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The Things They Carried TestYou must submit this work to by 3pm on Friday. Though you may use your books and notes, this work should reflect integrity and independent thought- you should not collaborate with classmates or depend on online resources (Sparknotes, Shmoop, etc.).For the thread charts, you should show your thorough knowledge of the book and refrain from recycling stories for multiple threads. So, if you use “The Things They Carried” (the first chapter/story, not the book as a whole) in the first chart, you shouldn’t use it again in the other two charts.Refer to the sample chart and essay on pages four and five if it helps you with the task. Please delete the samples and these directions from this document before you upload your work to Good luck and do your best.Part 1: Connecting Stories (40 pts- 10 per chart)Directions: Find connecting threads in Tim O’Brien’s work of fiction- think theme, character, image, motif… This “thread” should extend to a minimum of three stories, but may extend to more. Identify four threads & then fill out the graphic organizer describing the thread’s development through the stories. Finally, come up with a statement about the thread’s significance to the work as a whole.Thread 1S1S2S3Significance:Thread 2S1S2S3Significance:Thread 3S1S2S3Significance:Thread 4S1S2S3Significance:Part 2: Essay (60 pts)Directions: Choose one of the four threads and write an essay about that thread.Here’s an example process for threads based on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - delete the next two pages before you submit your work to Thread 1S1S2S3Thievery connects most major incidents of the novel starting with Tom Sawyer’s band of robbers and ending with Huck’s moral epiphany that he will remain complicit in the “stealing” of Jim.As Tom forms his gang of robbers, he springs Huck from Widow Douglas’s house, and he sets out to steal candles from Miss Watson and Widow Douglas. As an afterthought, he leaves a five-cent payment, creating an innocent baseline for the more egregious violations later in the book. As Huck and Jim drift southward on the Mississippi, Huck slips off the raft late at night to steal watermelons or chickens that “warn’t roosting comfortably.” He thinks of Pap’s pattern of thievery and attempts to rationalize his own actions, calling it “borrowing” rather than stealing, but Huck as well considers that Widow Douglas calls borrowing “a soft name for stealing.”The King and the Duke’s attempt to steal Peter Wilks’ fortune from his daughters initiates Huck’s crisis of conscience, and for the first time, he begins to act of his own accord. To protect the vulnerable daughters, Huck manages to steal for fortune away from the con artists. Under the guidance of his moral compass, Huck’s criminal tendencies and quick-wittedness manage to outcon the con artists.Significance: The incidences of thieving in Huckleberry Finn start innocently enough – with a set of candles, a melon or a chicken, or a laughably-ridiculous pirate con. But the more that is taken, the more Twain indicts theft as the selfish intent that enables one person to violate the needs of another. As Huck remains complicit with the King and Duke’s acts of theft, he sees only a con’s adventure, much like Tom Sawyer’s fantasies but with far graver consequence. As Huck awakens to the suffering of bystanders (most notably the lovely Mary Jane), he experiences a spurt of moral growth that extends to the crux of Twain’s argument – the stealing of a human life through slavery and the racism of reconstruction. Huck’s moral growth leads to his decision to help Jim remain free; it comes from his ability to give up selfish adventure and empathize with others.Thread 2S1S2S3The prevalence of superstitions as markers of either good luck or bad luck underlies most of the major crises in the novel. Both Jim and Huck look to signs to see what prospects lie around each bend in the river, suggesting their attempts to gain power and control over the unexpected. When Huck lives with Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, he continually thinks about bad luck – from the spider to the saltshaker to the hair ball. Even at this point of relative safety in Huck’s life, he fully expects bad luck to follow him.On Jackson’s Island, Jim draws on his knowledge of nature and his reliance on superstitions to move them to the safety of the cave. When he sees the birds moving en masse, he knows that a massive storm is on its way. Jim’s knowledge of signs gives him some authority and control over their perilous situation.After Huck plays the second trick on Jim, leaving the snakeskin on his bedding, the two characters anticipate retribution for violating the superstitious laws of good omens and bad omens. Huck even asks Jim if there are any signs for good luck. Jim replies, “Mighty few…. What you want to know when good luck’s a-comin’ for? Want to keep it off?”Significance: In times of danger and uncertainty, especially for black men and women living under the draconian control of racism, people often rely on the natural world and superstitions to offer a sense of control over the uncontrollable. Jim relies on his understanding of signs, frequently rooted in nature or in spirituality to guide him out of risk and to give him solace. Most of his signs are omens -- they warn him of bad luck, of incidences out of his control. But what Jim fears the most and relies on signs to interpret are the acts of white supremacy. He creates an elaborate story about witches taking his hat or about the bad luck of a snake skin, but the real concern are white people who deny his humanity, even to the point that young boys play tricks on him for their own amusement. But Jim’s knowledge and understanding of the world through superstitions does give his character humanity -- he often guides Huck to high ground, both literal and moral high ground. Thread 3S1S2S3Clothes and their social signifiers differentiate dirty, thread-bare rags from clean, starchy duds. These divides continue through the entirety of Huck’s experiences. As he shifts from one set of experiences to the other, the clothes mark his comfort or discomfort with his own internal state or with social divides.As Huck settles into life with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, he struggles as much with the starchy clothes as with the moral strictures and lessons. He finds it impossible to “behave” and strikes out for the woods where his new clothes get stained and torn. He’s happy even as he faces Miss Watson’s agitation.Once Pap kidnaps Huck to the woods, he gladly takes up the comfortable rags of freedom and social exile, but Pap’s beatings end that short-lived release. Fueled by resentment, Pap’s rant targets the white-shirted black man for the audacity to top Pap’s drunken sloth and clothes “not fitten’ for a hog.” To carry off a scheme for Peter Wilks’ fortune, the King and Duke rely on clothes as social camouflage. Huck notes the way that “clothes could change a body” – and those clothes are the crucial element to the King’s manipulation of social barriers. Significance: Clothes act as a central tool of social engineering and social control as Huck moves though his journey of strange social situations – as Huck attempts to make sense of the way the social norms in these situations work, it is often the clothes that mark who belongs and who doesn’t. Pap’s racism fixates on the black man’s appearance for what Pap perceives as his transgression of the social order, leaving Pap relegated to a lower rank and inferior dress. But the King and Duke uses those social signs to their advantage as they dress for the con, and manage to convince unsuspecting targets of their status. Only on the raft with Jim does Huck find escape from the societal constraints that clothing communicates. With Jim, he takes leisurely swims and the river and sits talking about life with his unadorned body relaxed and at ease. In the liminal space of freedom between the threadbare exile of Pap and the starchy propriety of Miss Watson, Huck can finally be his true self.Here’s an example essay drawing on thread three, flushing it out with more evidence and commentary, and a cohesive argument -- your essay only needs two body paragraphs, but this argument needed three:In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, first published in 1884 during the throes of reconstruction, Mark Twain sets out to show the lingering problems of racism and the fallacy of social transformation. After a long trip down the Mississippi, he finds that the living conditions for supposedly-emancipated slaves have languished under the racist intent of preserving social order. He draws on Huck Finn’s outsider stance as a tabula rasa to reflect on the hypocrisy of a world that supposedly propounds social mobility but reinforces social divides at every turn. Twain sets up clothing and the social signifiers they carry as one of the key tools of reifying social divides. As Huck navigates a world that defines people according to their social classes, the difference between dirty, thread-bare rags from clean, starchy duds mean the difference between social propriety and social pariah, between acceptance and exile. These divides continue through the entirety of Huck’s experiences. As he shifts from one set of experiences to the other, the clothes mark his comfort or discomfort, both with his own internal state or with those social divides.Throughout the book, clothes signal the rules of social propriety, but nowhere is it more prominent than the beginning of the novel in the household of Widow Douglas and Miss Watson. As Huck settles into a life of respectability, he struggles as much with the starchy clothes as with the moral strictures and lessons. Despite their best efforts to “sivilize” Huck through guidance on table manners and biblical stories, Huck bristles against the seemingly nonsensical guidelines about prayer, school, and propriety (2). He finds it impossible to “to try to behave” and strikes out for the woods where his new clothes get “greased up and clayey” the mark of the natural world beyond polite rules and status (3, 10). Even as he faces Miss Watson’s agitation for his lack of care to social status, he longs for freedom from that propriety. Once Pap kidnaps his son to the woods, Huck gladly takes up the comfortable rags of freedom and social exile, but he soon discovers resentment rooted in exile, and the clothing that marks one as an outsider in each social environment. Even for Huck, the escape of tattered clothes in the woods is short-lived as Pap’s beatings and bitterness overtake Huck’s feeling of freedom. Fueled by resentment, Pap’s rant targets the white-shirted black man for the audacity to outclass Pap’s drunken sloth and his clothes “not fitten’ for a hog” (28). Pap’s racism fixates on the black man’s “fine clothes” for what Pap perceives as his transgression of the social order (29). If clothes allow the black man to climb in social status, clothing also leaves Pap alone relegated to lower rank. Though he lacks social standing, he still works to preserve its signifiers. But the King and Duke use those social signs to their advantage as they dress for the con, and manage to convince unsuspecting targets of their status. To carry off a scheme for Peter Wilks’ fortune, the King and Duke rely on “store clothes” as social camouflage. Huck notes the way that new “clothes could change a body” – and those clothes are the crucial element to the King’s manipulation of social barriers (161). The clothes enable the con artists with their ridiculous accents and bumbling mistakes to be accepted by polite society. In the juxtaposition of Pap’s resentment over social climbing and the King’s predatory use of those same social signals, Twain demonstrates the hypocrisy of America’s fixation on appearance and the way it buttresses class divides. Only on the raft with Jim does Huck find escape from the societal constraints that clothing communicates. He cares for nothing and needs for nothing -- neither the starchy clothes of polite society, the dirty rags of social exclusion, or the fraudulent costumes of the con. With Jim, he takes leisurely swims, awaiting the dawn’s appearance over the river and sits talking about life, his unadorned body relaxed and at ease:Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the day-light come. Not a sound anywheres—perfectly still—just like the whole world was asleep… And afterwards we would watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by lazy off to sleep. (120-121)The description of dawn is nearly edenic -- a hushed awe insulates Huck and Jim from the world’s cares, and from the problems of race and class division. In the liminal space of freedom between the threadbare exile of Pap and the starchy propriety of Miss Watson, Huck can finally be his true self. He can be a friend to a black man; he can act of his own accord without the strain of social strictures or worry about moral questions. As Huck moves though his journey of strange social situations, clothes act as a central tool of social engineering and social control. As Huck attempts to make sense of the way the social norms in these situations work, it is often the clothes that mark who belongs and who doesn’t. As Twain grapples with the failures of emancipation and reconstruction, he argues for the hypocrisy of an American society that presents itself with such goodness, propriety and progress, yet we continue to signify social status and enforce social judgments through the mundane articles of clothing -- these sartorial choices mark us as included or exiled in every room we enter. Only renegade river urchins like Huck Finn, after some struggle and failure, seem to rise above these coded rules. Maybe there’s some hope for the rest of us. ................
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