Francis Cassavant Flashcards
there is a significant difference in the way that francis sees himself versus how others see him. francis tends to write about himself in a negative way, occasionally inspired by the encouragement of nicole and larry. what other characters say to francis about himself is almost always positive.
“poor boy” (mrs belander, chapters 1 and 3)
people pity him for his wounds and what he has gone through. people still see him as young which shows how young he was when he joined the war and went through everything.
“you’re a good boy, francis” - uncle louise, chapter 5
shows the change over time since now he is planning on murdering larry
“you deserve to be recognised, francis… you’re a goddam hero” chapter 6
others think that he is a hero however francis doesnt think himself as one because the action that caused him to be a hero was a selfish act to die. therefore he believes that he isnt a hero because he never intended to be .
“i feel like a spy in disguise as i walk the streets of frenchtown, hidden behind the scarf and bandage…”
he hides himself behind his scarfs and bandages, creates suspicion, only cares about practicality
“i explode into wakefulness along with the booming artillery and i find myself gasping, instantly wide eyed, not cold for once, in mrs belander’s tenement, the sweet warm on my flesh, but in a minute the sweat turns icy”
“im rotten at everything” “i cant sing. i cant dance. im no good at baseball’. and i cant even get up the nerve to hold a normal conversation with nicole renard, i added silently. avoiding his eyes, i was suddenly angry at my self-pity. snap out of it, i tell myself.”
he’s talking to larry about his problems, sees him as a fatherly figure, trusts him.
“you’re a natural” - larry
“i love to watch you play” - nicole
“for the first time in my life, a tide of confidence swept through me”
“the truth is i don’t care if i heal or not”
francis doesn’t care about himself or living properly, he only cares about practicality and surviving ntil he completes his mission, after that, he doesnt care what happens to him.
“i could not die that way. Soldiers were dying with honour on battlefields all over the world. Noble deaths. The deaths of heroes. How could i die by leaping from a steeple? the next afternoon, I boarded the bus to Fort Delta, in my pocket the birth certificate i hate altered to change my life, and became a soldier in the United States Army.”
he only joined the army in order to die because he didn’t want his parents to have the shame of him commiting suicide.
“I went to war because i wanted to die… I was too much of a coward to kill myself. In the war, in battle, I figured it would be easy to get killed… when i fell on that grenade, i wasn’t trying to save those Gls. I saw my chance to end it all, in a second. But a freak accident happened. My face got blown off and i didn’t die…”
francis wants do die. lol. doesn’t see himself as a hero because he didn’t care about saving them only about killing himself.
“when i study myself in the mirror, I don’t see me anymore but a stranger slowly taking shape”
uh oh!
“I had always wanted to be a hero, like Lary LaSalle and all the others, but had been fake all along”
“I was too much of a coward to kill myself”
“You would have fallen on that grenade, anyway. All your instincts would have made you sacrifice yourself for your comrades.”
