Where Have You Gone Charming Character Analysis

In the story “Where Have You Gone Charming Billy?” the main character Paul in in combat, he goes through lot of emotions, and fear, however flashback of his dad help calm that fear down. Paul is a seems like a very serious guy, especially in a situation like this. Another emotion that occurred was fear. Paul has anxiety, this is shown by the author saying multiple times, how frightened Paul was throughout the story. Paul was very afraid at war he had multiple nightmare. The author went on to say “now the fear was mostly fear of being so terrible afraid again”. If I was afraid of being afraid it would have to be something very fearful, i've never faced being afraid of being afraid. However he though he has feats, he does seem like a loving …show more content…
Paul and his dad have a better relationship than his mom and him. It talks about how his dad had helped his through his fears, like the boogieman when he was little. The author says : a boogieman in the closet that his father would open to show empty, saying See Nothing there champ. Now you can sleep”. When I was little my father would have to check under my bed making sure there was no monsters under there, and with him telling me there wasn't I could trust him and fall back to sleep. You have to be close to someone, for them to tell you there's no monsters and for you to be able to believe them. Moving on, Paul doesn't seem like he’s very intelligent, or it may be that he gets distracted. The reason for this is because the author states “he wished he’d paid better attention to the training”. Paul may have not taken the training as serious or could get distracted very easily. Usually when I don't pay attention to something, then I won't remember it and i'll have no knowledge, i'm assuming this is what happened to paul. However, when Paul becomes more comfortable in an environment he does seem to lighten up, as he started to make friends throughout the …show more content…
It requires time, effort, and goals. Building character is very tough. Usually when someone is building character they're going through something that's hard, yet it greatly impacts them in the future. Paul went through such a tough situation, being in combat I believe is one of the toughest but more rewarding things a human could possible do. Yes, I believe being in combat built Pauls character tremendously. Paul had to learn so many new life lessons, he matured, and learned what war is really like. The author states “pretending he had not watched Billy Boy Watkins die”. Paul had to learn what seeing someone die was like. Paul also learned how to move on, and focus on the mission, without something traumatic affecting him or the other soldiers. He had to learn to man up and be tough, otherwise he could have got killed. Paul couldn't just run away, and reverse time. He had to deal with the situation and not let his fears get to him. If I was in that type of experience, I'm sure I would be very scared, I would really focus on the mission and not let anything distract me. I would make sure im being smart about every move that I make. Also I would make sure i'm thinking. However, with being smart and thinking takes time, so I would have to be quick about my decisions. The author says “he did not want to move, but, he was afraid”, this shows how scared he was. But he has to go and fight anyways. I feel as so