Portrayal Of Soldiers In Movies Essay

In this world, there is no individual more tragic than the one who gazes into their future and is only able to see a perpetual cycle of despair and agony. War, in particular, has this incomprehensibly dark power—the ability to drive even the most cheerful among us into the oppressive void of depression. Indeed, the total and complete loss of hope is among the most destructive consequences of war on the human psyche. An expression of this phenomenon is visible in Paul Baumer’s statement regarding the true psychological state of soldiers. When reflecting upon the experience of being in the military, Baumer says “We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out...Our only comfort is the steady breathing of our comrades asleep, and thus we

The rambunctious behavior of the soldier’s triumphant victory is a strong message visually for the viewer. These soldiers struggle to find their identity and once the war ends, the identity they’ve build at war vanishes, (McCutcheon, 2007). As a result, they essentially lose a part of them selves, (McCutcheon, 2007). When they return home, many soldiers struggle with psychological issues that prevent them from resuming their once regular lives, (McCutcheon, 2007). The images of soldiers celebrating at the end of war give the viewer a taste of this problem. This also allows the viewer insight to the deeper issues surrounding an American soldier’s mental stability and mentality. Through this image, along with many others throughout the film, the viewer is able to dig deeper and truly analyze what they are seeing.

Starship Troopers is a classic novel written in 1959 by retired Navy Lieutenant Robert Heinlein. At the time that it was published Starship Troopers was controversial yet won the Hugo Award in the 1960’s for being one of the best science fiction novels. One of the controversies surrounding the book is the main character’s history teacher’s view on violence and how violence “has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.” The book had such a cult following that there has been a film adaptation. It is a work of literature that has stood the test of time and is being read in our schools today. This may not seem shocking for such a classic book, but being science fiction it is a true accomplishment.

Copious bullets, like that of torrential downpour, reign over the battlefield; a setting in which man created through dispute, engulfs each and every individual caught within it. Some are immediately spun into a downward spiral, while with others, it hits them in the midst -- even if they have built an immunity to war’s ways. Two fictional characters, both sharing a similar atmosphere, experience the true affects to war in their own ways. Although war never changes, the individuals do, no matter the situation. This is exemplified through the fictional tales, told by Liam O’Flaherty’s “The Sniper,” as well as Tim O’Brien’s “Where Have You Gone Charming Billy,” and as the main characters are to each their own story, they bear contradistinction to one another in the aspect of war, personality, and the emotional reactions to war.

War can destroy a man both in body and mind for the rest of his life. In “The Sniper,” Liam O’Flaherty suggests the horror of war not only by presenting its physical dangers, but also by showing its psychological effects. We are left to wonder which has the longer lasting effect—the visible physical scars or the ones on the inside?

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 glorified act of war is often staged in historical literature by idolizing the soldiers who partake in the event. Soldiers are made to seem intrepid, ruthless and muscular, each with a ceaseless desire to fight valiantly for their countries. Timothy Findley and Kurt Vonnegut discard this typical hero archetype in their anti-war novels by portraying the soldiers who fight in the war as the men they are, not as the templates of heroes they are expected to fit, in furtherance of strengthening their anti-war stances. Findley and Vonnegut illustrate their protagonists as a tragic hero and an anti-hero, respectively, in order to juxtapose the atrocities of war with the flawed humanness of man and to challenge the stereotypical image of a

“Hello mother, father, this is your Louie talking. This will be the first time in two years that you’ve heard my voice. I am now interned at a Tokyo prisoner of war camp and I’m being treated as well as can be expected under wartime conditions.” As a viewer we can see the look of pure disgust and longing upon Louie’s face. It was evident that he wasn’t eager to read what was prepared for him as it depicted a false perception of what his wartime conditions were truly like. The fact that he had to make it seem like he was well when in fact he was anything but. I am now able to understand that what those in society often herd about their captured soldiers was quite often incorrect. The enemy wanted to portray an image that hid the true conditions and circumstances the American soldiers were subject to. I not only found this film inspiring as it showed the resilience American soldiers had whilst confined in the prisoner of war camps but also found it interesting as it showed the truths of war so vividly in way that could never be achieved through the use of written words. As a result of this film I am able to see how much we owe these men for our freedom, we were never truly able to appreciate the sacrifice made by those men and women until viewing this incredible film. They went through so much to ensure the freedom of many generations to come and if it wasn’t for these men who knows what our lives would be like today.

Deceased philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, “War does not determine who is right- only who is left”. Those left are the soldiers of the 1-502nd, specifically Bravo Company 1st plt, and the Janabi family and to a greater extent, the ever-changing global world we all live in today. The tragic events that conspired in a small Iraqi village became a microcosm of how leadership failures at every level shaped the actions of a few soldiers who committed atrocious acts. One can also see how a high operational tempo, along with prolonged violence and death, has on a person’s psyche. It is the ugly side of war that the average American citizen may not want to hear or talk about. For a soldier, it is inevitably what they train their

The soldiers face loneliness, isolation, the heavy burden of fear, and the weight of their reputations. The soldiers carry such a heavy weight from the past, in the present, and for the future. Even after the war, the psychological burdens the men carried during the war continues to define them. Those who survive the war carry guilt, grief, and confusion.

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.

The reader will get an increasingly detailed image of how the soldiers emotionally respond to the happenings throughout the war due to this composition.

The wartime lives of the soldiers who fought in the war were in a state of mind of mixed feelings. Happiness and devastating are two adjectives that can describe the soldier’s feelings in the war because at one second they can be happy that they succeeded on a mission, but on the other hand, it can be very devastating because one of their own soldiers could have been killed during the war. Aside from physical danger losing one of your own soldiers or having your family worry about you every day and night are some negatives and unpleasant parts about fighting in a war. For example, soldiers loved ones worried each day, and hoped that they would not get a knock on their door by someone who was going to tell them that their fathers, husbands, sons, or brothers have died in the war.

The movie “All Quiet on the Western Front” can provide us with a lot of insight about the soldiers experience in World War I. The movie and what we learned in class can help us out with this. In the movie there were a lot of kids and just by looking at their face you could tell what they were thinking. Some of them were very scared of what might happen to them, some of them were determined to come home well and alive, and some of them looked excited to be serving the Fatherland and doing their duty. Back in Germany they told the students over and over that it was their duty to fight in the war and that is what men do in Germany. They were told they were serving the Fatherland and bringing glory back to

Dubrow amplifies and expands on this by touching on what it is like for soldiers at war, what soldiers represent and common conformities/