Checkers

In chapter 3 "Spin", I like the little side story about how 2 soldiers would play checkers every evening when it turned dark. The author explains on page 31, "There was something restful about it, something orderely and reassuring...the pieces were out on the board, the enemy wass visible, you could watch the tactics unfolding into larger strategies. There was a winner and a loser. There were rules." I really like this passage becuase it is a great metaphor for how the Vietnam war is not. The war that they were fighting was pretty much an all out guerrila war through a thick jungle and the Americans were far outnumbered, and their more advanced weapons did not help them much. The game of checkers was completely the opposite where there was an organized manner to things. Another thing that stuck out was the phrase: there was a winner and a loser. In the war, neither of the sides seemed to be winning the war and thats what probably what drove a lot of the soldiers crazy.

metaphor in my opinion

In chapter 10, I believe that Hemingway was using a metaphor that reflected the relationship between Jake and Brett. The passage starts page 98 and says: "You couldn't see the sea. It was too far away. You could see only hills and more hills, and you knew where the sea was." This describes perfectly the relationship of the two and is, therefore, very effective. With Jake, Brett is present much of the book with him. However, it is impossible for him to get physically and emotionally close to him becuase of his wound and she pushes him off every time that he tries. This resemble the metaphor of the hills and the sea. All the hills, which were the only things he could see, represent all the pain and difficulty he has to go through without truly being able to be with Brett, which represents the sea. This could be a stretch, but this was the first thing that went through my mind when I read this passage.