Response on War by Luigi Irony and Comments

War is devastating and tragic. It affects the daily lives of the people that are involved in the war. In the excerpt from, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, it displays a man who is dreaming about war. When the man wakes up, he lays sweating on the ground, remembering the painful memories that the dream has brought. In the end, the man realizes that from now on he will have to live in three worlds; his dreams, the experience of his new life, and memories from the past. Meanwhile, in the image, “In Times of War” by The New York Times, there is an angel on a cloud looking over the dreadful war. Then the angel walks away because the view of people dying makes it sick. The theme of the excerpt A Long Way Gone, and the image, “In Times of War,” is that the war brings death, seriously injured, and psychologically broken people.

Kurt Vonnegut is able to put a man’s face on war in his short story, “All the King’s Horse ”, and he exemplifies that in a time of war, the most forgotten effect on nations is the amount of innocent lives lost in meaningless battle due to unjust rulers fighting each other against a nation’s will. As Americans, we are oblivious to the fact that we have people fighting every day for our country. In addition, we ignore the fact that we do a lot of collateral damage and hurt innocent people unintentionally in order to get what we want. Vonnegut shows the reader in Pi Ying’s own sadistic way of demonstrating how he feels about war brings attention to the point that war, while unruly and cruel, is nothing

Although the story wasn’t about war itself aspects of war can be seen in the stories plot and setting. The story is relevant in today’s society in terms of war because, we are currently in on right now. The effects of war on both civilians and soldiers may vary from war to war but they all share a common effect being that no one likes it. War causes family struggles, constant fear, economic hardships and in the worst cases mass casualties. War has a traumatizing effect on anyone who experiences it firsthand. This idea is fully captured in “The Things They Carried” and is heavily relevant in our society today with our nation currently being at

In war, both violence and fear revokes a soldier’s humanity. These elements of war cause a person to shut down their emotional instincts, which causes the soldiers to mature rapidly by taking innocence along with joy and happiness in life. Through the experiences that the soldiers encounter, their humanity is compromised. Thus, as war strips soldiers of their innocence, they start to become disconnected from themselves and others. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque illustrates the negative effects war has on a soldier’s humanity, through his use of Paul’s books and the potato pancakes by revealing the soldiers loss of emotion that causes them to become detached from society. Through these symbols they deepen the theme by visually depicting war’s impact on Paul. Paul’s books helps the theme by depicting how the war locked his heart to old values by taking his innocence. Likewise the potato pancakes reveal Paul’s emotional state damaged by the war with his lack of happiness and gratitude.

There is no doubt that when war occurs, every single human being is affected by it even if it is just a little. In the novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front” written by Erich Maria Remarque, a group of teenage men, who also appear to by classmates, are in the German army of World War I because they have chosen to leave their adolescence at home and school for grown up work at the army. Throughout this fictional novel, they face many challenges that result in them not seeing each other ever again because of death. War affects individuals by leaving behind necessities such as education or jobs, not being able to watch over others such as their health, and injuries that soldiers receive while they are at war.

Since the beginning of mankind, war and the horrors that come with it have had devastating effects on both the minds and the bodies of human beings. Mentally, war drains soldiers of their ability to think properly. During a battle, soldiers witness bloody battles which frequently result in demise. Day after day of witnessing deceased fall to the ground, a soldier can do nothing but think about blood, gore, and his or her fallen comrades. Additionally, a war can be physically taxing on whomever takes part in it. Dodging or being hit by fists, swords, or bullets will inevitably cause pain and may disable somebody for the rest of their life. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque demonstrates through characterization, imagery,

In the incredible book, All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, the reader follows Paul Baumer, a young man who enlisted in the war. The reader goes on a journey and watches Paul and his comrades face the sheer brutality of war. In this novel, the author tries to convey the fact that war should not be glorified. Through bombardment, gunfire, and the gruesome images painted by the author, one can really understand what it would have been like to serve on the front lines in the Great War. The sheer brutality of the war can be portrayed through literary devices such as personification, similes, and metaphors.

The war had changed people in so many ways, as their former character of being sincere, at peace, and loving was slowly changed to chaotic, indecisive and unhopeful lives. People began to forget who they really were all due to the war, “It

The psychologist Sigmund Freud once said, “Because every man has a right over his own life and war destroys lives that were full of promise; it forces the individual into situations that shame his manhood, obliging him to murder fellow men, against his will.” He initially stated this when he was corresponding with Albert Einstein via letter. This quote is also a great explanation of the events that take place during war that people chose to not recognise. War is terrible, and no matter how hard we try, nothing will change that. Erich Maria Remarque shows us that soldiers have endured dreadfully throughout World War I in his book “All Quiet on the Western Front”. The character in the book, Paul Baumer, endures through the tragedies of war with some of his old schoolmates as well as new comrades that he meets along the way. They survive through all of the tragedies together, but in the end, the war made them lose their friendships as well as their lives. The reality is that war comes with consequences while it destroys people, and there is nothing that will ever be able to change that. The book “All Quiet on the Western Front” shows how war comes destroys people's lives with its consequences through three of its themes: the importance of comradery, the loss of innocence, and the horrors and brutality of war.

In 1914-1919, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand was the cause of World War One, resulting in conflicts between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. In the Great War, No Man’s Land was a dividing field from the opposing trenches located in France. Soldiers were forced to cross the land to push forward their side of the battle, to either take control or defend the territory. Gas was often used in the trenches to wipe out large groups of soldiers at a time. During the battle, soldiers would come across harsh conditions such as disease, treacherous terrain, and the passing of men. Soldiers sent into war experienced hard decisions and tragedies which can change their mentality. In the story, The Wars Timothy Findley develops the idea that when an individual faces dilemmas in life, one’s innocence can vary due to a person’s human nature.

The author writes of many different human beings, showing that each one thinks war is ultimately, the worst thing. While in the war, Billy is in the hospital during his imprisonment by the Germans. There is an old general there who was a teacher before joining in the war efforts. One day, in a conversation with Billy and another older man in the hospital, the general starts to talk about what he thinks of the war. He says, "You know-- we’ve had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by aging men like ourselves. We had forgotten that wars were fought by babies. When I saw those freshly shaved faces, it was a shock. "‘My God, my God----’ I said to myself, ‘It’s the Children’s Crusade’" (p. 106). This general feels that war is nothing but babies being murdered by one another. He is disturbed by the thought of war and the fact that so many young people are dying for its cause.

Elie Wiesel, an Auschwitz survivor, ends his autobiography, Night, with the lasting statement, "From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me" (115). The importance of this declaration signifies that Elie came to a realization that emotional death that the death camps have created will far outweigh the physical pains experienced through torture. He understands that the physical evidence from the torture will fade, but the psychological trauma will torment and alter the rest of his life. Through Elie 's eyes, the reader is forced to beg the questions: What is the breaking point for a person to experience a disregard for emotion? How does a person heal from what is thought to be obsolete terror? And can a person ever recover to the extent of fitting back into society? However, holocaust survivors are not the only people who suffered from the detrimental effects of death. Veterans of war also become victims to the immunity of death. The mother country will rejoice at the sight of its sons returning from battle; however, the families do not comprehend that the war will always rage inside their battle-scarred relative. Although wars hurt America physically by decreasing the population, wars also impact soldiers emotionally. Emotional death is prevalent in all wars, and it destroys America socially because of the isolationism it creates.

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.

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.

In “The Son of Man,” Natalia Ginzburg asserts that while the war did irreparable psychological damage to its survivors, it also gave the young generation enough strength to confront the stark reality of the precarious nature of human existence. Passionately but concisely, through the use of repetitive imagery, fatalistic tone and lack of classic organization, Ginzburg shows how the war changed the world around Man and how Man changed his perception of the world.