Critical Analysis The Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner

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 idea of loss is explored diversely in the poems ‘Conscript’ by FA Horn and ‘The Photograph’ by Peter Kocan. Where ‘Conscript’ conveys the loss of a soldier on the battlefields of World War II and his physical demise, ‘The Photograph’ conveys the loss of a World War I Australian soldier and the grief his family endures with the passing of time. Although the two poems are set in different wars, the poets similarly reinforce the devastation, as well as the emotional and physical impact associated with war.

“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” written by Randall Jarrell is a poem that introduces three major ideas in only five lines. These ideas are birth, death, and war. Jarrell is able to accomplish a lot in this short poem by using diction and syntax such as metaphor and figurative language.

Penned during two distinctly disparate eras in American military history, both Erich Maria Remarque's bleak account of trench warfare during World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Tim O'Brien's haunting elegy for a generation lost in the jungles of Vietnam, The Man I Killed, present readers with a stark reminder that beneath the veneer of glorious battle lies only suffering and death. Both authors imbue their work with a grim severity, presenting the reality of war as it truly exists. Men inflict grievous injuries on one another, breaking bodies and shattering lives, without ever truly knowing for what or whom they are fighting for. With their contributions to the genre of war literature, both Remarque and O'Brien have sought to lift the veil of vanity which, for so many wartime writers, perverts reality with patriotic fervor. In doing so, the authors manage to convey the true sacrifice of the conscripted soldier, the broken innocence which clouds a man's first kill, and the abandonment of one's identity which becomes necessary in order to kill again.

The text, ‘The Things They Carried', is an excellent example which reveals how individuals are changed for the worse through their first hand experience of war. Following the lives of the men both during and after the war in a series of short stories, the impact of the war is accurately portrayed, and provides a rare insight into the guilt stricken minds of soldiers. ‘The Things They Carried' shows the impact of the war in its many forms: the suicide of an ex-soldier upon his return home; the lessening sanity of a medic as the constant death surrounds him; the trauma and guilt of all the soldiers after seeing their friends die, and feeling as if they could have saved them; and the deaths of the soldiers, the most negative impact a war

Death is something that everyone has to look forward to at some point in life, but one is temporarily alive by this idea of the “American dream” they are handed throughout a lifetime. It is not until many are faced with adversity that life is truly noticed. For the gunner this moment comes when he is “six miles from earth” facing enemies that he wakes up for the first time. He is awake due to this being the first time in his life that he is truly separated from that dream. Jarrell uses the second half of line three to describe this idea of the detachment from the normality of everyday life. Jarrell is saying that everyday life is just a dream and one is a zombie, dazed going through the motions of typical life. What Jarrell is saying here is that Americans are born dead due to the life they are brought up in and since they are dead do not get to experience real life. The ball turret gunner only truly “lives” for a little bit due to the changing consequences of war around him. Last line of the poem describes his actual death and how

Many of the great poems we read today were written in times of great distress. One of these writers was Randall Jarrell. After being born on May 6, 1914, in Nashville Tennessee, Jarrell and his parents moved to Los Angeles where his dad worked as a photographer. When Mr. and Mrs. Jarrell divorced, Randall and his younger brother returned to Nashville to live with their mother. While in Nashville, Randall attended Hume-Frogg high school. Randall showed his love for the arts while in high school by participating in dramatics and journalism. Jarrell continued his career in the arts when he wrote and edited for Vanderbilt's humor magazine, The Vanderbilt Masquerader. After earning his graduate degree at Vanderbilt, Jarrell accepted a

Actions tested there ethical and moral values. After this point these soldiers have to cope with the cause and effect from their actions. Coping can cause mental illnesses, and addiction but also you can cope with these some things plus more things such as love, and mortality. This is the most important struggle that had to take care of for their survival. But why is this still relevant to today's society? Tim o’brien used many methods while writing this book to help the reader to understand the soldiers experiences and feelings throughout the war. These methods include imagery, repetition, hyperbole, metaphors, allusions, and many

But, in contrast, the speaker is a dead WW2 soldier who describes how the job of a ball turret gunner is a death sentence. In “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” Jarrell begins the poem with, “From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State, / And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze” (1-2). Jarrell opens the poem by comparing the belly of an American bomber aircraft to that of his mother’s womb. The fact that Jarrell is comparing the belly of an American bomber aircraft to his mother’s womb is quite ironic because he juxtaposes two things where one symbolizes life, and the other symbolizes death. Jarrell continues to convey his theme of death when he describes how the speaker is off the ground and flying. In “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” Jarrell writes, “Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life” (3). Jarrell is foreshadowing the death of the speaker in this line. Jarrell knew that once the speaker was off the ground and in the air, the speaker was on a suicide mission. Most ball turret gunners’ lives in WW2 were short lived. Since they were placed under the belly of the bomber aircraft, if the aircraft was shot down, most planes landed on their bellies, and as a result, the ball turret gunners were killed. In the last lines of Jarrell’s poem, “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” he states, “I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. / When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose” (4-5). Jarrell’s views on death highlight that he is against the unnecessary loss of life. Jarrell is protesting that the job of the ball turret gunner should not have been a job because it was almost guaranteed to be a suicide mission. Jarrell emphasizes his philosophy by including the gruesome visual of people washing out the body of the ball turret gunner with a

War can be considered a tragedy, but war can also signify bravery. So many men and women die fighting for their country daily. What really happens behind enemy lines? In “The Things They Carried,” a short story by Tim O’Brien, he uses various rhetorical devices to explain to his readers to help them truly understand what it is like to be in war.

In this book, Tim O’brien reveals all his experiences in detail about the war; as well as stories about his fellow soldiers, and makes a true, but over the top about them. He explains how he feels through stories that are difficult to clearly identify as “true.” This book has a lot of themes, death and violence is one of the major themes.

Since the beginning of time, humans have sought after power and control. It is human instinct to desire to be the undisputed champion, but when does it become a problem? Warfare has been practiced throughout civilization as a way to justify power. Though the orders come directly from one man, thousands of men and women pay the ultimate sacrifice. In Randall Jerrell’s “The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner”, Jarrell is commenting on the brutality of warfare. Not only does Jarrell address the tragedies of war, he also blames politics, war leaders, and the soldier’s acknowledgement of his duties. (Hill 6) With only five lines of text, his poems allows the reader to understand what a soldier can go through. With the use of Jerrell’s poem, The Vietnam War, and Brian Turner’s “Ameriki Jundee”, the truth of combat will be revealed.

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.

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity,” quoted Dwight D. Eisenhower. (Brainy Quote) War was and still is a serious event that is only understandable to those who have experienced it first-hand. World War l was a devastating battle that caused boundless amounts of destruction, not only to countries and cities but to human’s minds and bodies. John McCrae was a man who experienced the inescapable effects of war and the damage it caused to a person's sanity. His poem, “In Flanders Field,” is a written example of how devastating death was and the reality that demise was inevitable, effecting bystanders for the rest of their life.