Etto...I'd say that one way "Speaking of Courage" speaks of courage, so to speak, would be Norman Bowker's story. Not the completely obvious fact that he talks about getting medals, nor the fact that his father would have most likely
Rather, I get the feeling he spoke of courage in a subtle, allusion-like way... Where am I going with this...
Whenever he imagined conversations about that night in the $#!+ field, Norman Bowker was really inwardly saying, "So, speaking of courage...I got all those medals, but I couldn't cut it when it mattered."
I improvised that last part, after the point of ellipsis, but yeah. I lost myself for a bit there. That small flash of inspiration's gone. So now it'll be harder to explain.
Um...I guess basically I think Norman was trying to bring up his courageousness and seven medals while attempting to link back to that night and explain how he wasn't courageous at all...
THE REST OF THE BOOK!!
A good example of the whole courage vs. cowardice thing is in..."ON THE RAINY RIVER"! (exclamation points all around here) Tim O'Brien the character has some courage crises in that chapter, before he goes to the northern border and after Elroy brings him within 20 yards of Canada. In general, O'Brien can either be "courageous" and go to war, or be a "coward" and duck out; run to Canada. Or--OR--he can be "courageous" and duck out; run to Canada, or be a "coward" and go to war.
And then--AND THEN!-- waaaay back in the book, as in "The Things They Carried", aka chapter 1, Tim O'Brien the author tells how being in war is a conflict, or a balance, between courage and cowardice.
Jumping around a bit, here are some quotes from pages 20 and 21 (blue book~):
"They carried the common sense of cowardice...They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to." (20)In the words of Mr. M, good stuff. I interpret all of that as people doing "courageous" things not necessarily because they are courageous, but because they are afraid to be cowards. Or, I can think of it as a character/person being too much of coward to be a coward. Like O'Brien said somewhere in "On the Rainy River," "I would go to the war...because I was embarrassed not to." Or even better yet, at the end: "I was a coward. I went to the war."
"It was not courage exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards."
I feel like O'Brien is trying to say that, if anything, "courage" is something based on interpretation. Just what is "courage"? Like we discussed all the way before we started reading this book, it can be "courageous" to do the "cowardly" thing. I think O'Brien takes it a little bit further.
You can be a coward for doing the courageous thing.
