Friday, July 9, 2010

The Things They Carried: Motivation-Linda

Even though the character Linda only appears in the book for a short amount of time, I think that she is a very important part of the book as well as an important part of O'Brien's life. Although their time together was short, Linda had a lasting impact on O'Brien's life. Linda allowed O'Brien to experience and learn about true love, and she also inspired him to keep the dead alive with stories. She was O'Brien's motivation to dream and write. Maybe if O'Brien never had Linda in his life then he wouldn't be the author that he is today. I think that it's amazing that O'Brien felt like he really loved someone at such a young age. I'm almost double O'Brien's age at that time, and I still struggle with the concept of being in love. After realizing that he was in love, it must have been devastating for a nine year old boy to have to cope with the death of the girl that he was in love with. In my opinion, O'Brien turned a terrible situation into something amazing, and his life has changed because of it.

"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."

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