Motivation?

What has driven Waldon to drop everything and explore?

"...and I feel my heart glow with enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose--a point on which a soul may fix its eye" (page 16)

I believe this is written near the beginning of his adventure, so he is still pretty upbeat about the whole thing. Right now (or right then..?) he is motivated by having a goal. The only thing he can see is the end, but not the challenges. So I think he has to ultimately have another form of motivation, and I don't sense that he does. His goal is to find the north pole magnet or something..and I think that's going to get old. I predict that he'll gain something more from this adventure (maybe from Frankenstein?). Maybe it will just be a deeper appreciation for friends and family.. I don't know. I just know that his enthusiasm is going to end soon, even after he met his new best pal Frank.

Still, There Was So Much To Say.

I think I found more motivation for the writing of this book. But I also realized that the lit term "motivation" doesn't meant the author's reason for writing, it means the characters reason for behaving. Buuuut, I'm going to proceed, because Tim is a character and this book is basically about him remembering all these things to write..

Through all Norman's apostrophes, it is easy to tell that when a soldier comes home, he is itching to talk about it, but just doesn't know how. Like I said earlier, no one understands. He keeps replaying fake conversations in his head.. It's so sad. I just want to tell him that I understand that he couldn't save Kiowa..

Norman wanted to talk so bad, but he wouldn't let himself. Then in Tim's own little explication, we find out that Norman actually wanted Tim to write about a man struggling like he did post-war. Tim gave himself purpose by writing all these war stories.

"[The town] did not know shit about shit, and did not care to know" (page 137). (I found this a little bit puny, but in a more serious tone) and then.. "This guy wants to talk about it, but he can't...You were there you tell it" (page 151).

Tim isn't motivated by just preserving these stories, he is motivated by his friends-giving them a voice, so they can move on and find another purpose in their lives.

I Feel Guilty Sometimes.

I don't know who the narrator is yet, but I know he is going to write a book similar to this novel. The narrator represents O'Brien. He tells his readers why he wrote this book and many others through this mysterious character. They share the same motivation. Like Hemingway wrote a novel based on stories from his life in Spain, O'Brien remembers stories from his life at war.

"You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present. The memory-traffic feeds into a rotary up on your head, where it goes in circles for a while, then pretty soon imagination flows in and the traffic merges and shoots off down a thousand different streets. As a writer, all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride, putting things down as they come to you" (page 33).

Well, I guess I just summed up some of his motivation in a quote, which isn't how we are supposed to do it. But I wanted to also point out the imagery O'Brien uses. When I read that passage I see it all happening. I don't know if it helps me better understand his reasonings, but it makes it a lot more interesting. He goes on to also tell us that "stories are for joining the past to the future" (page 36).
In The Sun Also Rises I had to use outside knowledge to come up with a motivation factor, but O'Brien comes straight out with it. I think this is because not everyone (especially in our class) can really relate to these characters who have been in war. So O'Brien assures us that he knows what he is talking about. These are all stories from his memory that he has made into a work of .. historical fiction? By stating his motivation, he has egos.

"Oh, yes," I said. "I'm all right".

I'm in the middle of a chapter, and I usually don't blog until the end, but I feel like I just hit an important moment with Cohn.
Everyone has been giving him such a hard time about following Brett around. He knows everyone hates him now. Even Brett admitted it: "'My God! I'm so sick of him!...I hate him too,...' she shivered". (page 186). (This was a conversation she had with Jake, but we all know Cohn was listening in.
And now I'm going to go all the way back to page one. "He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton" (page 1). Robert was taught to hit when he felt inferior. He doesn't like it, but I think it is instinct. Now everybody is ganging up on him, he was bound to hurt someone. (I think Jake ought to have known that, I mean, he told me.) So I guess my conclusion on Robert is that he was never trying to make anyone annoyed or upset. His motivation are his feelings and I don't think he thinks about others or consequences. I knew from the beginning he was naive. He probably felt he loved Brett so much, and he tells us now that they even used to live together in San Sebastian. They broke up (I'm guessing), she moved on, and he didn't. But he follows his feeling nonetheless. He should get over it, but that's not the way he works.