Hello fellow bloggers and faithful readers,
I hope that your weekend was wonderful and fulfilled all your wildest dreams.
My turn has come to be the class blogger for our most recent round of blogs. The majority of the blogs included some element of reference towards a short story that we recently read in class by Richard Klay called Redeployment, as well as The Reluctant Fundamentalist written by Mohsin Hamid.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist recalls the story of a Pakistani man expanding on the trials of being moving from Pakistan to America and accepting and rejecting certain elements of American culture. The story then follows his path as 9/11 occurs. The protagonist, Changez, experiences the after effects of being Muslim in America and proceeds to move back to Pakistan. In Redeployment Richard Klay writes about a soldier returning home from war and the psychological effects that it has on a person to readjust to civilian life.
Grace wrote her blog on Redeployment with emphasis on the psychological trials of being a veteran. She discussed how societies views of veterans is socially constructed. She says how we glamorize them into heroes in a way that they don’t want. Graces compared this to Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, and how in that book veterans don’t want to have to toil in pain or die, they just want to integrate into normal life. The main character in Redeployment struggles through a similar battle as he fights to adjust to civilian life.
Jackson and Joseph both blogged about Redeployment, especially the usage of dogs in the novel. Joseph elaborates on how he feels Klay uses dogs as a metaphor. Joseph then moves onto the value of dogs and why they are seen as man’s best friend. He insists, “dog is a mans best friend because he cannot empathize”. I see this connection to empathy as especially relevant in a novel about war. War and killing for your country is a time when people are pushed to their limits to distance themselves from empathy. Joseph clearly sees this connection. Jackson used dogs as a central theme of his blog to communicate his thoughts. One point that he made that I found compelling was the acknowledgement to the fact that most war movies and stories end gloriously whereas Redeployment ends open ended with unanswered questions.
Alex also wrote about Redeployment and the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He notes that recent years has shown more emphasis and treatment towards PTSD, at least in the media. He makes the interesting comparison between inward and outward trauma and how one shows their trauma. I found that last point especially thought provoking, it made me attempt to comprehend how difficult it must be for some soldiers returning home. They spend their whole time in the army training to become a well-oiled machine who can function with a unit and as a unit. To return home to find that the machine that you’ve built of yourself is failing must be incredibly difficult, especially when you’re too afraid to share this internal failure.
Melissa wrote about The Reluctant Fundamentalist and the way that it can be perceived as a romance novel. She draws the comparison between Changez relationship with America as similar to America’s relationship with the Middle East. She realizes that even though Changez goes back to Pakistan he still has a little bit of America in him. She compares this to how even though America has withdrawn from the Middle East the Middle East still has bits of America in it.
As always, it was an absolute pleasure being humbled by the intelligence and insight that my classmates provide me with. I look forward to reading more and continuing to be amazed at just how smart you guys all are.
Study safe!
Isaiah