Ordinary Men Essay

Children of Men- Themes of Postmodernism One of the biggest themes in this film is the theme of infertility. Infertility, while literally present in the film, stands as a metaphor for “the end” or as Hoberman (2006) says, “No future”. This is interesting because we would expect the “end of the world” to be due to a zombie apocalypse, global warming, or a giant meteor hitting the Earth rather than the unexplainable end of fertility. The film begins with everyone mourning the tragic loss of “Baby Diego”, who stands as a reminder of the 18 years of infertility. People who have never met Baby Diego sob as they watch from their personal television screens at work.

The theme of isolation is a heavy premise throughout all three books that help to shape not only certain characters but also provide insight on fundamental qualities of their identities. The object of this essay is to prove who seems to be the most solitary character between the books Light in August by William Faulkner, A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In these stories, the idea of isolation is the loneliness that has been experienced in a characters life. Some characters have experienced their loneliness since early childhood while others have been kept isolated involuntarily. Although these three characters have taken different approaches in their lives, they all ended up isolated from society. As Alfred Kazin believes that Joe Christmas is the most solitary character in American fiction, I would like to discuss how both the villain in A Good Man is Hard to Find and the heroine of The Yellow Wallpaper would not rival Kazin’s opinion. Joe Christmas in Light in August proves to be the most solitary character I have read about, as he is never able to become a full member of society.

The book written by Christopher R. Browning titled Ordinary Men is an interesting, engaging, anomaly in the genre of non-fiction books pertaining to the topic of World War Two and the Holocaust. Browning’s analysis of what possessed ordinary German men, who’s ideas where non pertinent in relation to Nazism is one worthy of academic study and discourse. Browning is delving into the intricacies of what specifically pushed “ordinary” men in the Reserve Police Battalions 101 of Nazi Germany to perpetrate the action of moving thousands of Polish Jewry into box cars, and sequentially taking part in perhaps the worst enormity in human history. Browning’s argument is an ever unsettling one, an argument that reveals to the reader what “normal” people

The Holocaust can be seen as one of the most devastating genocide that occurred in history and that is well known in many places worldwide. One may assume that those who played a part in the acts done by the Nazis in Germany may have been mentally disturbed and/or sick, evil people. However, the novel Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning provides another alternative to this statement. Browning provides the reader with the idea that anyone is capable of becoming a murderer, especially when the opportunity presents itself. In his book he attempts to prove this statement through multiple ideas and theories and also provides events which took place to analyze some of those ideas.

In the novel Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning there contains a thesis in which the novel is centered around. This thesis is the theory that these ordinary people could commit these atrocities in the Holocaust because of the pressure from their peers and country that were participating in these appalling acts of violence and massacres of innocent people.

     The world that people lived in during the Holocaust is described by the personal experiences of the oppressed throughout the story Jack and Rochelle, written by Jack and Rochelle Sutin, and the memoir by Alexander Donat titled The Holocaust Kingdom. The horrifying mindset of the oppressors, particularly the Nazi`s, is illustrated in both books. The vicious and relentless emotional, physical, and psychological abuse the Nazi`s targeted at their victims is depicted in detail. The unspeakable cruelty received by the Jews dramatically altered their state of mind and how they lived their lives. The emotions of despair, distress, depression, hopelessness, helplessness felt by the Jews

When putting together historical accounts, historians can run into a lot of problems trying to discover the truth about an event. These problems stem from the fact that history was not often recorded from multiple or impartial sources, so as a result, historians often have to read in between the lines to decipher the facts about a historical event. One particular problem that historians will run into is the issue of gendering. Gendering is when an event is examined with an understanding of how gender can influence all aspects of a society, and in turn, historical events (Abina, p. 163-64). This problem was especially relevant to Trevor Getz and Liz Clarke as they assembled the graphic history of Abina Mansah in Abina and the Important Men. The story revolves around a young woman in the Gold Coast in 1876 bringing a man who had enslaved her to court. In this story, gender is the underlying driving force for many of the events that take place, and can be seen even in parts of the story that were created by the authors. Gendered issues can sometimes be subtle, as they are often unspoken aspects of society, reinforced by cultural norms and behaviors. As a result, gendering was the most important problem faced when constructing this narrative, because gender relations add a series of nuances to social interactions that are easy to overlook despite the deep impacts they can create.

For the past 300 years, the world’s society has displayed lots of unbelievable human cruelty. For example, slavery in the 18th and 19th century, African Americans were forced into harsh work labor because of their skin color. Then in the 20th century, a determined dictator, Adolf Hitler, murdered and tortured eleven million lives. This horrifying event was called the Holocaust, it occurred in 1933 but ended in 1945. Adolf Hitler was angered about the result of World War 1, so he blamed Jewish people, the disabled, and other groups. During the holocaust, the eleven million lives were forced into harsh work labors or was put into gas chambers and was killed instantly. People described the Holocaust as inhumane act, and the people that survived it, could really say it was a scarring memory.

In the book Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning tackles the question of why German citizens engaged in nefarious behavior that led to the deaths of millions of Jewish and other minorities throughout Europe. The question of what drove Germans to commit acts of genocide has been investigated by numerous historians, but unfortunately, no overarching answer for the crimes has yet been decided upon. However, certain theories are more popular than others. Daniel Goldhagen in his book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, has expounded that the nature of the German culture before the Second World War was deeply embedded in anti-Semitic fervor, which in turn, acted as the catalyst for the events that would unfold into the Holocaust. It is at this

The group was made up of both citizens and career policemen. Major Wilhelm Trapp, a career policeman and World War I veteran headed the battalion. Trapp joined the Nazi party in 1932, but never became an office in the SS. His two captains, Hoffmann and Wohlauf, were SS trained officers. The reserve lieutenants, all seven of them, were drafted into the Order Police because they were

"There are no extraordinary men... just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are faced to deal with" (William Halsey). The same can be said about volatile men. This is the quote Christopher R. Browning thought of when he named this book. The men of the 101st battalion were rarely faced with decisions. Even if it had been proposed by Trapp the morning of Jozefow that "any of the older men who did not feel up to the task that lay before them could step out" (Browning, chapter 7, pg. 57), he didn't actually allow them any time to truly think about it. He brought it up moments before they were about to go out to the slaughter. They were blind-sided and the men who didn't want to risk the future of their jobs as policemen or the men

Racial hatred is prejudice and hostility targeting groups of color or ethnic backgrounds in various ways. “Night” by Elie Wiesel is a story about the author's experience during the Holocaust and how he survived through the harsh treatment of the concentration camps. Paul Rusesabagina’s “From An Ordinary Man” is about how the author saved many people from an ongoing tribe attack by putting them in his hotel. In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”and Paul Rusesabagina's “From An Ordinary Man”, both the author's use of overall purpose, theme, and use of rhetoric help tell the stories of survivors.

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning is an insightful book that provides information as to how ordinary people may be susceptible to committing heinous, evil acts. Browning explains this through analyzing judicial interrogations, which occurred in the 1960’s, of about 125 men of the Reserve Police Battalion 101 (Browning, pg. xviii). The Reserve Police Battalion 101 was a unit of the German Order Police formed in Hamburg, Germany, under the control of the SS which was under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party (Browning, pg. xvi-xvii). They consisted of German police and sheriffs who were middle-aged men of working and lower middle class. The Reserve Police Battalion 101 was formed as the

As we may know from our school lessons in Biology, the human brain is mostly dormant -- we use only a tiny fraction of its potential. Although scientists know much more now about the workings of the human brain than they did 30 years ago, there are still vast areas of brain that have remained unexplored and still mysterious. And the reason for this is that those "silent" areas of the brain were created for supernatural purposes.

The ways of men are broad in their spectrum, Shakespeare has shown me this. I have seen the most devious acts and have witnessed men in heroic acts in dramatic display of courageous ascension. Nevertheless, there are ones who have achieved a level of mediocrity or complacency throughout his works, but all these states of action are relative as the minds that generate the impetus. The lowest of the low I have witnessed personally, in these works, and on an international scale. My interactions with fellow brothers has shown me this, what more can I say, some men are cowardly, self-centered, insert expletive here’s. But never have I met a greater one Neil Pal, a murderous self-righteous power hungry man who I once believed to be my friend.