Second Skin Sparknotes

Second Skin

Second Skin is a novel written by Terry Hertzler explaining their perspective on different aspects of life through images and drawing comparisons. Second Skin Is able to use images and comparisons in patterns throughout the stories and poems of Second Skin to show his perspective. The book is divided into three sections: life, war and love, Hertzler uses images and comparisons consistently throughout all three sections. The main point is to explain Hertzler's perspectives and thoughts on what he experienced in the war and how he was traumatized after.
First, Hertzler’s Life is full of ups and downs. We never really know why things happen or what will happen next in our lives. We often do not know how to express ourselves, whether

This was not the case for Terry Hertzler. He was able to express himself, his emotions, and his thoughts of life while being at the Vietnam War Throughout his book titled,Second Skin: Stories & Poems. Throughout this book, he was able to use poems and put things into his own words to describe his three stages, which consisted ofLife, Love, and War.To begin with, Hertzler began his book by writing about Life. Throughout this section, he was able to share his perspective of and experiences that occurred in his life. For instance, in his first story titled, “A Dialogue with My Favorite Author,” he is describing a scenario in which he is going to use a public phone to make a phone call to an author, which is James Kjelgaard. Hedescribes how nervous he is and once he actually made the phone call and the author answered,he hung up. I believe he began his book with this story because it was an event in which he probably planned on becoming a writer, but was unsure on how to start or who to ask for help.Hertzler wrote this to sort of show that, that was how he actually felt at first

He tells us about how much smaller he used to be back when he was at war. He includes“When I was 20, I’d see fat men and think / I’m never going to let that happen to me.”(Hertzler 10. Line 7-8). Only now he looks back and realizes you never can see where life is going to take you. Another example of comparison is in the poem “Passages” in the love section. In this poem Hertzler uses comparison as reflecting on how his relationship with his now ex-wife had changed over time. Hertzlers states “I peck your cheek. You grunt hello”(Hertzler 80. Line 9), as earlier in the poem he reminisced about how they used to sing rock-and-roll songs together. In the War section many of the poems and stories Hertzler is very descriptive when addressing what he saw while at war to give us a better perspective. It helps the reader truly understand what's going on in the story to a personal connection to almost make you feel you understand just how Hertzler