Socratic Seminar Questions, Wednesday 11/10/10

1. What opinions are expressed of absolute occurrence compared to story-truth in The Sorrow of War?

2. What is the importance and effect of ghosts in The Sorrow of War?

3. Why do O’Brien and Ninh include women in their novels? How do women influence the novels?

4. Why do O’Brien and Ninh create settings or characters that give soldiers an excuse to behave a certain way? Why is this important?

5. What literary devices are used to represent the jungle as a character in The Sorrow of War and The Things They Carried?

6. How is the idea of aging or time passing shown and reflected in The Sorrow of War? What examples or literary techniques represent this? Why is time important to any war novel?

7. Both Bronte and O’Brien used authorial distance in their novels. How is this used in The Sorrow of War?

8. What is the form of The Sorrow of War? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the style for the reader and the writer?

9. Discuss the differences of the opinion of war between Americans and Vietnamese.

10. Discuss the similarities of characters between The Things They Carried and The Sorrow of War. Why are so many similarities found between the books?