Thoughts before class

Hey all:

So I am looking forward to hearing from you all in class today. I have been reading through your blogs and I am impressed by many. We will spend sometime at the end of class today going through your blogs and we will leave at least twenty minutes so that for those of you who have difficulty with the technical aspects of blogs, experts from the class will be able to help. So come in with your questions.

I hope you are spending a few minutes looking at other people's blogs--especially the one's about Jarhead. I use these blogs to help steer me to our classroom discussions. Tom wonders why so many writers write about war. It's true--especially in the first half of the century (think Hemmingway, think Dos Passos)--and I often wonder about that myself. War is all about love and death (I think here of the Vietnam War writer Tim O'Brien writing in The Things They Carried, "It's not a War Story, It's a love story" 85) and so it is perfect fodder for the novel and especially the memoir.

Speaking of memoir, I am interested that so many people wrote in their blogs that Jarhead is a novel. It's an easy slip but there are very big differences between the two in terms of reactions from people. If this was a "novel" would it be any good? Matt is frustrated that this book is not in a chronological format and memoirs usually are in order. Why do you think that Swofford writes the book in such a disjunctive way?

But maybe Matt is like Jessica who just doesn't like the book at all because it is too filled with machismo and military language. Kevin is even more blunt about how this book offends him. Maybe Jessica and Kevin are onto something--is this memoir just too macho? Stag doesn't think so; he thinks that Swofford is just a regular American guy and the raunchiness is something that he liked. MissRN liked the book so much that she wants to be a Marine!

Finally, like many of us, Complete BS doesn't really know what to think about Jarhead. He questions the authenticity of the book and wonders about a lot of the factual stuff--if you are that drunk all the time, how do you remember what exactly happens?

And even more finally, we have Jose who has been doing a few things on his blog that I think everyone should read. I'm not sure what he is talking about, but I like it.

[There are many more blogs that I could mention but I am running out of time. My office hours are filled so I need to prepare for our class before them]

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I was thinking about how to structure this class and while last week we discussed the Play in chronological order, since Jarhead is all over the place I think it might be more interesting to think about this play in terms of large themes. While I certainly want to hear from you what you specifically want to discuss, there are a few that I think we should definitely do. Below are a list and some beginning thoughts on a few of these themes. NOTE BENE: One thing that is important to remember is that we need to not just talk from our opinions or even just from our life experiences--rather, we are analyzing this memoir and so textual analysis will be very important to do. Being able to refer to the text to make a case is a skill to learn--and not an easy one at that. Tonight, though, let's all work on it.

1) Novel vs Memoir
I think I first want to start out our discussion about what these two terms mean. Are they the same? What is a crucial difference. Quite possibly it is all about the idea of Truth. Novels are fictional but memoirs are all about Truth. Or are they? Look at what Swofford says on Page 2.
If this is not exactly what happens, does it matter? I think here of James Frey and the fallout after his memoir was revealed to have fictional scenes. Why is it so important that truth equals what exactly happened?

2)Ezra Pound's Quote
Swofford begins this memoir with a quote from Ezra Pound's Canto. Why? Why Pound and not, say, Mettalica (who has many of the same dark ideas)? Find something in the book that helps
support your ideas and helps explicate the lines from the poem.

3)Media and the War
As a big film buff, I was fascinated by Swofford's thoughts that films about wars--especially Vietnam films--no matter how "anti-war" they are supposed to be, are actually porn to soldiers (again, Swofford generalizes about Jarheads and say that they are all alike--except, of course, for him who seems to think he is different from typical marines in a few ways). Thinking about films that most of us have seen, I began to rethink some of these scenes and maybe Swofford is onto something: Apocalypse Now's famous "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" or the music while they burn bridges. Or Platoon (1:30 into the clip). Or the Full Metal Jacket scene that Swofford writes about (page 6, 64).

4)Drill Instructor Burke and Seik
It seems as if every war film has a scene with the Drill Instructor. Jarhead is not different. What are his characteristics. What is Swofford's immediate reaction, as well as his later one? What about his thoughts on Seik? (88) Of course, we have to go to Full Metal Jacket where there is the classic Drill Sergeant scene.

5)Language
There seems to be another "jarhead" language in this book. Identify a few scenes where this is the case and then explain why you think this other language is included.

6)Yukimo
While we will talk about Swofford's relationship with the opposite sex, I do want to spend sometime with his relationship with Yumiko (33-37) that, in a weird way, was a lot more positive that with his girlfriend Kristina. Why? And how does the fact that she is Japanese affect the wya we think about this relationship?

7)The Brotherhood
Homosocial relationships is the basis of Jarhead. He describes the Core as a dysfunctional family (110) and spends many pages writing about the deep relationships that he has with other men in the Core. While it might seem obvious why, I really want to get at is what is the basis of the relationships. Is it the Marine logic? Is it the fear of death? Is it just what happens when you get a group of guys together. Here. I want us to find textual references that will help us break down the brotherhood that forms. (examples 50-51, 75-81)

8)Father-Son relationships
While the father appears more specifically in the second half of this memoir, there are a few scenes with Swofford and his Dad (39-41, 49, 59 specifically but there are others). What is the relationship like? Is it a solid one? One built on authority? Is the marines a way that Swofford learns to be a man (128-129) when he can't get the training from his dad?

9)The Politics
One thing that always interests me when I read and think about the politics of the current war is what do soldiers think about it? Where is politics mentioned in Jarhead? What do you think he thinks about why he is fighting. Does his personal political beliefs matter? Also, interesting is Swofford's comments to the German women about war (114).

10)Swofford's thoughts of suicide
This scene (70) always seems to come out of nowhere and after a few pages I had to reread it because I am confused. Do you think he was going to pull the trigger? Why does Troy think he is thinking about suicide? Does this make you think of him any differently as a warrior/ a man? a writer? What about his almost counter-intuitive logic about suicide (74)?

11)Swofford's realtionship to women
I'm expecting this to be a pretty volatile conversation and I am interested in what you all have to say about this. But I do not want this to be all of us falling back on gender stereotypes and the simplistic "well men are like that and women are like this" argument. Stick to actual passages. Find where he writes about what women mean to him (women in general or specific women). Break down his words and reveal the complexities of his statements. [Do not use the three scenes listed below--I want to speak about these in detail]

12)The "Field-Fuck"
This scene is one that is mentioned in the book. There seems to be a lot different version in the film. Go through this scene and examine why Swofford writes that they did it. While they were performing the act on each other, who were they also doing it to? See 21.

13)The Wall of Shame
This is a scene (91-94) that I'm not sure how to read. I feel sympathy for Swofford and then also disgusted by the act. What is the wall? What does he write underneath the picture? Why does he need this public validation?

14)The Home porno film
A very strange scene. While the answer may seem obvious, why do the men want to see the film? Is it just for the sex? Or is it something else? Is it because they got one over on the Army? Or is it a type of self flagellation--they can laugh at the poor cuckolded grunt but they are also knowing or thinking that this is happening to them as well.

15)Swofford and Dettman
When Swofford puts the gun in the ear of Dettman and thinks about pulling the trigger (103), has he suddenly become a good marine?

16)The dream of Sex and Death
Throughout the book, sex and death are linked very concretely. Never so clear as on page 124-125. What is this relationship and why is it so connected? Is this just Swofford's issue or is it something more relevant to all of us?

17)The STA
Why did Swofford join the snipers? How does he feel about them (and consequently other marines not in the STA). What's the value of him being a sniper in a war that relies so heavily on advanced technology?

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Okay, so these are some of the general themes and passages that I want to talk about tonight. It's a lot, so we all better bring our 'A" game!

Onward!