Conflict Perspectives

War has always existed. Although the purpose of war varies, the outcome is the same; many lives are changed and ruined. War is often used to gain power, resources, and land, but it disregards the lives of those fighting the fight. Martin Luther King stated, “The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.” In three selections, “Medevac Missions,” “A Journey Taken with my Son,” and “At Lowe’s Home Improvement Center,” readers come to understand the truths of wars’ impact on the lives of those surrounding the soldier. Their friends change, their physical and psychological states change, but the hardest truth is adjusting to life back at home. Soldiers experience many life changes during active

To be engaged in war is to be engaged in an armed conflict. Death is an all too ordinary product of war. It is an unsolicited reward for many soldiers that are fighting for their country’s own fictitious freedom. For some of these men, the battlefield is a glimpse into hell, and for others, it is a means to heaven. Many people worry about what happens during war and what will become of their loved ones while they’re fighting, but few realize what happens to those soldiers once they come home. The short stories "Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway and "Speaking of Courage” by Tim O'Brien explore the thematic after effects of war and how it impacts a young person's life. Young people who

The topic of war is hard to imagine from the perspective of one who hasn't experienced it. Literature makes it accessible for the reader to explore the themes of war. Owen and Remarque both dipcik what war was like for one who has never gone through it. Men in both All Quiet on the Western Front and “Dulce Et Decorum” experience betrayal of youth, horrors of war and feelings of camaraderie.

“War stories” are shared by people all over the world, describing exhilarating experiences one encompasses during a war. However, these stories have been known for hyperbolizing details of the story, deeming it a “lie.” Tim O’Brien, the author of “How to Tell a True War Story,” examines the complex relationship between war experience and storytelling. The tale is told partly from O’Brien’s role as a soldier, as a reprise of several Vietnam stories, and half of his role as a storyteller, as a discussion on the art of storytelling. O’Brien provides detailed commentary on storytelling and blurs the division between truth and fiction through a series of paradoxical commentaries.

Beginning my love of reading an early age, I was never the type of child who was drawn to fictional stories. As an 8 year-old child in West Virginia, I was recognized by the local library for my love of biographies, autobiographies and recollections of world events. This love has continued throughout my adult life, desiring to read novels such as “We Were Soldiers Once…and Young” by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore rather than watch the major motion picture “We Were Soldiers” starring Mel Gibson. Even though the motion picture received multiple awards, when reading the recollection of Mr. Moore’s accounts, the feeling of loss, distress, anxiety and fear can be felt in each word that he has written while reliving this horrendous war.

Memoirs of war often reflect the positive or negative experiences endured throughout battle. Considered by many to be one of the best memoirs of World War I, Hervey Allen’s “Toward the Flame”, recalls his own experiences of battle. His recollection of events shows that he had a negative image of war and that there was nothing glorious about it. What started out looking like a man’s greatest adventure turned into a shell-shocking reality that war is actually horrible and trying. Allen’s experiences with consistent hunger, mustard gas, and artillery shellings led to his disillusionment with war, and left him with a permanent hatred of battle.

In the aftermath of a comparatively minor misfortune, all parties concerned seem to be eager to direct the blame to someone or something else. It seems so easy to pin down one specific mistake that caused everything else to go wrong in an everyday situation. However, war is a vastly different story. War is ambiguous, an enormous and intangible event, and it cannot simply be blamed for the resulting deaths for which it is indirectly responsible. Tim O’Brien’s story, “In the Field,” illustrates whom the soldiers turn to with the massive burden of responsibility for a tragedy. The horrible circumstances of war transform all involved and tinge them with an absurd feeling of

From two different perspectives of the war, the author of this book showed that, depending on location and timing, everyone can be affected differently by warfare. It followed the story of two children who grew up on opposite sides of World War II. When their paths crossed, they developed feelings for one another, disregarding the fact that their historical circumstances placed them on opposing sides of the war. In the book All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr depicted how internal principles were able to overpower external pressures.

In David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers, Finklel details different versions of the war in Iraq. Over the years, the image of war portrayed through literature has changed. Looking at non-fiction wartime novels of the past, the image of war was completely different. The novels of the past focused much more on the aftermath of war and the survivors of war, rather than the actual war it’s self like in today’s novels. When novels of the past did feature scenes of war, the details used to describe the scenes were not as vivid as they are today. I attribute this change to the change of style in which narrative pieces of non-fiction are written. After Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was published in 1966, the landscape of the non-fiction narrative completely changed, thus the wartime books published after this also changed. In addition to that, the advancement in technology has also changed the way wartime novels are written. Today, society can go on YouTube and watch videos of the war. There is also more media present on the battlefield than there was in the past. Having access to actual footage of the ongoing war, the public knows what the war looks like. With that in mind, authors can portray the realities of war because they already know the public has some sense of what the battlefield already looks like.

“ How To Tell a True War Story” By O’Brien is a complex story that scrutinizes the complex correlation that exist between war experience and the way stories are being told. Through anecdotes, O’Brien substantiates that a writer contains the ability to form its readers beliefs and viewpoint. Finding a meaning for O’Brien’s story was practically easy because through his anecdotes I was able to openly examine what O’Brien was

Earnest Hemmingway once said "Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime." (Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference) War is a gruesome and tragic thing and affects people differently. Both Vonnegut and Hemmingway discus this idea in their novels A Farewell to Arms and Slaughterhouse Five. Both of the novels deal not only with war stories but other genres, be it a science fiction story in Vonnegut’s case or a love story in Hemingway’s. Despite all the similarities there are also very big differences in the depiction of war and the way the two characters cope with their shocking and different experiences. It is the way someone deals with these tragedies that is the true story. This essay will evaluate

In this essay, I will discuss how Tim O’Brien’s works “The Things They Carried” and “If I Die in a Combat Zone” reveal the individual human stories that are lost in war. In “The Things They Carried” O’Brien reveals the war stories of Alpha Company and shows how human each soldier is. In “If I Die in a Combat Zone” O’Brien tells his story with clarity, little of the dreamlike quality of “Things They Carried” is in this earlier work, which uses more blunt language that doesn’t hold back. In “If I Die” O’Brien reveals his own personal journey through war and what he experienced. O’Brien’s works prove a point that men, humans fight wars, not ideas. Phil Klay’s novel “Redeployment” is another novel that attempts to humanize soldiers in war. “Redeployment” is an anthology series, each chapter attempts to let us in the head of a new character – set in Afghanistan or in the United States – that is struggling with the current troubles of war. With the help of Phil Klay’s novel I will show how O’Brien’s works illustrate and highlight each story that make a war.

Difficult situations arise almost daily in the lives of most individuals. When confronted with adversity, individuals are forced to deal with the circumstances in the best way they know how. People can reach a point where they can no longer deal with the effects of adversity in their lives. It is at this point that individuals have to make a choice, either to allow themselves to be devastated, or to rise above their difficulties and try to return their former sprit and identity back. In the struggle to deal with adversity an individual’s sprit and identity can suffer pain and uncertainty. The novel ‘The Wars’ by Timothy Findley exhibits that in the middle of adversity, individuals are

As long as there has been war, those involved have managed to get their story out. This can be a method of coping with choices made or a way to deal with atrocities that have been witnessed. It can also be a means of telling the story of war for those that may have a keen interest in it. Regardless of the reason, a few themes have been a reoccurrence throughout. In ‘A Long Way Gone,’ ‘Slaughterhouse-Five,’ and ‘Novel without a Name,’ three narrators take the readers through their memories of war and destruction ending in survival and revelation. The common revelation of these stories is one of regret. Each of these books begins with the main character as an innocent, patriotic soldier or civilian and ends in either the loss of innocence and regret of choices only to be compensated with as a dire warning to those that may read it. These books are in fact antiwar stories meant not to detest patriotism or pride for one’s country or way of life, but to detest the conditions that lead to one being so simpleminded to kill another for it. The firebombing of Dresden, the mass execution of innocent civilians in Sierra Leone and a generation of people lost to the gruesome and outlandish way of life of communism and Marxism should be enough to convince anyone. These stories serve as another perspective for the not-so-easily convinced.

How well does one know war and what comes with it? Each one of the four documents used to create this paper are using different ways to get across the same point. The writers are Kevin Powers, Stephen Crane, Tim O’Brein and Wilfred Owen. All of the writers write about war ,but Powers also fought in the war as well as a machine Gunner, who enlisted at seventeen. The point is, writers use imagery, irony, and structure to protest war.