Love is defined as a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. The bible defines love somewhat similarly. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres”. This kind of love is known in a marriage, however not all marriages are lucky enough to share this type of love. This love is also a spiritual love; not a physical attraction. In Donne’s Valediction, the author explains that true love is more than just physical and it continues even after death; while in Minty’s Conjoined, she shows how people in a marriage can have a dissatisfying connection. Both authors convey this by using figurative language such as similes and the use of diction, or assonance.
Many couples think death is the end to all relationships, but to Donne it is only another trial the couple faces together. In his poem, he writes using a simile that says: “As virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper to their souls to go, whilst some of their sad friends do say the breath goes now, and some say, no”. This simile in the opening stanza is about the men on their deathbeds who are leaving their loved ones. One may think this is the end, but Donne shows that they will be apart for a short while, but then they will eventually be reunited in a spiritual life. These lovers are connected more than just on a physical level; they have spiritual love that will keep on going even if death separates them from each other. This simile explains that death is not something that is going to split a couple’s relationship.
Similarly, Minty uses similes to explain the purpose of her poem. She declares that the couple is “like the two-headed calf rooted in one body, fighting to suck at its mother’s teats”. This image is not only odd, but distasteful in one’s mind. This is exactly how the man and woman view their marriage. Both of them believe their marriage to be strange, and not ordinary. These married people in the poem are pulling at each other to satisfy themselves, instead of trying to satisfy their partner. The man and woman are conjoined or “joined as one” and that means that they are supposed to work together through everything to make their marriage work successfully, but the couple feels as if they are trapped in their marriage. However, the two people are not happy with the connection they share with one another and so they are constantly fighting each other just “like the two-headed calf”.
The assonance in Valediction helps reveal the author’s attitude on love. For example, Donne says that “Dull sublunary lovers’ love (whose soul is sense) cannot admit absence, because it doth remove those things which elemented it”. The beginning of this line uses the letter “u” to show how boring it is to only have a physical love connection. The sublunary, or “earthy”, love can only be lived on earth. It stops after death, while true love is just beginning after death. This also explains the word absence in the poem because that type of a relationship is lacking in real love. Real love does more than depend on physical attraction; it strives even when the love is miles apart. A couple does not have to be together all day everyday to be satisfied because that man and woman know that what they share is worth everything. It is a spiritual love.
The diction in conjoined does a great deal to illustrate the struggle of marriage. Minty states that “ the onion in my cupboard, a monster actually… an accident, like the two-headed calf rooted in one body… or like those other freaks, Chang and Eng, twins joined at the chest” is just like marriage. The author uses words like “monster”, “accident”, and “freaks” because these words provide a negative connotation about the life of a husband and a wife. The “monster” refers to the unhappiness of the couple. The when the marriage is compared to as an “accident”, this signifies how truly horrible the couple’s life is and thus, the author provides her audience with the image of the two-headed calf. The “freaks” or the twins give the audience an ultimate understanding of how this marriage is odd, wrong, and quite foolish. This marriage is a constant battle between the man and the woman who feel like they are conjoined, or stuck, with this person.
Marriage is an amazing joining of two people, only if they truly love each other. A marriage is nothing if it is based solely on physical appeal. Love is supposed to last forever. It should not stop after death; if it is a spiritual love, than the love will continue on eternally. In both poems, both authors use figurative language to convey their point. Minty demonstrates how marriage can be rough and not right for some people and Donne shows how spiritual love triumphs physical love.

This article that Jim Neilson wrote about The Things They Carried gives a whole new understanding on how to read this book. Neilson proves that O’Brien’s approach to telling made up war stories is a great way to explain the conditions and trials that the soldiers go through during the war. I realize how effective this method of writing is now that I understand why he is writing this way. Neilson says that even with O’Brien writing this way, he “has been faithful both to Vietnam and to the stories told about it”.
Neilson gives great insight on what The Things They Carried is trying to convey. I believe that the most useful insight I got out of this was about O’Brien’s style of writing while he wrote this book. Neilson says that “with the facts of Vietnam in such a flux, perhaps some small measure of comfort can be taken in the certainty that eventually everyone will be wrong. The facts, in Vietnam, make liars of us all” (59). “It is within this framework—the belief that the war escapes understanding and representation and even makes us liars—that O’Brien attempts to tell a true war story”. This basically explains that since everything is all messed up anyways, all people are liars. Since O’Brien’s audiences were not part of the war, they will usually believe anything that they hear because they were not there to witness it for themselves. This makes O’Brien’s approach very effective, because no one really knows if it is true or not. Neilson says that “those who have had any such experience as the author will see its fruitfulness at once, and to all the other readers it is commended as a statement of actual things by who experienced them to the fullest. This essentially means that people have to experience for themselves and make their own opinions on things.
Jim Neilson believes that O’Brien’s novel is not believable and he criticizes him for it. I agree with Neilson because I do not think O’Brien’s book is realistic. Maybe, since I have not seen for myself the events of war, I cannot fully understand this book; which clouds my opinion on this subject. Because of this I agree with the criticism that Neilson has towards O’Brien’s writing.

So, this book so far is very interesting to read and I think I like this book the best because it is somewhat down to earth, but it also has hidden meanings and themes. I believe that there are many different themes for this book, especially because I believe each chapter is portraying a different theme. For example, I think that the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” represents how people tell stories to show the truth of what he or she experienced, but changing some details to show the true hardships that he or she went through. Tim O’Brien does this by having the characters constantly contradicting each other, which explains how the reader does not know who to trust and fully believe. O’Brien wants his audience to realize that real truth of a story is not as important as the actual story telling in general. Another theme for the book is described throughout the entire book and basically is summed up by the title The Things They Carried. The title of the book can have many different meanings and since reading the book, I have uncovered some of the meaning. I believe that when a person goes to war, they end up experiencing things that they will never forget. So, the title of the book reveals that the soldiers are carrying big loads, literally and figuratively. The men in the stories are carrying the essentials along with many heavy instruments that are needed in war. Not only are they physically carrying things, they are encountering bizarre things that they have to carry with them the rest of there lives. Some things they deal with are some of their friends being killed, trying to stay alive themselves, and just knowing that the whole country they are representing are all counting on them. This book is a true, fake story of what happened during the war through the eyes of a soldier. This book is filled with many themes, and I know I will encounter many more as I keep reading.

Alright, so first I am going to talk about the word modernism for a brief moment. “Modernism is a blanket term for an explosion of new styles and trends in the arts in the first half of the 20th century” (Postmodernism for Beginners). This basically explains that there are certain styles that are portrayed in this era. So, with that in mind what does postmodernism mean? Well, the dumb, easy answer would be to say that it is modernism (just a few years later). However, that is not all of it. “Postmodernism- whatever it is- is an attempt to make sense of what is going on” (Postmodernism for Beginners). Postmodernism is a way for people to understand what is happening in the world today. It is very confusing because everyone has their own opinions and experiences of what is going on today, which makes it hard to get a clear and distinct understanding of postmodernism. There is no one truth because the world can not come to an agreement about anything whether it is about religion, morality, politics, social life, of life in general. Along the lines of this is something called metanarratives, also known as grand narratives. Metanarratives are “big stories, stories of mythic proportions that claim to be able to account for, explain and subordinate all lesser, little, local narratives” (Postmodernism for Beginners). This is another reason why postmodernism can not be fully explained. Metanarratives are simply myths, which can change depending on who is telling the myth at the given time, making it almost impossible to know who is telling the truth, which justifies why there is so much trouble having the world believe the same thing. So, overall I am not sure what the real definition of postmodernism is, but I do know that it is a concept showing the new styles in society. Postmodernism can not be understood fully until the world begins to agree on some things.