Christian Bauman: The Ice Beneath You
Directions: After reading the lecture, answer one of the main questions, which will appear in red. This question is due no later than Thursday, Mar. 22. Following that will be other questions, in black, which you should read and think about–they may help you answer the main question. However, you are not required to answer these questions in writing.
Your responses to other students’ answers are due by midnight on Saturday, Mar. 24. In order to get the full 20 points, you MUST respond to at least 3 or 4 other people’s postings.
This set of discussion questions is worth a possible 20 points. Remember: late answers receive 0 points, so post early 🙂
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WARNING! These discussion questions will reveal plot points. If you don’t want to know what happens, wait until you have finished the novel to read them.
1. Why does Bauman change the point of view in different sections of the novel?
2. As a war novel, how does Bauman’s novel compare to O’Brien’s and Frazier’s?
3. What is the significance of the title, The Ice Beneath You?
1. How do Jones’s wartime experiences affect his actions and decisions after he returns to the United States?
2. What is the point of the epigraph by John Gorka (before the Prologue)?
3. How does Bauman introduce the themes of the novel in the Prologue?
4. Why do the men on the bus beat up the Pakistani man? Why doesn’t Jones do anything to help the Pakistani? Why does he vomit after the incident?
5. Why did Jones enlist?
6. Why is Sgt. Rose so hard on the recruits? What do they feel for Sgt. Rose?
7. Rose says to the men, “But someday, some of you, maybe even just one of you, will look in the mirror and say to yourself, ‘I am a soldier, a man with honor, and it is an honor I have earned‘” (29)*. Does Jones ever feel that? Does Trevor?
8. Rose teaches the men that he who sleeps, dies. Do the events of the novel prove him right?
9. On the bus, Jones recites the soldiers’ oath (see page 35). Has he lived up to it? Does he believe in these ideals?
10. When Jones is staying in San Francisco, why can’t he write?
11. Does anyone in the States care that Jones is a veteran? Do people know what he’s been through? How does that make him feel?
12. Do Jones or the other U. S. soldiers in Somalia seem to have an awareness of the U.S.’s larger goals? Do they feel committed to the accomplishment of a goal? If so, what is it?
13. Why is Jones willing to take a job at XXXTASY?
14. In the section about XXXTASY, the narrator repeats, “Jesus wept.” What does he mean?
15. How do the enlisted men and noncoms feel about officers? Why?
16. On page 81, Jones says, “People living in a time made safe for them by others, by other generations even, have difficulty in understanding how close we all are, what a thin line it is, to suffering. To disturbing.” What does he mean?
17. Why does Jones throw away his notebook while he is in San Francisco? (see p. 98)
18. Why are Jones and Trevor so jumpy while they’re in Jiliri? (see pp. 100ff.)
19. There isn’t much in the American news about Somalia; how do the soldiers feel about that?
20. What is “Octopussy Garden”?
21. In the section called “Jones: Two Privates” (pp. 113ff.), Jones is sitting on the beach at Jiliri. How does this section differ from the Prologue?
22. Why do Jones and Trevor play chess?
23. What is the point of the episode in which the Belgian soldiers get their supplies? (see p. 126)
24. How does the Army handle the incident at Jiliri?
25. Why does Trevor agree to help George with the marijuana? Why, later, does he agree to go to the farm with George?
26. Up at George’s farm, why does Trevor consider killing the men? Why does he decide not to do it?
27. When Jones, Cowens, and Aaron are attacked in Mogadishu, why does Jones help the woman rather than Cowens? Why, when it’s all over, does he ask for Trevor?
28. Why did Trevor shoot the deer so many times? Why do they leave their guns behind?
29. Jones ends by asking, “Is there honor in that? And does it matter?” (p. 234) What does he mean? How would he answer the questions? How would you?
30. Why did Bauman choose the name “Jones” for his character? Why did he choose the name “Alphabet” for Jones’s friend?
*All page numbers refer to the 2002 paperback edition.