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Speaking of Courage (Quotes ('The lake was a good audience for…
Speaking of Courage
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Quotes
'He drove slowly, no hurry, nowhere to go... The town (personification) could not talk and would not listen'
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'On another seven-mile turn around the lake'
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Modal Verbs
would’ve, could’ve, should’ve - The conversation of the war didn’t happen but Norman is imagining that it did. Norman Bowker is voiceless because no one wants to hear about his stories from the war, so he decides to imagine a conversation with his dad and Sally Kramer.
Quotes
'Partly it was the river-a dead fish smell-but it was something else…..what this was, it was a shit field… we were camped in a goddamn shit field.' 'Stop it, I don’t like that word'
When having the conversation with Sally, Norman is constantly saying the word “shit field” and Sally comments that she doesn’t like the word “shit”. This shows she can not cope with the word “shit” and would probably not be able to listen to some solider drowning in it. This gives the reader an indication as to why Norman can’t tell anyone his stories. The use of shit field is the reality of the horrors of war compared to the expectation of being heroic and brave.
Repetition
7 mile loop around the lake (metaphoric state of mind), Norman is constantly going around a loop because he has nowhere to go.
O’Briens purpose is to show that Norman will never escape being voiceless. There are no pathways out of the loop because no one has opened up a pathway for Norman to walk into because no one wants to hear about his war stories, therefore making Norman Bowker voiceless. The constant 7 mile loop that Norman is stuck in creates an easy pathway out of it which is by ending his life.
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