At the beginning of Humanities Core in fall quarter, my understanding of war was primarily centered around soldiers and how killing others permanently scarred them, often leading to post-traumatic stress disorder. Being a Cognitive Sciences major, I am naturally interested in how extreme situations, such as war, affect people’s psychology. However, my focus drifted in an entirely new direction, towards civilians in wartime (See: Tags), as the year progressed and my view of war became more complex. 539w Meryl Streep in a production of Mother Courage and Her Children (Source: www.boston.com) Early in fall quarter, I became particularly interested in the distinction between history from above and history from below. Whereas I did not care much for history from above (e.g. Homer’s Iliad) because I am already so used to seeing these kind of violent, masculine portrayals of war in the media, I became very interested in history from below. Readings set from this perspective, such as Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, opened my eyes to the all-encompassing effects of war, which radiates beyond the structural ruins of war and soldiers who fought in it. Brecht’s play, set during the Thirty Years’ War, explores the effects of war on commoners; however, he denies the audience closure through Mother Courage’s lack of character development. As a result, the audience, unaffected by emotion, is able to critically analyze the aftermath of war. I noticed that other works of
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.
An American machine gunner, Charles Yale Harrison, says in his novel, Generals Die in Bed: “[War] take[s] everything from us: our lives, our blood, our hearts; even the few lousy hours of rest, they take those, too. Our job is to give, and theirs is to take,” (Harrison, 26). In this example, Harrison explains how war is the most selfish and strongest of all evils; war continues to take everything someone has until they have nothing left to take. The war also created long-term effects for soldiers; one being shell-shock. This term is used to describe the damage of constant loud shelling during war which greatly affected those who were not exposed to shelling frequently (Unnamed). Another term that is still used today is PTSD, (“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder”), which is used to describe the effect war had on the soldiers afterward (Unnamed). World War I brought major psychological disorders upon the soldiers during and after the war had ended leading to great damage for the rest of the victim’s
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?
Over the past few decades, the war changed everyone’s perspective. According to NCBI, 61% civilians suffer from psychological disorders caused by wars. Specifically, two books, Night and Persepolis, talks about the author experiences during the war and their struggles. Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, documents his childhood when he was maltreated by the Nazis, and Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis, share her experiences during the Iraq-Iran war of how it change her. War changes childhood because of near-death experiences, family departure, and witness horrific acts of violence.
War causes death, poverty, diseases, destruction, and many more devastating and unavoidable consequences. The government drafted men into military service, giving them no choice but to separate them from their daily lives, friends, and families. Soldiers fight in wars while putting their lives on the line and are only rewarded with physical or psychological injuries. Countries wage war against one another in order to resolve disputes and disagreements between them. Individuals, such as nurses, soldiers, and civilians undergo traumatic events when they are caught in the middle of a war. Although some may argue that war does not impact the self the most, based on the informational text, “War Escalates” by Paul Boye, the short story, “Where
This experience, above all other wartime horrors, changed the writer-to-be’s perspective on warfare and the human condition that causes it.
The effect of combat on the human mind has been noticed often, but very seldom studied. Since World War II and the Vietnam War, America has seen how war veterans have been affected after combat—sometimes, it makes the news. 11% of America’s homeless population are veterans, and most suffer from mental illness as well as substance abuse issues, but often times, this is swept under the rug. Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse-Five, was a WWII veteran himself and understood how war changes people firsthand. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim is drafted for war during World War II and is sent to Germany. He survives the bombing of Dresden, just like Vonnegut did himself. Kurt Vonnegut creates veteran and civilian characters in Slaughterhouse-Five in order to express that humans are
Studies have found that post traumatic stress disorder affects almost 31% of Vietnam veterans. War has a catastrophic impact on people’s health and well-being. Soldiers aren’t only affected physically during war. Many are affected mentally as well. For example, during the war and post war many individuals suffer from what is known as shell shock, which was especially prominent throughout World War 1. Post traumatic stress disorder and shell shock are due to the brain’s failed attempts to cope with their trauma. The novel Slaughterhouse 5, the excerpt from The Yellow Birds, and the short story “Soldier’s Home” all describe the lives of soldiers post war. The repercussions of the traumatic experiences that soldiers survive through during war
One of the paramount effects of war on young people is the dehumanization of humanity. Dehumanization is the psychological occurrence of demonizing the enemy or one’ self, manufacture them to appear less than human and therefore not worthy of humane behaviour (Maiese, 2003). Maiese (2003) adds that it can lead to amplified viciousness, human rights violations, war corruptions, and genocide. In All Quiet on the Western Front (1994), soldiers rarely saw the
The soldier describes the gruesomeness of war as, “obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores.” War is unforgettable and scarring. The experiences a soldier intakes are nowhere near attractive. Clearly, the fantasies of war are sensationalized to those that go to war considering they describe it as the complete opposite of what our society portrays it
While writing and synthesizing this article about the impacts of war on the human mind, I used three sources that were provided that supported my thesis as well as three additional sources that I found to have developed my position further. Each source chosen provides a unique insight to the effects of war, and also takes a side on the position I have created. The three sources provided that I chose to use were The Things They Carried, American Sniper, and Nick Niday; the three additional sources were the DSM-V, “PsychCentral,” and David Pridham.
War has affected many soldiers around the world. War generally has a negative effect on the people and the societies involved. These texts provide examples of the negative effects of war and how it has impacted soldiers lives; ‘Hero of war by Rise against’, ‘Dulce et decorum est by Owen Wilfred’, ‘Rambo - First Blood by Ted Kotcheff’ and ‘The Patriot by Ted Kotcheff’. All of the soldiers in these texts are suffering from ‘emotional scarring’ as a result of what happened during the war. There are many different negative effects of war, such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and regret.
English Professor Carol Burke’s interest in military culture led her to research the prevalence of superstitious charms in the military through a series of interviews; she published these findings in “The Things They Bring to War.” In Humanities Core lecture, she further analyzed military culture through the lens of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987), which explores how military training psychologically wounds many soldiers. Our most recent Humanities Core project is the Literary Journalism assignment, in which we have to interview someone who has experienced war—such as a veteran or someone who was displaced due to war—and write a story that recreates their experience. Since I
At the beginning of Humanities Core in fall quarter, my understanding of war was primarily centered around soldiers and how killing others permanently scarred them, often leading to post-traumatic stress disorder. Being a Cognitive Sciences major, I am naturally interested in how extreme situations such as war affect people’s psychology. However, my focus drifted in an entirely new direction, towards civilians in wartime (See: Tags), as the year progressed and my view of war became more complex.
The purpose of this paper is to tell the reader how children are most influenced psychologically by war and that the psychological effects are more severe than those of physical, emotional, and social influences. Researches that were found in this projects includes: book, journal, websites, professional member of the APA, et al. Through further reading on the research, it has come to the conclusion that children face more psychological effects than others and that it can lead to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other symptoms and disorders such as depression or anxiety. Research has also found that children can experience symptoms of these disorders by being directly or indirectly influenced by war.