TTTC final discussion

Moral Injury and Soul Repair in TTTC “the problem of finding a meaningful use for life after the war” (155) http://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/wartime/portraits-before- duing-after-war/2088427392001

Moral Injury and Soul Repair in TTTC “the problem of finding a meaningful use for life after the war” (155) Photos by: Lalange Snow

Moral Injury “Moral injury is a construct that describes an extreme and unprecedented life experience including the harmful aftermath of exposure to such events. Events are considered morally injurious if they ‘transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations’…the key precondition for moral injury is an act of transgression, which shatters moral and ethical expectations that are rooted in religious or spiritual beliefs, or culture-based, organizational, and group- based rules about fairness, the value of life, and so forth.” (ptsd.va.gov)

“The Ghost Soldiers” DQs Many veterans say that returning home from war is much more difficult than being in the war. Why might this be true? What does O’Brien have to say about this in TTTC? What is the purpose in giving readers a suspense story in “The Ghost Soldiers”?

The End… DQ: Why does O’Brien end the novel with Linda’s story? What does he have to say about the need or value in dreaming up a story? “The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness.” (230) Interesting word choices in the last two chapters. Discuss the use of these terms in contrast with the hopeful tone that O’Brien adopts when making a case about the impact of storytelling. Deadness Blackness Darkness

DQ: Throughout the novel Tim makes a strong case for how and why war changes/transforms a person. Yet, in the last chapter he iterates the fact that, at their core, humans are always unchanged. Discuss this contradiction. Why is O’Brien making these conflicting statements in the novel? What is the essence of his argument? “It’s now 1990. I’m forty-three years old, which would’ve seemed impossible to a fourth-grader, and yet when I look at photographs of myself as I was in 1956, I realize that in the important ways I haven’t changed at all. I was Timmy then; now I’m Tim. But the essence remains the same. I’m not fooled by the baggy pants or the crew cut or the happy smile – I know my own eyes – and there is no doubt that the Timmy smiling at the camera is the Tim I am now. Inside the body, or beyond the body, there is a something absolute and unchanging. The human life is all one thing, like a blade tracing loops on ice: a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle-aged writer knowing guilt and sorrow. And as a writer now, I want to save Linda’s life. Not her body – her life.” (223/236)

Final paragraph. Discuss.

“…Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story.” DQs: What does O’Brien mean by “saving a life”? How does he attempt to show this throughout the final chapter? Why do stories have the power to save a life? Thoughts in comparison to ATSS? “…Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story.”

Thematically, what is O’Brien getting the readers to think about?? Question the text!!! Story truth vs. happening truth (“Good Form”)