The Outline
Hook—designed to briefly introduce the general topic from the novel and grab the reader’s attention (statement of importance about topic/critical lens)
Provide background information—
transition and briefly summarize the novel
introduce necessary characters and ideas
Introduce/Define Critical Lens
Thesis Statement—provide thesis with a natural lead-in
A big part of how violence ecscalates is the need for revenge against fallen comrades. A certain example of this is when we see bartle come across a fallen soldier, he remarks”The man had been made an unwilling weapon. They’d captured and killed him and eviscerated him and stuffed his abdominal cavity with explosives, detonated him when they were sure we had recognized him, then attacked.” This shows the cycl e of violence at work, when the enemy captures the fallen soldier they take revenge on him in a very meaningful way,
The primary theme in the novel is the innescapable cycle of violence, specificly how commiting violence aclimatises your mind to even more violence. This example is particulary pertinant, when bartle is reflecting on the war after retreating from his freinds and family, he remarks “Nothing seemed more natural than someone getting killed. And now, as I reflect on how I felt and behaved as a boy of twenty-one from my position of safety in a warm cabin above a clear stream in the Blue Ridge, I can only tell myself that it was necessary.” This shows an example of how after seeing so much bloodshead in the Iraq War he seems accustomed almost calm about the notion of death and murder, this in turn makes doing those seem less horrible. Another example from the book comes when Murph and Bartle are in a battle, watching the mortars rain arround them they notice a little girl, no older then 5 or 6 git hit with one. But however Murph reacts like this. “Holy shit, that bitch got murdered,” Murph said. There was no grief, or anguish, or joy, or pity in that statement. There was no judgment made. He was just surprised, like he was waking from a long afternoon nap, disoriented,” > Vicious Cycle
Preservation of Mind The most common example in The Yellow Birds for how violence begets more violence is the mind’s tendancy to snap under pressure, especialy when dealing with the horrors of war. We see emotional damage to the main protagonist when he is traveling to the airport to pick up his mother, when he starts hallucinating about the horrors of war, bartle remarks on these hallucinations as he goes through the airport: “The ghosts of the dead filled the empty seats of every gate I passed: boys destroyed by mortars and rockets and bullets and IEDs to the point that when we tried to get them to a medevac, the skin slid off, or limbs barely held in place detached.” (Powers 104) This shows that the commiters of violence often have to deal with the traumatic memories of there acts. In this scene we see his mind snap under the pressure of the things that he had witnessed during the war, specificly all the death and brutality that acompenies it. We see that in this situation he isolates himself from society and even becomes violent when he beats up a bartender. The next big example of this occors twards the end of the novel when Sterling and Bartle learn of Murph’s death. They dont want to bring his body home so they dump it in a river. And not wanting the word to get out about his death this happens.“He floated off quickly in the steady current, and in the water past the bulrushes little pools formed where his eyes had been. “Like it never happened, Bartle. That’s the only way,” Sterling said. “Yeah, I know.” I looked at the ground. The dust blowing in fine swirls around my boots. I knew what was coming. Sterling shot the cartwright once, in the face, and he crumpled to the ground.”(Powers 212) This shows that in trying to avoid trauma about the horrors of war, we see them murder an innocent iraqi, (in turn causing more trauma for the family of the victim), it shows that in the process of trying to preserve ther mind, and the minds of others. They murder a innocent man to try to make Murph’s mother feel better. All of these combined show that a way to deal with the horrors of war is for ones self to commit violence, and in turn those violent acts in turn cause trauma to other pepole, causing the cycle of violence to continue.
30 > It caused me to pick up a pencil and write a letter to a dead boy’s mother, to write it in his name, having known him plenty long enough to know it was not his way to call his mother “Mom.” I’d known a lot, really. I’d known that snow comes early in the year in the mountains where Daniel was from, November, sure, and sometimes as early as October. But I only found out later that she’d read that letter with snow falling all around her. That she’d set it on the seat next to her while she mushed her old right-hand-drive Jeep up and down the switchbacks on her route, carving clean tracks through the white erasure that had fallen all throughout the night before. And that as she pulled down the long gravel path leading to their little house, on the winter-dormant apple orchard Daniel had talked about so often, she kept sneaking glances at the return address.
Need For Violence and Control 21 Violence in The Yellow Birds also comes from a psycological need for control
But I knew. I shot him and he slumped over behind the wall. He was shot again by someone else an>>d the bullet went through his chest and ricocheted, breaking a potted plant hanging from a window above the courtyard. Then he was shot again and he fell at a strange angle—backward over his bent legs—and most of the side of his face was gone and there was a lot of blood and it pooled around him in the dust.
23 >The girl ducked behind the building, then emerged again, this time shuffling toward the old woman very slowly. She tried dragging the body, and her face contorted with effort as she pulled the old woman by her one complete arm. The girl described circles into the fine dust as she paced around the body. The path they made was marked in blood: from the car smoking and ablaze, through a courtyard ringed by hyacinths, to the place where the woman lay dead, attended by the small child, who rocked and moved her lips, perhaps singing some desert elegy that I couldn’t hear.
In the novel Bartle comes to understand how the cycle of violence perpetuates itself. This is most clearly demonstrated in the fact that Bart both witnesses the oposing side commiting violence and him doing the same. But then after the war had ended, we see the reasons
John Irving’s main character Garp was ignorant to the problems that come with misunderstanding the difference and relationship between love and lust; and this almost lead to his relationship crashing against the shore and disintegrating. Ever since a young age, Jenny Fields had warned him about lust, but Garp and many of the other characters saw it as “a man’s problem,” which lead to his inability to balance love and lust and severe problems in both his marriage and family. inability to balance love and lust and severe problems in both his marriage and family. From Garp’s encounter’s with Cushie, Alice, and the baby sitter, John Irving is clearly expressing how lust is more about physical gratification and the selfish desires of the individual. Whereas, the enduring relationship that he and Helen have, shows how love requires patience, kindness, and the ability to put one’s own needs second to the other individual. Even though these emotions seem to be contradictory or working against each other, the reader also sees through Garp and Helen’s marriage that both emotions need to be present in order for it to be successful. The novel The World According to Garp, by John Irving, is a controversial novel that deals with the complex relationship of love and lust; one is a kind, caring, and selfless emotion, yet the other immediate, selfish and egocentric, yet they both need to be present and work together.
Yellow highlight | Page: 4 The war had killed thousands by September. Their bodies lined the pocked avenues at irregular intervals. They were hidden in alleys, were found in bloating piles in the troughs of the hills outside the cities, the faces puffed and green, allergic now to life. The war had tried its best to kill us all: man, woman, child. But it had killed fewer than a thousand soldiers like me and Murph. Those numbers still meant something to us as what passed for fall began. Murph and I had agreed. We didn’t want to be the thousandth killed. If we died later, then we died. But let that number be someone else’s milestone. Yellow highlight | Page: 11 Nothing seemed more natural than someone getting killed. And now, as I reflect on how I felt and behaved as a boy of twenty-one from my position of safety in a warm cabin above a clear stream in the Blue Ridge, I can only tell myself that it was necessary.
Yellow highlight | Page: 13 I know it isn’t like that now. There were no bullets with my name on them, or with Murph’s, for that matter. There were no bombs made just for us. Any of them would have killed us just as well as they’d killed the owners of those names. We didn’t have a time laid out for us, or a place.
Yellow highlight | Page: 21 But I knew. I shot him and he slumped over behind the wall. He was shot again by someone else and the bullet went through his chest and ricocheted, breaking a potted plant hanging from a window above the courtyard. Then he was shot again and he fell at a strange angle—backward over his bent legs—and most of the side of his face was gone and there was a lot of blood and it pooled around him in the dust.
Yellow highlight | Page: 22 “Holy shit, that bitch got murdered,” Murph said. There was no grief, or anguish, or joy, or pity in that statement. There was no judgment made. He was just surprised, like he was waking from a long afternoon nap, disoriented,
Yellow highlight | Page: 23 The girl ducked behind the building, then emerged again, this time shuffling toward the old woman very slowly. She tried dragging the body, and her face contorted with effort as she pulled the old woman by her one complete arm. The girl described circles into the fine dust as she paced around the body. The path they made was marked in blood: from the car smoking and ablaze, through a courtyard ringed by hyacinths, to the place where the woman lay dead, attended by the small child, who rocked and moved her lips, perhaps singing some desert elegy that I couldn’t hear.
Yellow highlight | Page: 24 I try so hard now to remember if I saw any hint of what was coming, if there was some shadow over him, some way I could have known he was so close to being killed. In my memory of those days on the rooftop, he is half a ghost. But I didn’t see it then, and couldn’t. No one can see that. I guess I’m glad I didn’t know, because we were happy that morning in Al Tafar, in September. Our relief was coming. The day was full of light and warm. We slept.
Yellow highlight | Page: 30 It caused me to pick up a pencil and write a letter to a dead boy’s mother, to write it in his name, having known him plenty long enough to know it was not his way to call his mother “Mom.” I’d known a lot, really. I’d known that snow comes early in the year in the mountains where Daniel was from, November, sure, and sometimes as early as October. But I only found out later that she’d read that letter with snow falling all around her. That she’d set it on the seat next to her while she mushed her old right-hand-drive Jeep up and down the switchbacks on her route, carving clean tracks through the white erasure that had fallen all throughout the night before. And that as she pulled down the long gravel path leading to their little house, on the winter-dormant apple orchard Daniel had talked about so often, she kept sneaking glances at the return address. She
Yellow highlight | Page: 104 The ghosts of the dead filled the empty seats of every gate I passed: boys destroyed by mortars and rockets and bullets and IEDs to the point that when we tried to get them to a medevac, the skin slid off, or limbs barely held in place detached, and I thought that they were young and had girls at home or some dream that they thought would make their lives important. They had been wrong of course. You don’t dream when you are dead. I dream. The living dream, though I won’t say thanks for that.
Yellow highlight | Page: 212 We walked the body in the cart down to the edge of the river. The hermit walked around to the rear of his cart, stroked the mule’s flank and then embraced Murph, lifting him out of the flat carriage. Sterling and I each grabbed a leg and we walked the last few steps to the river and laid him in. He floated off quickly in the steady current, and in the water past the bulrushes little pools formed where his eyes had been. “Like it never happened, Bartle. That’s the only way,” Sterling said. “Yeah, I know.” I looked at the ground. The dust blowing in fine swirls around my boots. I knew what was coming. Sterling shot the cartwright once, in the face, and he crumpled to the ground. No time to even be surprised by it. The mule began to pull the cart, unbidden, as if by habit. The two dogs followed it into the coming night. We looked back toward the river. Murph was gone.
In the book The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, violence is described as a vicious cycle, caused by the need to preserve ones mind against the horrors of war, as well as the need for dominance and control
Physical Violence
Comes from disrespect
Comes from shame
Used to assert power or pride
But I knew. I shot him and he slumped over behind the wall. He was shot again by someone else and the bullet went through his chest and ricocheted, breaking a potted plant hanging from a window above the courtyard. Then he was shot again and he fell at a strange angle—backward over his bent legs—and most of the side of his face was gone and there was a lot of blood and it pooled around him in the dust.
Becomes a vicious cycle
The war had killed thousands by September. Their bodies lined the pocked avenues at irregular intervals. They were hidden in alleys, were found in bloating piles in the troughs of the hills outside the cities, the faces puffed and green, allergic now to life. The war had tried its best to kill us all: man, woman, child. But it had killed fewer than a thousand soldiers like me and Murph. Those numbers still meant something to us as what passed for fall began. Murph and I had agreed. We didn’t want to be the thousandth killed. If we died later, then we died. But let that number be someone else’s milestone.
Used to preserve one’s mind
Nothing seemed more natural than someone getting killed. And now, as I reflect on how I felt and behaved as a boy of twenty-one from my position of safety in a warm cabin above a clear stream in the Blue Ridge, I can only tell myself that it was necessary. I know it isn’t like that now. There were no bullets with my name on them, or with Murph’s, for that matter. There were no bombs made just for us. Any of them would have killed us just as well as they’d killed the owners of those names. We didn’t have a time laid out for us, or a place.
Used to try and gain respect
We walked the body in the cart down to the edge of the river. The hermit walked around to the rear of his cart, stroked the mule’s flank and embraced Murph, lifting him out of the flat carriage. Sterling and I each grabbed a leg and we walked the last few steps to the river and laid him in. He floated off quickly in the steady current, and in the water past the bulrushes little pools formed where his eyes had been. “Like it never happened, Bartle. That’s the only way,” Sterling said. “Yeah, I know.” I looked at the ground. The dust blowing in fine swirls around my boots. I knew what was coming. Sterling shot the cartwright once, in the face, and he crumpled to the ground. No time to even be surprised by it. The mule began to pull the cart, unbidden, as if by habit. The two dogs followed it into the coming night. We looked back toward the river. Murph was gone.
Used to “save face” and save pride and may sacrifice body to do so
caused me to pick up a pencil and write a letter to a dead boy’s mother, to write it in his name, having known him plenty long enough to know it was not his way to call his mother “Mom.” I’d known a lot, really. I’d known that snow comes early in the year in the mountains where Daniel was from, November, sure, and sometimes as early as October. But I only found out later that she’d read that letter with snow falling all around her. That she’d set it on the seat next to her while she mushed her old right-hand-drive Jeep up and down the switchbacks on her route, carving clean tracks through the white erasure that had fallen all throughout the night before. And that as she pulled down the long gravel path leading to their little house, on the winter-dormant apple orchard Daniel had talked about so often, she kept sneaking glances at the return address. She
Comes from shame of being ashamed
We walked the body in the cart down to the edge of the river. The hermit walked around to the rear of his cart, stroked the mule’s flank and then embraced Murph, lifting him out of the flat carriage. Sterling and I each grabbed a leg and we walked the last few steps to the river and laid him in. He floated off quickly in the steady current, and in the water past the bulrushes little pools formed where his eyes had been. “Like it never happened, Bartle. That’s the only way,” Sterling said. “Yeah, I know.” I looked at the ground. The dust blowing in fine swirls around my boots. I knew what was coming. Sterling shot the cartwright once, in the face, and he crumpled to the ground. No time to even be surprised by it. The mule began to pull the cart, unbidden, as if by habit. The two dogs followed it into the coming night. We looked back toward the river. Murph was gone.
Emotional Violence
Does not give importance or respect to others feelings
The ghosts of the dead filled the empty seats of every gate I passed: boys destroyed by mortars and rockets and bullets and IEDs to the point that when we tried to get them to a medevac, the skin slid off, or limbs barely held in place detached, and I thought that they were young and had girls at home or some dream that they thought would make their lives important. They had been wrong of course. You don’t dream when you are dead. I dream. The living dream, though I won’t say thanks for that.
Refusal to listen to
Denying a person’s feelings
Telling people how to feel
Ridiculing
Controlling behavior
Asserting Dominance
Makes people feel powerless or angry
We walked the body in the cart down to the edge of the river. The hermit walked around to the rear of his cart, stroked the mule’s flank and then embraced Murph, lifting him out of the flat carriage. Sterling and I each grabbed a leg and we walked the last few steps to the river and laid him in. He floated off quickly in the steady current, and in the water past the bulrushes little pools formed where his eyes had been. “Like it never happened, Bartle. That’s the only way,” Sterling said. “Yeah, I know.” I looked at the ground. The dust blowing in fine swirls around my boots. I knew what was coming. Sterling shot the cartwright once, in the face, and he crumpled to the ground. No time to even be surprised by it. The mule began to pull the cart, unbidden, as if by habit. The two dogs followed it into the coming night. We looked back toward the river. Murph was gone.
