Active Reading Notes : The Wars

| A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. (pg. 65)

Passage: “War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also a 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.” P.76

Kurt Vonnegut is able to put a man’s face on war in his short story, “All the King’s Horse ”, and he exemplifies that in a time of war, the most forgotten effect on nations is the amount of innocent lives lost in meaningless battle due to unjust rulers fighting each other against a nation’s will. As Americans, we are oblivious to the fact that we have people fighting every day for our country. In addition, we ignore the fact that we do a lot of collateral damage and hurt innocent people unintentionally in order to get what we want. Vonnegut shows the reader in Pi Ying’s own sadistic way of demonstrating how he feels about war brings attention to the point that war, while unruly and cruel, is nothing

Significance: This quote describes the entire style in which the book is written. Tim O’ Brien writes the novel as though it is a memoir, but this isn’t the case. In the copyright information, readers learn that most of the events, with a few small exceptions, were fabricated. Once the reader knows this fact, there is bound to be a curiosity of which portions of the book are actually based on O’ Brien’s life. This quote looks at the “fictional” Tim O’Brien’s view of war stories. He says that memory doesn’t always serve a person well when

This quote in the first chapter of the book sets the overall tone. The author Tim O’Brien uses his language through out the book in an extremely straightforward manner. He does not sugar coat the way going to war and being in a war is. He does not use stories of heroes,

Another reason why the authors are against war is due to the clash of generations. During the American Revolution, Yale students would go to get weapons and they would join the war. The younger adults believe that they should join the war to fight for freedom. “Yale students did rush away to get weapons and join the war in 1775” (Collier and Collier 214). These college students are sacrificing their lives to fight for their own freedom. On the other hand, the adults say that war is bad and that no one should fight. Grownups believe that it is not worth it to fight for their own freedom. Many people say that war is unfair or not worth it. “I think men of common sense will prevail. Nobody wants rebellion except fools and hotheads” (Collier and Collier 6). Mr.

As you have read war is a very different type of world everything is turned around and it confuses people. The author of the book The Things They Carried and the writer of the quote "It has been said of war that it is a world where the past has a strong grip on the present, where machines seemed sometimes to have more will power than me, where nice boys (girls) were attracted to them, where bodies ruptured and burned and stand, where the evil thing trying to kill you could look disconnecting human and where except in your imagination it was impossible to be heroic." relates to each of his stories. Wrote about war so people could have a better understanding of

The first way that horses play a major role in developing a theme of the story is through their use as symbolism. Horses seem to represent all of nature throughout the story, as they are often the only natural entity that is vividly described. Even though John Grady is experienced with horses, there is still some wilderness about them that even he can’t understand. The idea that horses, or nature, are a lot more durable than humans will ever be is an idea that John Grady himself reinforces in some of his dreams. Early in the story in one of John’s dream he realizes that “the order in the horse's heart was more durable for it was written in a place where no rain could erase it" (McCarthy). This idea adds to the fact that horses seem to represent a lasting entity, a species that will continue to exist overtime. Continuing with the idea of horses as a use of symbolism, is

"His assailants, who he'd thought were crazies, had been his fellow soldiers. Maybe even his brother officers. He'd never know. He never saw their faces." (Findley, P 193) This is just one of the many examples which make the reader feel sorry for Robert Ross. Because the reader feels sorrow, there is more chance that the reader believes everything that is being said by or about him, although there is more that one perspective to the whole of World War I.

One way the authors argue against war, is that war is a gruesome time; enough to make a poor boy vomit all over himself after seeing a head get decapitated. In the book, My Brother Sam is Dead, a negro slave named Ned is beheaded by a British officer with a sword. The other troops don’t even look twice. “ I had a friend bayoneted, and it took him six hours to die, screaming all the while”

This certainly comes out in the fragging incident, when the squad kills Lieutenant Sidney Martin. But there's something more. Another time, O'Brien was quoted as saying, "My concerns have to do with the abstractions: ... How does one do right in an evil situation?" (Bates 263). That is the big question, of course, that this novel deals with. See, the point that O'Brien is making is not that war is an evil situation. He's trying to take that for granted and move beyond. Now that you've got this evil situation, what do you do?

Robert Ross’ whole life he grew up in a household where they did what was expected of them, rather than what was right. The type of people that Findley place in Robert’s life is what molds him into the type of character he becomes. Timothy Findley manipulates what a hero is supposed to be, by making Robert Ross a distorted kind of hero. Robert Ross exemplifies anti-heroism throughout the text because of his need to be a savior but inability to do so, his morals and his connection with animals.

In the beginning of the book, when he tells his friend that he was writing an anti-war story, his friend told him that he might as well be writing an anti-glacier. His friend was trying to convey that war was inevitable and unavoidable. Therefore war will happen no matter what we do, people will die and the message will go on. ‘So it goes’

A slender black steam engine barrels its way through a rugged wheat field; riding on its ancient track blowing clouds of steam along the way. The small town of elbow Saskatchewan lays humbly in the background listening to the horn of the steam engine. rich green trees lay spotted throughout the landscape.

Colour. A lot of colour everywhere, blending and interlacing with voices pure and sweet. Voices that are high-strung with the sound of pure joy and laughter. These beautiful innocent faces expectant and trusting. Faces with which soft lips rest upon until the day when the owners of these faces will be called upon for duty; duty to their country. To which these lips will harden in a mock attempt at brave determination. These are the faces that may one day become etched with hard lines of trepidation, wondering if they’ll see the next sunrise. I watched on as these brave soldiers hunt each other down, stabbing mercilessly at each other through the towering swing sets, dodging imaginary bullets before falling down in a wrestling heap in the sandpits,