Lovely Literature

The repetition of the names in Edward and the beginning of consecutive lines give the poem a more of a story-like feel to it. Edward seems to be selfish because he speaks of how he has "killed" a hawk and a red-roan steed when he really killed his father. The selfish part comes in when he says he will leave his home and run away. The mother knows that he killed his father and she knew it was going to happen because she asks so many questions as if they were getting their story straight. I am not sure when this poem was written, but I am under the impression that Edward is of high authority, a prince maybe, and he is leaving his kingdom and his people behind. He is also very selfish because he says he will leave his wife and children to beg and starve. At the same time, the poem is very ambiguous because the only time the speaker comes out and actually says what Edward did was when he says he killed his father. There is no reasoning as to why he killed his father or even why he was lying before he said he killed his father. I know that the mother was in on the situation, but I don't understand why he leaves his mother the "curse of hell" then besides the fact that since she knew about it she is cursed. Edward seems like a spoiled brat rich prince who grew up to hate his father and try to overthrow him.

O'Brien truly seems scarred by this one man he "kills" in My Khe. He uses repetition of the same descriptive paragraph several times.

"He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive nor inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole," [page 124].

He was truly shaken up about this. He talks about it later on page 172 and says that he didn't actually kill this man physically, but he felt like he killed him. I think that's what he is saying atleast. This part really confused me...well I won't lie, a good majority of this book is confusing because O'Brien tries to explain that a true war story is never true, but it is always right. Or something along those lines.

Is this a metaphor for all those who died? He feels like he was in this war, connected to all kinds of people who were dead and were killing others. Since he couldn't stop the war himself, did he feel like it was his fault that so many people were killed? I am quite confused. Sometimes when I read books, I feel like I think much deeper than the author did when writing.

He uses repetition to show his shock from staring at this man he didn't even know. O'Brien felt like he killed this man, and he started going through the thought process that the man may have had before entering the war. The repetition establishes that even though he has seen death multiple times, it never becomes easy.