A Literary Analysis Of Stop The Sun By Gary Paulsen

Wanting to learn and understand people different that oneself can be hard, but as humans we have to accept others differences and move past that. In “Stop the Sun” by Gary Paulsen Terry is an adolescent boy living with his father who was accommodated in the Vietnam war, his mother is taking care of his father and him perpetually. Terry’s father has always struggled with some type of syndrome after the War, it causes him to “lose his eyes,” scream, freeze, and lose contact with all of his body, they call it Vietnam Syndrome. Terry has always been abashed by his father's syndrome, which has caused him to now wonder, genuinely what is going on with his father. In the short story by Gary Paulsen he portrays that understanding people can be difficult

12). Terry was so mortified by his father's syndrome, it caused him to feel inelegant when he was with him, and mute and unusual when he was not even with him. Terry thought that his father's syndrome was the most disconcerting thing ever to subsist in his lifetime and that he would never endeavor to understand him. His dad just had a horrible episode of screaming and crawling in the middle of a department store, “Terry sat in a chair next to his father, looking at the floor, wanting only for the earth to open and let him drop in a deep hole. He wanted to disappear” (Paulsen par. 17). Terry wanted nothing but to be around his father after the panic attack that his father just suffered. He was so mortified and did not ken why his father would do such a thing around Terry. Terry felt so self-concious when he was around his father when he was having one of his panic attacks, he did not even try to understand what was going

He had realized that his embarassment of his father has gotten out of control, he wanted to learn and understand what was happening to his dad; “When the embarrassment became so bad that he would cross the street when he saw his father coming, when it ate into him as he went to sleep, Terry realized he had to do something. He had to know this thing, had to understand what was wrong with his father” (Paulsen par. 24). Terry wanted to understand his father, to no longer be disconcerted but accept the fact that this transpired to him and know how to avail him. He was now going to put an effort into understanding his father's pain and condition. Terry was finally understanding, and he was going to do anything to be a comfort to his father, “‘It just seems to bother you so much,’ Terry said, ‘and I thought if I could help or maybe understand it better”’ (Paulsen par. 31). Terry wants to learn to acknowledge his father's condition, even if that meant he had to do whatever it took. He knew the topic bothers his father, and he wanted to learn and help his dad through it. Terry wanted to now accept that his father contained a great amount of pain in his life, and instead of being embarrassed or to not understand, he is now going to put in the effort to help and acknowledge his fathers