In exploring the growing loss of shared exchanges, Walter Benjamin’s “The Storyteller” specifically touches upon the silence of soldiers returning home after war. These men, “...not richer, but poorer in communicable experience” (Benjamin 84), are unable to fully express themselves, the horrors seen on the battlefield too much to accurately convey through words alone. Veterans are therefore alienated as a consequence, with civilians lacking the proper understanding needed to connect with their country’s supposed “heroes.” Further expanding upon this emotional disconnect, Siegfried Sassoon’s “Glory of Women” compares the praises from civilians with the realities lived by soldiers, in turn exemplifying the divide in perspectives:
You make us shells. You listen with delight,
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant arduous while we fight,
And mourn our laurelled memories when we’re killed.
You can’t believe that British troops “retire”
When hell’s last horror breaks them, and they run,
Trampling the terrible corpses—blind with blood. O German mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud. (Sassoon 5-14)
With these lines in particular, he attests that the glorification of war by those on the homefront is a result of their inability to comprehend the grave realities lived by those on the battlefield. Taken from the point-of-view of a soldier, Sassoon’s critique on civilians—and women
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
Each year, thousands of soldiers travel miles away from home, risking their lives to defend their country with a mentality of being the predator and not the prey-”kill or be killed.” These soldiers respected by most citizens for their actions- ending the lives of others. While people focus on these dauntless actions, nobody seems to question how the war emotionally and mentally affects these soldiers. Soldier's Home, by Ernest Hemingway, and Speaking of Courage, by Tim O'Brien, are both stories that explore and describes a veteran’s post-war return and adjustment to home. Hemingway writes a story about a soldier's detachment to his loved ones and unwillingness to readjust to the life he had departed from.
People both today and back then have been traumatized by war’s brutal combat, fallen victim to cruel soldiers, and had war cause sorrow and grief to them. Through characters seeing death, characters that are soldiers, and characters that are not in combat, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See demonstrates that war affects individuals negatively, even if they are extremely
After returning from war, veterans often face many hardships. This theme is demonstrated through pathos and logos in both “The Odyssey” by Homer and “Back from War but Not Really Home” by Caroline Alexander. These texts use these rhetorical devices to prove that a soldier’s struggle does not stop when he leaves the battlefield. By doing so, they open the eyes of the reader to the injustice they face.
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.
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
The author, a war veteran himself, is very familiar with the trials and tribulations of war, and knows of the social aspects of being with the other soldiers first hand. In the book, using many different examples of characterization, the author explores how soldiers think of courage and are afraid of not being courageous in a time of war; making it not only a physical war, but a mental one as
“My life is storytelling. I believe in stories, in their incredible power to keep people alive, to keep the living alive, and the dead.” Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, was filled with embellished stories and memories of war veterans. O’Brien’s reasoning for writing that particular book was because he believed that while a memory can die with a person, written words are forever set in stone. In his book, War was every one of the soldier’s enemy; It did not matter which side they fought on. War took men physically and mentally. O’Brien displayed how war stories were based on a certain soldier’s experiences, morals, and personality; Readers never truly knew fact from fiction. O’Brien’s intended audience were readers who were
War often has drastic and lasting effects on individuals; the violence and horror ages soldiers mentally and physically. World War I was a violent and distressing war; men came home with mental illnesses and never were fully able to sink back into society. Through these lasting effects common civilians with no affiliation were unaware to the consequences. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Remarque investigates the damaging effects of war on an individual’s identity using Paul Bäumer as a representation for all soldiers; he draws specific attention to the continuing loss of purpose and ability to relate to the rest of society.
Every Veterans Day, the Center for American Progress pauses to honor the brave men and women who serve or have served in the United States Armed Forces (Evans). Many Americans will take the opportunity to have a moment of silence. At the end of the war in All Quiet on the Western Front, there was complete silence after the death of Paul Bäumer that is similar to Americans using silence to respect their veterans who have fought . In All Quiet on the Western Front, the author develops motifs of camaraderie, loss of humanity, and senselessness of war to convey themes throughout the book. Camaraderie is a motif that occurs throughout Remarque's All Quite
War is hell. The inexorable death, devastation, and mental deterioration brought upon by war exist alongside no redeeming qualities. Those who have seen its relentless atrocities first-hand understand that enthusiasm is hard to come by, especially after years on the front line. The primary force that keeps soldiers going is their camaraderie. The camaraderie of soldiers is demonstrated thoroughly in Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. As Paul Bäumer and the men of the Second Company endure the facets of World War One, their fellowship quickly grows strong—even more so than that of brothers or perhaps even lovers. This fellowship is even found in enemy soldiers. The camaraderie soldiers have for one another
Premised within an unbelievable scenario is the story of male soldier, Mark Fossie, in the Vietnam War who brings his sweetheart, Mary Anne Belle, to his platoon. While Fossie wishes to uphold the traditional gender dichotomy in a foreign land, he doesn’t consider the effects of a war on a sweetheart. When a person goes to war, “[they] come over clean and [they] get dirty and afterwards it’s never the same” (O’Brien 81). In Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam War fiction, The Things They Carried, he explores how humans comprehend the experiences of other humans. To convey his understanding of the inner workings of human perception, he tells a story through Rat Kiley, who “had a reputation for exaggeration and overstatement.”
Accompanying the great horrors of the war was an extraordinary sense of comradeship that was forged between the soldiers as they went through countless hardships and unimaginable suffering together. Throughout Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul and the men of the Second Company received strength, both mentally and physically, from one another. As the war created a sharp distinction between soldiers and civilians,
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.
In Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier the continual coverage made by the media of the war during its occurrence and the infectiousness it had on those back home is portrayed through the eyes of her narrator, Jenny. The use of a female narrator wasn’t uncommon nor new but the way West includes her feminist values into Jenny without making it central to the story is fascinating. Up to this point in history, coverage of a war had never been read about as it was during this period. Because of this advancement in getting news out had improved drastically from the last war, people back home were more aware of what was occurring from reading a newspaper without having to wait for letters from their loved ones out on the front lines. West