Blog#3 Assignment-Option A

In the story "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, the author describes Kiowa as a Baptist who carries distrust for white men. His personality is pretty unique and original. He's sympathetic, closely attached to his New Testament, likes "...[H]earing the sounds of night"(400), enjoys "...[N]ot being dead"(400), takes life for granted everyday he's alive, shows admiration for others and happy to be alive. Kiowa likes to say the phrase "boom down" repetitively throughout the story and thinks about death constantly. He also uses a lot of profanity in the story. For example when he describes the death of Ted Lavender he says "...[T]he poor bastard just flat-f*** fell"(394). When Kiowa interacts with the other men they smoke together, don't talk much, drink Kool-Aid, laugh together, make jokes, tell stories mostly about Ted Lavender, stand tough and learn morals together. Kiowa carried a lot of things such as his New Testament, "...[H]is grandfather's feather hatchet"(395), "...[A] steel centered nylon flak jacket"(393), a large bandage, "...[A] green plastic poncho"(393), many weapons, "...[A] pair of moccasins"(396), pens, pencils, razor blades, trip flares, candles, safety pins and even more stuff. The things Kiowa carries is mostly for safety and protection. He also carries things that belong to his family such as his hatchet. Throughout the story Kiowa remained a static character because he retained the same characteristics from the beginning to the end of the story without really changing. He used words repetitively and described the same things over and over again like the death of Ted Lavender. He also keeps proclaiming his love for the New Testament throughout the story. I choose to study the character of Kiowa because he grabbed my attention with his phrases and he seemed to be a pretty interesting person. Very different from the rest of the characters in the story. Besides Jimmy Cross, Kiowa's character stood out the most to me. He isn't afraid to speak his mind and seems to be a confident individual. He has a good sense of humor and made me laugh in the story which I found engaging to me. It's puzzling how Kiowa uses so much profanity when he talks with the other men. He sounds so disrespectful to them. Other than that, I found his sympathetic side relevant to me because I also have a soft side. I enjoyed analyzing Kiowa's character and learned a lot of new things about him.