In “The Long Shadow of War” Terrance Hayes considers what makes someone family while discussing the time he not only found out his ‘father’ was not his blood, but also when he first met his birth father. He makes the claim that “the word father had nothing to do with blood.” Later he writes “I wondered how much of who my brother was had to do with blood.” In both of these instances he questions whether or not blood is what makes someone family, while also discussing how both of his fathers had served in the military.…
Contrary to other literary history works, “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Remarque Erich Maria is so unique because of the way it displays such a realistic view of war and the associated loss of humanity, innocence, and emotion that accompany it. Throughout this novel, Remarque proves his point that war is unnecessary, and dishonorable. The novel really emphasizes on the accumulating body count everyday, showing every aspect of how war is absolutely gruesome and such a waste of pure lives. Also, “All Quiet on the Western Front” shows how the position of being in war can change a person dramatically preventing them from returning to their previous lives, and scarring them permanently.…
What is the mood and setting established by the speaker “In the Shadow of War”?…
The three narratives "Home Soil" by Irene Zabytko, "Song of Napalm" by Bruce Weigl, and "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen all have the same feelings of war and memory, although not everyone experiences the same war. Zabytko, Weigl, and Owen used shifting beats, dramatic descriptions, and intense, painful images, to convince us that the horror of war far outweighs the devoted awareness of those who fantasize war and the memories that support it.…
Uncertainty characterizes war; “How to Tell a True War Story” conveys this feeling of chaos and having no control over future events. “In the midst of evil” (77) everything is unexpected and terrifying. Leaving the reader with an uncertainty of reliability, the narrator teaches that a war story does not “depend upon” (79) the truth of events. Moreover, during a war there is the permeating feeling of “a ghostly fog” (78) that clouds vision of anything new. No longer having any “clarity”, “chaos” becomes a constant and the “only certainty” (78) is that…
Graham Greene showed the destruction of war clearly in the short story, “The Destructors.” While the bomb craters and destroyed buildings were made evident, the damage done to the psyches of the children were a little harder to see. Even though these children were too young to experience much of the war, and definitely never saw the front lines of combat, they still wore scars that maimed them forever. Childhood was a very formative time in their lives of a person. It shaped who they would become and what they did. This story was set in the years following the end of World War II, and the teenagers of England had grown up in a country that experienced heavy bombings from German aircraft. Children born around this time had never known the peace and security that a child deserves. The children in this story had their innocence stolen from them well before it should have been.…
In the novel All the Light We Cannot See, the effect of war on to individuals is analyzed– one a civilian,…
War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.” (Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried)…
War is a very controversial topic for many people. Depending on the person’s outlook on the war, it can be depicted as something good or bad. War brings destruction wherever it goes, whether it is on a place or the people, and it ultimately is inevitable. War also protects a country from having further destruction and keeps the people at home safe from any danger. As a person can see in many recordings of war, there are many comparisons and contrasts that are expressed through soldiers, veterans, and civilians. Some comparisons seen in many of the testimonies given by effected people are dehumanization, dislocation, and alienation; but they also have contrasts that can be seen through nationalism, technological advancements, and the coming home for many…
War can do many horrible things to its soldiers, but it can also save them from themselves. All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque is a testament of Paul Bäumer. He and seven classmates enlist in World War I. They experience and witness unspeakable violence becoming soldiers. More violence than anyone should ever see. It corrupts most of the soldier’s minds because of the trauma that they have faced. Although war dehumanized many of the young men, war in many ways made Paul Bäumer more human.…
War is often viewed as one of the most dangerous and brutal events ever created. It utterly destroys the humanity and mental state of soldiers fighting in the war. In All Quiet on the Western Front, a world renowned war novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the epigraph states that this novel “will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.” Staying true to this quote, Remarque tells of the horrors of World War I and fittingly describes the effects that war has on humans through the eyes of the protagonist, Paul Bäumer. In his epigraph Remarque says, “this book is to be neither an accusation, nor a confession, and least of all an adventure.” Except for a few notable exceptions,…
When writing a true story of war, one will practically always find themselves faced with death. It is almost as if the two are one in the same; War and death that is. For this reason, the conflict of life vs. death is one of biggest…
The history of war is what many spend time reading about in textbooks. Few, however, experience war and all that it encompasses. David Leckie, a marine during World War II, uses his book, Helmet for My Pillow, to share with readers the truth of what it was like to be a soldier. Rather than skimming the surface of his time on Parris Island and the Pacific Islands, he goes into unmatched, excruciating detail; every trench dug, every shot fired, and every fallen soldier passed was recounted by Leckie. Setting this story apart from any other, the first-hand accounts of combat, unlikely descriptions of the day-to-day actions of the soldiers, and the heart that Leckie intertwines with each part of his story all combine to make this thought-provoking,…
War goes against what normal society thinks is morally acceptable, such as killing, injuring and shooting other human beings. Veterans also have trouble relearning to understand their emotions and open up to others. Both the narrator and John saw firsthand, the horror and death of war through all of the brutal killings. Not only that, but they were participants in this killing as well. Living through an incredibly difficult experience like this can really affect and change an individual’s life forever as it did for both the narrator and John. The narrator and John were both moved and traumatized by their past, making it difficult for them to open to others. Their disturbing war experiences caused their relationships with others to suffer dramatically. In fact, their experiences left such a great impact on their lives that they both faced anxiety and despair later on in their life.…
Most novels on war usually perceive only one side in the realm. An author like Timothy Findley can make a novel less about war but more about the physiological impact on ones mind because of war. The Wars is a very powerful and disturbing book with plenty of linguistic contexts. Timothy Findley’s Governor General's Award-winning novel of the First World War tells the story of Robert Ross, a young Canadian who enlists himself in the army after the death of his sister, Rowena. Robert has to cope with challenges of war, and make the transition into manhood and develop new beliefs in order to survive the war. Robert encounters numerous challenges along his journey that forces Robert to re-evaluate the truths that serve as the foundation of his life. This is what exemplifies deconstructive criticism; the moment one questions their truths, and realizes that there is no one central truth, instead, many linguistic oppositions of the same event that changes according to one’s perspective. With the title of Timothy Findley’s novel being The Wars, many false interpretations are suggested as it is just another book about World War I; however, The Wars, by Timothy Findley, digested through a lens of Deconstructive Criticism, one is able to surpass this barrier to find the ambiguities and contradictions of the internal battles illustrated in the novel: the psychological battle of sanity and insanity, the distinction of friend and enemy, and the illusion and reality of the war itself.…