We study literature by analyzing the author's literary choices and style to interpret the message they are trying to convey.

2. How are we affected by literary texts in various ways? How are we impacted by TTTC?
We are affected by literary texts in the way they challenge or add to our thinking. By reading TTTC, I have learned more about the how one handles loss, the effects of expectations from a community, and the trauma caused by war.

3. In what ways is meaning constructed, negotiated, expressed and interpreted in TTTC?
Meaning is constructed in TTTC through O'Brien's choice of literary devices. By analyzing why O'Brien chose to use the literary device in his writing, his purpose, or meaning, is also constructed.

4. How does the structure of style of TTTC affect its meaning?
The structure of style of TTTC affects its meaning as since it is composed of vignettes and not a story that is presently playing out, many of the themes revolve around self-reflection or how it affected O'Brien himself.

Rat shrugged.                                 

He stepped back and shot it through the right front knee.     

The animal did not make a sound. It went down hard, then 

got up again, and Rat took careful aim and shot off an ear. 

He shot it in the hindquarters and in the little hump at its             5

back. He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn't to kill; it was 

to hurt. He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and 

shot the mouth away. Nobody said much. The whole pla-

toon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but 

there wasn't a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo.             10

Curt Lemon was dead. Rat Kiley had lost his best friend in 

the world. Later in the week he would write a long personal 

letter to the guy's sister, who would not write back, but for 

now it was a question of pain. He shot off the tail. He shot 

away chunks of meat below the ribs. All around us there was         15

the smell of smoke and filth and deep greenery, and the eve-

ning was humid and very hot. Rat went to automatic. He 

shot randomly, almost casually, quick little spurts in the 

belly and butt. Then he reloaded, squatted down, and shot 

it in the left front knee. Again the animal fell hard and tried         20

to get up, but this time it couldn't quite make it. It wob-

bled and went down sideways. Rat shot it in the nose. 

He bent forward and whispered something, as if talking to a pet, 

then he shot it in the throat. All the while the baby buffalo 

was silent, or almost silent, just a light bubbling sound where         25

the nose had been. It lay very still. Nothing moved except 

the eyes, which were enormous, the pupils shiny black and 

dumb. 

Rat Kiley was crying. He tried to say something, but then 

cradled his rifle and went off by himself.                     30

The rest of us stood in a ragged circle around the baby 

buffalo. For a time no one spoke. We had witnessed some-

thing essential, something brand-new and profound, a piece 

of the world so startling there was not yet a name for it. 

Somebody kicked the baby buffalo.                     35

It was still alive, though just barely, just in the eyes. 

"Amazing," Dave Jensen said. "My whole life, I never seen 

anything like it." 

"Never?" 

"Not hardly. Not once."                             40

(O’Brien 75-76)

Extract 3 (From “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”)

"You just don't know," she said. "You hide in this lit-                

tle fortress, behind wire and sandbags, and you don't know 

Sometimes I want to eat this place. The whole country

—the dirt, the death—I just want to eat it and have 

it there inside me. That's how I feel. It's like this appetite. I                 5

get scared sometimes—lots of times— but it's not bad. You 

know? I feel close to myself. When I'm out there at night, 

I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, 

my skin and my fingernails, everything, it's like I'm full of 

electricity and I'm glowing in the dark—I'm on fire almost                10

—I'm burning away into nothing—but it doesn't matter be-

cause I know exactly who I am. You can't feel like that any-

where else." 

All this was said without drama, as if to herself, her 

voice slow and impassive. She was not trying to persuade.                 15

 For a few moments she looked at Mark Fossie, who seemed 

to shrink away, then she turned and moved back into the 

gloom. 

There was nothing to be done. 

Rat took Fossie's arm, helped him up, and led him out-            20

side. In the darkness there was that weird tribal music, 

which seemed to come from the earth itself, from the deep 

rain forest, and a woman's voice rising up in a language be-

yond translation. 

Mark Fossie stood rigid.                            25

"Do something," he whispered. "I can't just let her go like

 that." 

Rat listened for a time, then shook his head. 

"Man, you must be deaf. She's already gone." 

Rat Kiley stopped there, almost in midsentence, which             30

drove Mitchell Sanders crazy. 

"What next?" he said. 

"Next?" 

"The girl. What happened to her?" 

Rat made a small, tired motion with his shoulders. "Hard             35

to tell for sure. Maybe three, four days later I got orders to report 

here to Alpha Company. Jumped the first chopper out, that's 

the last I ever seen of the place. Mary Anne, too." 

Mitchell Sanders stared at him. 

"You can't do that."                                 40

(O’Brien 106-107)

Extract 2 (From “On the Rainy River”)

I could've done it. I could've jumped and                     

started swimming for my life. Inside me, in my chest, I felt 

a terrible squeezing pressure. Even now, as I write this, I 

can still feel that tightness. And I want you to feel it—the wind 

coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier.             5

You're at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You're 

twenty-one years old, you're scared, and there's a hard 

squeezing pressure in your chest. 

What would you do? 

Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself?                 10

Would you think about your family and your childhood and 

your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? 

Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did? 

I tried to swallow it back. I tried to smile, except I was 

crying.                                     15

Now, perhaps, you can understand why I've never told 

this story before. It's not just the embarrassment of tears. 

That's part of it, no doubt, but what embarrasses me much 

more, and always will, is the paralysis that took my heart.

A moral freeze: I couldn't decide, I couldn't act, I couldn't                 20

comport myself with even a pretense of modest human dig-

nity. 

All I could do was cry. Quietly, not bawling, just the 

chestchokes. 

At the rear of the boat Elroy Berdahl pretended not to             25

notice. He held a fishing rod in his hands, his head bowed 

to hide his eyes. He kept humming a soft, monotonous lit-

tle tune. Everywhere, it seemed, in the trees and water and 

sky, a great worldwide sadness came pressing down on me, 

a crushing sorrow, sorrow like I had never known it before.                 30

And what was so sad, I realized, was that Canada had be-

come a pitiful fantasy. Silly and hopeless. It was no lon-

ger a possibility. Right then, with the shore so close, I un-

derstood that I would not do what I should do. I would not 

swim away from my hometown and my country and my life.            35

I would not be brave. That old image of myself as a hero, as 

a man of conscience and courage, all that was just a thread-

bare pipe dream. Bobbing there on the Rainy River, looking 

back at the Minnesota shore, I felt a sudden swell of help-

lessness come over me, a drowning sensation, as if I had...                 40

(O’Brien 54-55)

Chronicle offers insight into Columbian culture by portraying the importance of machismo, marianismo, and honor within the community by showing how those cultural expectations seemed to be valued over other people's lives.

Pages 77-79
"I found Maria Alejandra Cervantes awake… was like being awake twice over."
Pages 73-74

"The body had been exposed...and the house was silent again."

Morrison's use of a stream of consciousness reveals the natures the relationships of the women of 124, which helps bring clarity to Sethe's convoluted actions of love and help develop the reasoning behind their actions. The reasoning behind their actions is then tested when facing the consequences of their actions, thus developing more on the meaning of how the past intertwines with the future. The shifting points of view also impact the meaning by developing the community in the story, and show how side characters feel about the main characters.  The side character's past opinions about the main character's change throughout the book due to the actions they take, and by describing what they see through their eyes, the reader is put into a fleshed out world rather than simply peering through a looking glass. The use of 

of analepsis and prolepsis also impact the meaning that the past is intertwined with the future, by quickly transitioning to a flashback or a flashforward between chapters.
Time and Space

Cultural and historical context is very important to the production and reception of a literary text. With the story of Margaret Garner, a slave who killed her own children because slave catchers were following the fugitive slave law, had been portrayed as an animal and a reason as to why slaves should stay slaves. However, the story develops the idea that she did it out of love for her children and fear of how slaves were treated. Although some people push away slavery, the book reminds them to confront the past, as running away from the past can lead to impacting consequences.