Blog Entry 1

Authors in stories use positive and negative traits to describe a character. They will put the characters into certain circumstances or situations to demonstrate a characters trait to the reader. Also, choices that the character makes can have the reader draw conclusions about the traits of characters. When an author is creating a character in a story, they use five ways to show the reader about the character. One way is that the actions of the characters reveal their qualities as an individual. Their actions and thoughts bring us as the reader insight to who the character really is. For example, in "The Things They Carried", a character named Lieutenant Jimmy Cross wrote letters to this woman named Martha who is a junior in college. He "unwrap the letters, hold them with the tip of his fingers and spend the last hour of light pretending " (97). He would also re lick the envelopes that she sent because her tongue has been on them. To me this showed that even at the time of war, he had a caring and emotional side to him about this girl. But it also seemed to me a little obsessive that he would do that to the envelopes because of a girl he writes letters to. The way the author describes the character is another way we can learn about the character. When the characters are being described, the things they are holding in "The Things They Carry" also shows us about the characters. Henry Hobbins, who was considered a big guy, carried canned peaches because he loved to put the peaches on top of some pound cake. A guy who practiced field hygiene always had a toothbrush and extra soap on him at all times. Lieutenant Cross carried pictures of his love. To me, this showed me that the men carried something with them that reminded them of life before the war. So in a way it brought them that sense of being normal again. Sometimes what other characters say about one another can show how they are perceived to each other. "The lieutenant is in some deep hurt... the man cares" (103). The lieutenant was in fact a caring person because other people saw his emotions and told the reader how that certain character was. What a character says in their dialogue can show as a reader how that individual is. It can show us the character's attitudes and feelings towards certain situations and that character traits. An observer or the storyteller speaking to the reader can provide their own judgments about the characters giving us more insight. The storyteller in "The Things They Carry" was describing that carrying something extra then the necessities was a lot due to the extra weight. "To carry something was to hump it, as when Lieutenant Jimmy Cross humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps" (98). When he would carry the pictures of Martha, it was showing the care he had for her and he had her everywhere he went. In my opinion, it is thoughtful and sweet that he would carry pictures of her with him but its weird because they were never in a relationship all they did was send letters to each other and they never expressed any love in those letters. Writers give multiple ways for us as the reader to get insight on the characters in the story and be able to relate and understand them as we read along.