Passage Reflections

Choose any two of the following passages and create a two-three paragraph journal response on each. Talk about what this passage reveals about Kien's character, the format of the novel or the goal and power of writing.

1. "But relentlessly, his pen disobeys him. Each page revived one story of death after another and gradually the stories swirled back deep into the primitive jungles of war, quietly restoking his horrible furnace of war memories." (57)

2. "He feels that as a son he had not sufficiently loved or respected his father. He had not understood his father's life and remembered almost nothing about his family tragedy. He still doesn't know why his parents separated and knows even less about his mother." (57)

3. "I just want you to understand me when I say that a human being's duty on eart is to live, not to kill." Then he said, "Taste all manner of life. Try everything. Be curious and inquire about yourself. Don't turn your back on life."

3. For Kien the most attractive, persistent echo of the past is the whisper of ordinary life, not the thunder of war, even though the sounds of ordinary life were washed away totally during the long storm of war." (63)