Reflective Essay On The Darkest Hour

Winston Churchill had an incredible background, which had earned him the respect of the people and the influence as the second most powerful individual in the United Kingdom. Churchill enrolled into a Military college when he was of age, and participated in many conflicts surrounding the areas of Cuba, India and Sudan. In 1908, Churchill became a politician. During his time as a member of parliament, he began the movement to support the labor class of the British, introducing the ideas of minimum wage, insurance for the unemployed and most importantly the People’s Budget, which taxed the rich to support the social departments. These achievements within the military and in the parliament supported his ethos when regarding the people.

Faced with this pretty kettle of fish, as a leader of this country, Churchill needs to explain the dire situation to his countrymen and courage them confront the Nazis straightly with a positive attitude, as a result, the inspiring speech-The Finest Hour is born. Churchill elaborately puts strong pathos, subjective logos, convincing ethos and various of figurative languages into it, to make it a magic speech.

The year was 1940; the world’s second great World War was in full swing, with Britain and Germany at the forefront. The fall of Britain’s closest ally, France, stunned the British Empire and threw it into disarray. Through the chaos, Winston Churchill emerged. Churchill would be an inspiring leader who was able to rally the entire nation in times of hardship. Through his leadership, the “British Bulldog” would face the Axis powers and come out victorious, as well as become a public hero for the British people. Yet, immediately after the war, Churchill did not return to the prime minister seat because of a shocking defeat in his re-election, despite his immense reputation he gained from the war. Though lauded by the British population for his prowess as a wartime leader, Churchill’s conservative politics were out of touch with a population ready for post-war relief and led to his defeat in the 1945 election.

In a total war, the home front must be entirely united to continue to fight and fund a war effort, and Churchill appeals to unity and patriotism. He asks the people of Britain to give what Churchill himself will be offering ‘“blood, toil, tears, and sweat”’ (32). If the Prime Minister can give his everything to fight in the war, it encourages the audience to want to participate as well. Churchill continues to appeal to unity through his use of words like ‘we’ and ‘our’ to unite the country with the government as they fight for one cause. By creating a ‘team’, they can effectively rally the audience into action. The public opinion may believe that the Germans are unstoppable, but Winston’s emotionally charged words that with total effort and war from all fronts with the support of God, the feat can be achieved (35). Because of the war, the Prime Minister conveys the necessity for “victory; victory at all costs; victory in spirt of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival” (38-40). By bringing the risk of destruction of the country should they fail, it further persuades the audience to want to give their all so they can win the war. After riling up the crowd with the emotionally charged pathos arguments, Churchill closes with a final remark: ‘“Come then, let us go

“This was their finest hour” is a quote by Winston Churchill, the British wartime Prime Minister. Winston Churchill was appointed the Prime Minister of Britain in 1940, shortly after Neville Chamberlain resigned after his unpopular appeasement policies were ignored by Hitler, with his reputation tarnished by the British defeat in Norway. One month into Churchill’s appointment, France, who before the war was said to have the best army in mainland Europe, was defeated within a month and a half. On the previous day, Vichy France, a Nazi Germany-friendly puppet state, was propped up, headed by Marshal Petain after a French armistice was agreed. General Maxime Weygand, while in England, called the Battle of France over. Churchill, leading the only Allied nation remaining fighting on the Western Front, faced disaster.

In Winston Churchill’s speech, ‘We Shall Fight On the Beaches’ he presents a powerful call to action directly to the British House of Commons in the year of 1940 on the forth of June. Winston uses the techniques of figurative language to capture his audience’s attention in a way they could understand the importance of his message, without disregarding his high level of intellect. In order for one to truly understand Churchill’s message one must understand the difficult task he was coined with prior to delivering this powerful message.

Even before the climactic World War II, Churchill’s mental war starts with the Indian Independence movement. Churchill was brusque about his opinion on the movement, knowingly showing his opposition to the public. “To Churchill, all Indians were the pedestal for a throne. He would have died to keep England free, but was against those who wanted India free.(Tondon, n.d.)” With this ornery still in the mind of the public and government officials, Churchill’s 1940 election was met with opposition. In Churchill and Orwell, “Peter Eckersley, a Tory MP, predicted that “Winston won’t last five months.”(Ricks, pg. 91)” The general public were critical of such a disposition leading the United Kingdom during a time struggle. Even with the public’s pessimistic prospect of him, Churchill’s resilience will become a favorable trait to exhibit in this psychological war.

Winston Smith is a hero. Despite his anticipated and inevitable failure at the end of 1984, he personifies humanity’s nature to resist subjugation and repression. Actions and intentions are the true measure of a hero and Winston Smith is not found lacking in either. His failure does not diminish his status as a hero. On the contrary, he is the precise representation of Orwell’s definition of heroism: an ordinary man doing whatever he can to change a system that is devoid of decency; in spite of the obvious futility of such an endeavor.

Accordingly, Winston Churchill has created speeches criticized by the same way. Churchill was the prime minister of England who used his word choices to create speeches that made people appreciated him during World War Two. Many of his speeches are about uniting to fight the Nazis. One of the speeches was “The Lights Are Going Out”. On October 16, 1938 in the United States and London, the

Sir Winston Churchill’s speech, ‘We Shall Fight on the Beaches’ was a wonderful piece of moving rhetoric. The diction that Churchill uses to deliver his message is not so advanced that one cannot understand him easily, but still manages to portray a sense of Churchill’s deeply intellectual status

The Russian Revolution and the purges of Leninist and Stalinist Russia have spawned a literary output that is as diverse as it is voluminous. Darkness at Noon, a novel detailing the infamous Moscow Show Trials, conducted during the reign of Joseph Stalin is Arthur Koestler’s commentary upon the event that was yet another attempt by Stalin to silence his critics. In the novel, Koestler expounds upon Marxism, and the reason why a movement that had as its aim the “regeneration of mankind, should issue in its enslavement” and how, in spite of its drawbacks, it still held an appeal for intellectuals. It is for this reason that Koestler may have attempted “not to solve but to expose” the shortcomings of this political system and by doing so

Craig Mullaney definitely made many challenges for himself and accepted challenges from others with no questions asked. Being the thriving Valedictorian of his high school class and earning other prestigious accolades he stood out from the other entire student. But at West Point, Mullaney would be intertwined with hundreds of other classmates with the same, if not more achievements, making it seemingly impossible to be any kind of a predominant student.

Richard E. Miller essay “The Dark Night of the Soul” to be an interesting way to think about reading and writing in today’s world. Richard uses the violence in the world to question if our educational system is relevant to keeping us safe and whether the power literature can be used to change the tragic event that happen around us every day.

“Hitler did not act alone in the conduct of foreign policy in the 1930’s neither did he dictate its course exclusively.” In the early years of Hitler’s reign Taylor was correct to identify him as an ordinary statesman because during this time there was a different formation of Government compared to the later years in the war. However, it is difficult in retrospect to dispute that Hitler was a normal statesman when looking at atrocities of his domestic policies such as; the extermination of Jews in concentration camps. The war was still in the public memory when ‘Origins’ was published and the myth created about Hitler that he was a madman with brutal policies was strongly embedded in society, therefore to argue against this would obviously create much controversy.

Churchill begins “We Shall Never Surrender” by providing vivid descriptions of the life and environment of war to describe the hardships, then follows up with showing that the strength that the troops had together helped them overcome specific events. He continues to use repetition to emphasize the importance of staying together and not losing hope in order to provide small victories, one at a time. Churchill’s courage to speak up during such a disturbing time helped assist the nations morality by providing hope and encouragement in the bloodshed time of war. When a nation felt defeated Winston Churchill used his powerful voice in “We Shall Never Surrender” to lift the nation’s spirits