Exceptional Responses

Beginning on May 10, 2011 I will be expecting all responses to be this high caliber.

Examples:
I also agree with everyone in this post, except it seemed to me that Martha was symbolic of something. As I was reading I was trying to figure out what it might be, and the I thought that Martha might be representative of America. At first it seems like she's just a girl he loves from back home; the way he describes her and talks about her personality makes it seem like he's nothing more than love struck. But when Lavender dies, and Jimmy Cross blames his death on his own obsession and constant preoccupation with Martha, he takes drastic measures like burning her photographs and letters. When I read that part, it struck me as something a lot more deeply rooted than an infatuation with a human being. It was almost like he was ridding himself of hope, and breaking all the ties he had to his old life. All that time he had been thinking about Martha as a possibility, something to look forward to when he returned from war, but when Lavender died it's like that spark inside him died, too. Also, on page 23, he says, "He hated her. Yes, he did. He hated her. Love, too, but it was a hard, hating kind of love." To me, that sounds a lot like something a soldier who becomes hardened by war would say about his or her country. Especially when you think about the circumstances surrounding the Vietnam war. The soldiers didn't really know what they were fighting for, they just knew they had to fight.

Instead of just agreeing with everyone who posted above, this student delved a bit deeper and added what they thought.