literary exploration<\/p>\n
Order Description
\nThe narrator of this excerpt is American actor Rob Lowe. In this excerpt, he reflects on a
\ntrip he took to France to promote a film. During his time there, he visited a war memorial
\nin Normandy.
\nfrom STORIES I ONLY TELL MY FRIENDS
\nThe cliffs are widespread and brutally tall. The beach before them is so wide, it\u2019s clear
\nthat there was nowhere to hide. The young men who were shot dead here would\u2019ve been
\nexactly my age, dying alone and unprotected, giving \u201cthe last full measure of devotion,\u201d
\nin the lonely, cold mist of an early June morning.
\nI am standing at the German gun emplacements of Pointe du Hoc, where so many fell. On
\nmy left there is the beautiful and appalling field of crosses and Stars of David for the
\nheroes whom, until today, I had never seriously considered. Brokaw would eventually
\nwrite his book and Spielberg would one day make his movie, but in the early fall of 1986,
\nnothing has prepared me for the emotion of this great battlefield on France\u2019s Normandy
\ncoast.\u2026
\nI\u2019m twenty-two years old. I\u2019ve never known for want. There\u2019s always been food on the
\ntable and the sweet smell of possibility, of a horizon free of impediment. I had
\nopportunity, worked hard, and made my dreams come true. Here\u2019s a guy on a plaque,
\neighteen years old, from Iowa. Another is twenty-two and from a town in northern
\nMichigan. A door lowered; they ran into raging fire; if they lived they tried to climb those
\nterrible cliffs, hand over hand, wide open to the barrages from above. If they got there,
\nsome fought, some charged in the maw of the .50 cals, anything to silence the howling
\nguns, to save their brothers and achieve the objective. To do the job. To save our country.
\nAll the training, all the planning, all the money, all the strategy, finally and simply came
\ndown to that. When the door was lowered, could the twenty-two-year-old from Michigan
\nstep out and face the job at hand
\nA stiff wind is blowing off the English Channel it\u2019s making my eyes water. Glenn stands
\nback with the big, black Mercedes and the chauffeur. There\u2019s another black-tie dinner and
\nit\u2019s a long drive back to the resort. I need to get going. People have paid money to see me,
\nto meet me, and to congratulate me on the achievement of the film. I walk back to the car,
\npast the graves and the flags, past the boys from the United States who never came home.
\nI hop in the back, shut the door, and drive away.
\nThe dinner is held in an ornate seventeenth-century ballroom. There are beautiful women.
\nThere\u2019s lots of wine. But I\u2019m quiet. Someone asks me if I have something on my mind. I
\nsay no, but I do. It\u2019s a twenty-two-year-old marine from a town in northern Michigan.
\n-another resource is the novel “night” by elie wiesel<\/p>\n
create a literary exploration essay.<\/p>\n
Paragraph 1: introduction to the texts and your thesis statement<\/p>\n
Paragraph 2: Discussion of a character from the given text which is “Stories I Only Tell My Friends” by Rob Lowe in your Reading Package<\/p>\n
Paragraph 3: Discussion of a character from the novel<\/p>\n
Paragraph 4: Description of your personal story<\/p>\n
Paragraph 5: Conclusion.