Seven Characters In The Bone Bridge, By Trina Davies

This book report discusses the plot, significant characters, setting (e.g., time of the story took place, historical background), problems and resolutions, themes or messages of the story. A reflection of the author’s writing style will be presented followed by a conclusion.

One's memories will paint a reality of society so divorced from our own as 'truth is the first casualty of war'. It will be of three and a half years of imprisonment and the chance to reflect fifty years after the event will be at large. In John Misto's historical fiction, The Shoe Horn Sonata the hard truth is brought to light in 1995, fifty years on providing a rich sense of reflection and consideration of the notion of World War Two through the memory of two characters, Shelia and Bridie.

The defining characteristics of WW1 were its sickening violence and its immense death toll so, understandably, many pieces of war literature aim to present the horrors of war in order to unflinchingly reveal the true experiences of the soldiers. However, Journey’s End by R.C Sherriff and A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry also focus on the emotional aspect of war and the relationships it created and destroyed. The war forced people of every background to rely on and interact with each other while it also wrenched soldiers away from their families, introducing unique tensions between people that would not have existed otherwise. However, it is debatable which form, Sherriff’s play or Barry’s novel, is most effective in presenting these relationships.

The current paper tends to explore the conceptual literature illustrated in two different novels entitled as Outside the Bones and Delirium. Moreover, the presented paper will highlight the role of female protagonist and their mystical, ghostly, and paranormal influence in the narrations.

This play revolves around the flashbacks and memories of a little girl named Iris, as she recounts what she remembers of her childhood as it closed onto her 11th birthday. It shows the dynamic and different family structure of hers, and how that changed the way she looked at life. It also tells the story of an unhappy marriage between Iris’ parents, Sylvia and

Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five; or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is, as suggested by the title, a novel describing a crusade that stretches beyond the faint boundaries of fiction and crosses over into the depths of defogged reality. This satirical, anti-war piece of literature aims to expose, broadcast and even taunt human ideals that support war and challenge them in light of their folly. However, the reality of war, the destruction, affliction and trauma it encompasses, can only be humanly described by the word “war” itself. Furthermore, oftentimes this term can only be truly understood by those who have experienced it firsthand. Therefore, in order to explain the unexplainable and humanize one of the most

In the manner of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, George Saunders provides the readers of Civilwarland In Bad Decline with a bystander's view of miserable, disgruntled characters and their treacherous, rather unfortunate lots in life. His characters are deplorably miserable, overly guilt-ridden, and exploited, and yet they elicit a heart wrenching compassion. Readers are left sympathizing for the occasionally revolting characters, even empathizing with their burdens. Indeed, Saunders exhibits plenty of correlations between each of his story's characters, simultaneously creating a unifying quality to his stories and hinting at a greater theme. The stories within Civilwarland In Bad Decline are cut from the same cloth, and even

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 short story “The Death of Dolgushov” by Isaak Babel is a gut wrenching story, at times literally, about the dilemmas of killing. Babel, a master of the short story, challenges readers’ morality by contrasting two soldiers plights. On the one hand, a soldier, Dolgushov, pleads that he has “had it (241),” meaning that he wants his comrade to kill him after being mortally wounded by machine gun fire; while on the other hand, another soldier, unnamed, cannot bring himself to kill Dolgushov. Throughout the story, war is depicted as a game until a soldier gets seriously hurt. This device, combined with the vivid imagery associated with both soldier’s plights, complicates how readers’ judge the act of killing and war in general.

history-the rape of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution of her and her family. It is hard to believe that such an abhorrent event could occur under the command of well-experienced and decorated leaders that so many soldiers have entrusted their lives with. Frederick does an excellent job depicting a well-rounded story, taking into fact all accounts of the story, integrating both the perspectives of leaders and subordinates that display how much of an impact poor leadership can have on others, including the lives of the innocent civilians. The story unfolds to show how exactly, in Army vernacular, “shit rolls downhill” and the domino effect of poor leadership that leads to a catastrophic event.

Stories in the dark by Debra Oswald was written in 2007, this creative production explored tensions of families torn apart by war and uses a powerful mixture of horror, humour and hope. It was a challenging theatrical experience full of strong language, fast movement and sound. In this production, the concept was War Stories including an adaptation of Debra Oswald’s original play. The director blended Naturalism with Brechtain influenced poems, monologues and songs centred on the theme of war in the hope of examining human nature through emotion and believable relationships.

Novel critic Greg Doran states that Galloway “paints an inanimate portrait of three people living in wartorn Sarajevo” to illustrate “how the human spirit responds to conflict” (Doran 153). This analysis interconnects with the didactic nature of the novel, which conveys a strong lesson about identity and hope. The story about how three people experience a temporary change of personality in the face of conflict and lose sight of their values due to this conveys a message to the reader. Though Arrow, Kenan, and Dragan all deviate from the path they were on after losing hope, a small part of them still cling to the past, a small part of them still hope. The stronger the hope of the characters, the more they will pursue their values and beliefs. Thus, as the characters in the novel regain hope, they regain their identity. Hope is symbolized by the Cellist in the novel, and upon hearing the Cellist playing, Arrow and Kenan remember the values they once held dear. Arrow realizes she does not wish to kill anymore as she does not hate anyone, and Kenan decides to fetch Mrs. Ritovski’s water. This conveys the message that hope is powerful, and hope is what drives people to follow their values and beliefs, guiding people to regain their identities. The Cellist shows that even in the darkest of times there is hope and that hope should be held

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of war among a maturing nation of children, thereby creating a theme of Bildungsroman in the novel Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi. Bildungsroman, as defined by literarydevices.net: “a special kind of novel that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of its main character from his or her youth to adulthood.” Within this graphic novel, the author portrays the concept of aging during a period of civil/political crisis, perhaps a foreign topic for yourself, however, Satrapi recalls her childhood trauma in order for you to gain insight into a world previously unknown. Her tale, being divided as two separate graphic novels, chronicles her growth on more than a

The story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is an enormously detailed fictional account of a wartime scenario in which jimmy Cross (the story’s main character) grows as a person, and the emotional and physical baggage of wartime are brought to light. The most obvious and prominent feature of O’Brien’s writing is a repetition of detail. O’brien also passively analyzes the effects of wartime on the underdeveloped psyche by giving the reader close up insight into common tribulations of war, but not in a necessarily expositorial sense.. He takes us into the minds of mere kids as they cope with the unbelievable and under-talked-about effects or rationalizing

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.