We've discussed in class how the many things in our pasts effect our judgements and the way we see others problems or experiences. We always are seeking our own experiences to relate to everyone else's. With that being said; while reading the descriptions that the narrator describes and the pictures the author paints, about the tunnel, I noticed my mind wandering to times when my psychi played tricks on me. taking care of another families house. night time, all alone in a place unfamiliar to me. I remember a heavy weight come across my chest, my body reacting to my mind, worrying my soul of the darkness, of burglary, of rape or of murder. it may be funny know looking back at those illegitimate fears because nothing happened, but at the time they were real. i think O'Brien wants the reader to see how the imagination is a killer of the safe feeling we all have in our live. Under immense mental strain your mind will put images into your thoughts. Many times not being pleasant ones, because lets face it most of the human population are not optimists.
O' Brien, in my opinion, tries to bring this war, which to some of the younger generations is only a thing in the history books, to our vivid minds and imaginations. he wants us to feel what these young soldiers went through. not just read it. through this first part of the reading you feel the desire of Lieutenant Cross to be with Martha, even though he knows she is not his. In the passage on page 10-11 you can imagine, and start to feel, the anxiety that these men felt when they were selected to enter the hole. you feel the thoughts of heavy darkness fill their souls and get a scared sensation through your body. O'Brien makes the thoughts, feelings, smells, and stories real, as if you were there. The line that O'Brien uses before his rightfully exclaims "imagination was a killer" helps to make that line so powerful. he says, "the waiting was worst than the tunnel itself." if you don't have time to think those thoughts don't have time to build in your mind. those fears, generally, don't hit you tell your half way done with your task.
Imagination is generally a killer of dreams, confidence, hope, and security; in the minds eye. With waiting as the precursor.
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For me the statement "Imagination was a killer" is very apt. It is true that we are our own worst enemy. We jump at the shadows, in the darkness every noise could be death on its way to snuff out our last breath. How many times as children did we run to our parents' room, white as a sheet, screaming as though the devil himself were chasing us. Then we find out that it was just a leaky faucet or the house settling or the heater turning on, or something equally as harmless. This is all because human beings are innately pessimistic. I think that we are all acutely aware of our own mortality, and that it scares the heebie-jeebies out of us. We understand how fragile we are. Think that if just a tiny lump forms in your blood you could get a clot in your brain and die in your sleep. Trip over the carpet and you could break your neck and die. So it is natural that we would assume everything to be the worst. When such small things can have such huge consequences then obviously the large things are bound to plague our minds.
ReplyDeleteWhen people are uptight, high-strung, nervous, or anxious, we are at our most vulnerable. It is in this state that we make mistakes. So that is why when people are in any high risk situation that are told "keep calm, stay loose" because in circumstances where your life, or the life of a comrade in arms, depends on your reactions, anxiety can kill. Imagination can kill. In such a situation the worry of what could happen is what could end up costing you your life.
The secret is to be wholly in the moment. Don't worry about what could happen, be prepared for it but don't set yourself up for it. Just focus on what is happening. Mentally catalogue everything you see, touch, taste, or smell if you have to. But don't worry. Try to trust yourself, try not to get bored, keep your imagination in check, cause in the end it could end up getting you killed.