Christina SchiavoneEnglish II4/5/14

The Wars 

Jason shows all of his emotions through the written word because of his stammer

and the struggle that come with it. “Right now. That’s what freaks me. I dip my fountain

pen into a pot of ink, and a wessex helicopter crashes into a glacier on South Georgia. I

line up my protractor on an angle in my Math book and a Sidewinder missile locks onto a

Mirage III. I draw a circle with my compass and a Welsh Guard stands up in a patch of

burning gorse and gets a bullet through his eye. How can the world just go on, as if none

of this is happening?”(106) The tone of the paragraph is confusion and fear. He shows it

by the way he places his periods and repetitive structure of sentences.

In the chapter Rocks, Jason talks about his parents fighting and the Falkland war

that is happing at the same time. He relates those two wars during the whole chapter

because the parents fighting to him is like a war. It is just as traumatic to him as the real

war happening around him. Jason is scared of what may happen with his parents and

what is happening in Britain. The fear is taking over him and the real world is seeping

into his. He shows his fear by using brief sentences, because he is getting all of his

thoughts out. It seems as if his stammer is now effecting his writing, which reflects how

nervous he is. His stammer happens when he uses certain letters and or if he is nervous or

scared. He starts almost every sentence with “I” and that comes of as if he doesn't know

what other word to use. Jason is so on edge that he is just spitting what is in his head out

on the paper.

In his narration, he incorporates what is happening with him to the events of the

Falkland War. “I dip my fountain pen into a pot of ink, and a wessex helicopter crashes

into a glacier on South Georgia.” As seen here, he describes his dipping of the pen and

the crashing of the helicopter, two unrelated events, in the same sentence, which reflects

Jason’s confusion and anxiety over the matter. Jason concludes his narration by

questioning why everyone around him is acting as if whats is going on is normal. Jason is

affected by two wars at the same time and doesn't know how to react. 

Between the Falkland War and his parents war, Jason is fearing what is going to

happen to him and his family. These are both new experiences for him and he does not

know what to think of them. He is confused and scared of what the future may hold for

him. As a thirteen year old, his fear is very transparent because of the way he structures

his sentences. In the chapter he continues to struggle with the two wars that are surround

him.