The Eathen Kipling

With the repeated use of the word “to” and “the” the audience gets to understand what the mental state of the soldiers was like and how it would affect them in years to come. “Men who had wives and children at home, just like mine, just like my family.” This line makes the audience step into the shoes of the character in the story. It makes them think about their family and what it must have been like for these people to be forced to go to war. With the use of alliteration, Cook has been able to create a rhythmic pattern of AABB in his poem. Examples of this are “The Pomp & the pride I felt in the parade” and “lived with me month after month”. Throughout the poem lots of onomatopoeia is used to add emphasis to certain words for example “thudded, whined and

The first stanza tells the reader that the writer glorified war and hoped to be a solider. In the second stanza, the battles that he speaks of aren’t real, they’re battles that he has imagined. The battles and innumerable wounds could be metaphors for his hard upbringing (3-4). The poem uses a lot of figurative language to portray the authors youthful imagination. Simic imagines what it would be like to be a solider, by playing with cardboard swords and boasting about “Slain thousands” (4).

It is obvious from the opening chapter that this novel will center on the war and the effects it has on a young group of soldiers, none of them more than twenty years of age. They are all friends and former classmates of Paul Baumer, the narrator and protagonist of the book; they have enlisted in the German infantry because their teacher, Kantorek, had painted for them a glorious picture of fighting and saving the homeland from destruction during World War I. In this first chapter, Baumer and his friends are away from the front lines, relaxing a bit after two weeks of fierce fighting. As each of the young men is introduced, it is apparent that they are tired, hungry, angry, and disillusioned over the war.

causes the poem to flow, and thus lightens up the dark and serious issue of war. The lines "But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place." are easy to read; however, their meaning is extremely

This passage helps the reader understand how the emotional burden of uncertain death weighed on the soldier. However, it also acts as a symbol by giving light to the fact that the emotional baggage they carry was brought about by their own fear of humiliation and shame. Many of the soldiers are there only to avoid the persecution that ensued those who evaded the draft. Through the use of symbolism, O’Brien is able to effectively highlight the burdens faced by the soldiers who conformed to the expectations of society.

Chapter 2 sums up the war in a different fashion, showing the contrast between the uselessness of past knowledge and the “raw and emotional skills necessary” in the trenches (20). The duties imposed on the camp by Corporal Himmelstoss symbolize the hours of work and duties done before enlistment that mean nothing during the war. Being “put through every conceivable refinement of parade ground soldiering” shows how schoolbook tasks were diligently performed only for fear of how society would perceive the boys if they were to do otherwise (26). Himmelstoss himself is the embodiment of previous responsibilities that only make the men “howl with rage” at present (26). The death of Kemmerich goes hand in hand with the death of innocence, Kemmerich’s shiny boots being the small glimpse of hope that keeps the men going. Baumer receives saveloy, hot tea, and rum from Muller for salvaging the boots. In return for giving Muller a sense of hope, Baumer receives a more needed sense of comfort and satisfaction. His hunger, one “greater than comes from the belly alone” (33), is thus satisfied. Chapter 7 directly reinforces this transition from an old life into a new one. Baumer “feels an attraction” to the

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 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

This passage is very significant to the reality of the soldiers in the Vietnam War and brings to life the setting of the entire novel. The soldiers were primarily teenagers and young men in their early twenties who had not yet had the chance to experience life. They soon had found themselves in the midst of an intense war with nothing but uncertainty and fear. They hated it and they loved the fear and adrenaline that ran through their skin and bones. It

Wilfred Owen is almost begging someone (probably the ones who recruit the youth) to tell the world the truth about war, how tarrying everyone is and how difficult is to go on, to keep the hope. For the soldiers there are no dreams of a noble death that everyone will remember through stories. There are no legends that will become myth in their fighting, but real people and real horrific death. The concept of “heroism” that exists from classical literature is not longer valid.

Even though the soldiers join the war as naive youths, the war rapidly changes them and they develop into young men. Surrounded by death, the boys are bound to foresee the fragility of their own lives and are stripped of the carelessness and brazenness of youth. The dreadful horrors around the boys bound them to consider a world that does not accommodate to their childish and simplistic view. They want to only see a separation between what is right and what is wrong, they instead find moral doubt. Where they had wanted to see order and meaning, they only found senselessness and disorder. Where they wanted to find heroism, they only found the selfish instinct of self-preservation. These realizations destroyed the innocence of the boys, maturing and thrusting them into their manhood.

The overall message in this poem is a drill sergeant educating young soldiers and preparing them for the harsh reality of war. He is not playing ‘Mr. nice guy’, he is being tough and strict to give the soldiers no easy way out.

The poet then presents a scene of patriotic relevance as he describes a scene of a regiment marching into battle with their “flag” and “Eagle with crest of red and gold” (17-18). When people think of flags, they think of patriotism and representing their country. Eagles also symbolize freedom but as readers can witness in the work, the poet makes it seem as if these men were created not to enjoy the gift of life for one moment by him saying “These men were born to drill and die” (19). This comes across to the reader as almost inhumane. Then by illustrating an image of a field of thousands of dead corpses makes any reader wonder why people even go to war. The whole fourth stanza paints a picture of living human being going into a battle with most, if not any, making it out alive. Like stated before, the speaker in the poem builds a case for those people that opposed to war even though the title of the poem might

When faced with the countless problems of war including death, disease, sorrow, and loss, soldiers develop and intense bond between one another as they seek support in one another. A brotherhood is formed among these soldiers who rely on one another for protection and companionship amid a time in their lives where they are faced with the constant threat of death and violence everyday of their lives. But what happens to them after the war? In After the War, poet brings awareness to how the war-torn soldier attempts to reestablish their self in a society they have been isolated from for so many years through use of free verse and repetitive phrases, which further reinforces the theme throughout the poem.

Then, "An ecstasy of fumbling / Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time / But someone still was yelling out and stumbling [. . .]. " Everyone has managed to put on his mask, except one unfortunate soldier. As the mustard gas seeps into his lungs, he begins to scream and jerk around, but it is too late for his companions to save him. "[W]atch the white eyes writing in his face / His hanging face / [. . .] at every jolt, the blood / Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs [. . .] / Of vile, incurable sores on the innocent tongue [. . .]. " Nowhere in the entire poem is there any mention of how wonderful and brave the soldiers feel at being given the chance to die for their country.