Audience Persona and Concept Statement

Audience Persona

Samson is a semi-retired truck driver with mediocre health, two grown children and an estranged wife. In his sixtieth (and current) year he has dealt with his advancing age and growing weariness for life. Despite this weariness, he finds time to shop at Cabela's for hunting and hiking trips he never takes and shops at WalMart every weekend, regular as clock-work. He enjoyed Pong as a younger man, but only plays Bejeweled (tm) now. As he gets older he becomes more nostalgic and his interest in history becomes more than just an occasionaly activity, but a full blown hobby. To this end, he watches the History Channel often and occasionally will read a book.

Samson is thinking about getting an online degree in military history, because he never did anything school-wise after high school. The older Samson has become to more he stays home and the less he spends time with friends. When he is at home he watches TV or reads, sometimes doing both at the same time.

Several times a year he will go on a long haul run with a newbie. He worked with his company for almost 40 years, but now he only goes on runs as a sort of instructor for the new hires. During these excursions he eats way too much fast food and reads at least 4 hours a day.

Because of his interest in military history and his ability to read, he often reads old WWII stories that he can pick up cheap at Half Price Books.

Concept Statement

The story "the Think Red Line" is a powerful tale of the men of C for Charlie Company, part of the effort to claim the island of Guadalcanal during WWII. In the dark, and deadly, jungles of this Pacific Ocean island, these some 60 men with find in themselves a war of their own: Overcoming their own fears and doubts, wrestling with the possibility of screaming, bloody death, coming to terms in a thick rain of deadly mortar and machinegun fire. The story by James Jones focuses on the struggle each man must face on the battlefield of their mind, while they struggle on this forsaken rock in the middle of the Pacific at the beginning of a long and bloody war.