"The Hurt, Betrayed Son"

Once I got over my initial struggle with the writing style used in the article I came to my next problem, the article being about Rambo. I have never seen the movie Rambo, and until this point was unaware that there were even Rambo novels. So sometimes during the reading I found myself struggling to relate or understand what the author was saying simply based on my own lack of knowledge.

Once I was able to accept that there were going to be things in the writing that I just didn't understand, I began to try and look at what the writing was saying. I also did a lot of relating the reading about Rambo to the reading "I'll Explain It To You". This presented a really interesting idea for me to look at. It seemed that this writing kind of varified the other reading in a weird way. One example of this is page 177 where it says "To admit that he had been wounded in he war is first of all to try and impress these men, to brag about being tough in an area they will admire". I think this directly ties to the reading because it says that a lot of men talk so much, and "lecture" so much as a way to impress other people. And this reading says the same thing, he is trying to impress others.

The other part I found interesting was his explanation of men feeling the need to hide their emotions. I think that this is something that is really sad. I know that a lot of me really do think that they need to hide something, or pretend they aren't upset or hide what they are really feeling. This goes back to the idea that used to exist of men being the "protector" or "the strong one" and Robinson even acknowledge this in his writing. He says "Men shall protect. Men shall suffer so that other will not". I think that this idea needs to change. Just because a man can show his emotions, or express how he feels, does not mean that he isn't a man, or that he can't still protect the people in his life.

I think that the author did a good job of explaining "the son" as a person who struggles against the people who are higher above them "the father". I think this father son relationship can be related to an actual father son relationship, or as a father son relationship that consists of a man and the people ranked above him. This relationship can be applied to a player and a coach, an employee and his boss, or as mentioned in the article, someone in the military and their higher ranking officials. Rambo defines this idea by being someone who struggles to fight the relationship between them and someone higher ranking than them. He also defines all of this by trying to survive after he has been hurt, but tries to hide the feelings and emotions he has.

As a whole, the main ideas in this article are really interesting. I think it is never really discussed that men aren't allowed to feel emotion, but rather everyone knows it and it just goes without saying. I think this article pulls in a deeper idea that a lot of people tend to ignore.