tim O’Brien faces what he feels is his moral obligation to answer his country’s call and fight in Vietnam, and a personal moral issue with the reason for the war.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Silence Analysis

    716 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the book The Things They Carried, Tim O’brien explores various stories he experienced during his time serving in the Vietnam War. He goes in depth into the casualties of his fellow troops in order to analyze the significance and how it affected him and his friends psychologically. One of the many things he makes sure to include is the specific silence and sounds that occupies the tense situations they endure. Whether it is a death or a more uplifting moment, he never failed to include the recurring silence the environment produced. O’brien manipulates the use of silence throughout his novel to further enhance the reader 's imagination to get as close as they can to being as emotionally impacted the way O’brien was while experiencing the stories first-hand.

    Read More

  • Ginny: A Short Story

    2162 Words  | 9 Pages

    This carried on for a week. Ginny was furious with her mother. She just wanted to be left alone so she could come to terms with what she had lost. Yet, she could not. Even at night, when she tried to hide alone in her room, Nelly or Lissy was there.

    Read More

  • Honor And Pity, Pride And Sacrifice

    1684 Words  | 7 Pages

    The Complexity of Forgetting In the short story Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice by Nam Le, readers are acknowledged the reason behind the conflict between the two protagonists, the father and the son, that it is rooted from overly strict nurturing. Not to let readers dislike the character of the father too far, the story of Thanh, the father, about his experience in Vietnam War is inserted to offer the reason of his suffering from the memory of the war which, perhaps, leads him to bring up Nam, the narrator and his son, strictly as if his life is in the war camp. The story probably arouses some readers ' pity, understanding, or interest in his attempt to forget the battle considered both his action and speech. Yet, in the meantime, although Thanh, in the first place, tries not to mention the years of service as a soldier as if to imply that it should be forsaken, getting confused later by his inconsistent actions and speeches, some readers may question whether Thanh really wants to forget the bitter experience in Vietnam War or not.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Louisa May Alcott's Death Of A Soldier

    1398 Words  | 6 Pages

    Louisa May Alcott’s impassioned essay, “Death of a Soldier,” legitimizes the suffering of a wounded soldier named John, who was shot in the back during the American Civil War. Alcott saw John’s pain first hand as his caregiver in a hospital. His pain is instilled into the audience through Alcott’s evocative language. Through detailing her experience, Alcott wishes to inform her audience of the rewards of selfless action. John did not have to go to war, but he felt it was his duty to do so, just like Alcott did not have to care for the dying soldier, but did so out of compassion.

    Read More

More about Mr Wee Stillness Research Paper

Open Document