Many war novels are either written for or against the war. Throughout this class we have read many novels that were seen as anti-war but we also have read a novel that was pro war. There were many similarities and differences when it came to the different books. Such as the last book we read by Heidi Squier Kraft, Rule Number Two: Lessons I learned in a Combat Hospital, were quite different from the first 6 books we have read. This book was the only book we read that was for the war. All the others six books for against the war such as All Quiet on the Western Front, A Farewell to Arms, Goodbye, Darkness ,Slaughterhouse 5, The Things They Carried, and Redeployment. In these books readers can see that theses novels shared common perspectives and characteristics. Some book were memoirs and some were stories but all these books had one main purpose which was the war. Wars dating back to World war I to the recent Iraq war. These authors share their experiences and memories the best that they could in through these books. While reading these different war novels, these novels have expressed how the war made an impact not only through the people connected within the war but everyone else around them. First let 's talk about the first six books that we read. All these books are seen as anti-war novels and told by men who took part in combat. They all share common perspectives and characteristics about the war, even though all their experiences were different. Such as, in one 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.
"Battleground America," written by Jill Lepore, provides a strong history of guns and the way they have changed in the eyes of the American through the years. She proves her point with strong evidence throughout her article, sprinkling it with opinion and argument that is strongly supported. She presents her argument to convince her audience that the open availability of guns allows citizens to undeservingly purchase them by displaying the credibility in her sources, using negative connotations in her speech, and the strength and objectivity only a strong logos appeal can provide.
I suppose what the books says about me is that I’m a history nerd, and it's true to a point. I really enjoyed world history last year, so to get two perspectives from the war was awesome to me. There also seemed to be a lot of philosophical questions scattered around the book, things that made you want to put down the book, and think about. “It’s not a person you wish to fight, Madame, it’s a system. How do you fight a system”(269). This quote was one of many that really had me think, not only about the question, but about how the characters felt or thought. What I got from this quote is that people don’t really want to
This quote in the first chapter of the book sets the overall tone. The author Tim O’Brien uses his language through out the book in an extremely straightforward manner. He does not sugar coat the way going to war and being in a war is. He does not use stories of heroes,
As you have read war is a very different type of world everything is turned around and it confuses people. The author of the book The Things They Carried and the writer of the quote "It has been said of war that it is a world where the past has a strong grip on the present, where machines seemed sometimes to have more will power than me, where nice boys (girls) were attracted to them, where bodies ruptured and burned and stand, where the evil thing trying to kill you could look disconnecting human and where except in your imagination it was impossible to be heroic." relates to each of his stories. Wrote about war so people could have a better understanding of
To the United States, World War II is believed to be a good war, and why wouldn’t it be considered as such? During World War II, in addition to stopping mass genocide and stopping the spread of Nazism and Fascism, the United States beat Japan after their attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result, the U.S. was no longer in the Depression and the United States became a world power. However, in “The Best War Ever,” Michael C.C. Adams argues that as a result of Hollywood’s glamorization of the war, government propaganda/censorship, and the widespread of economic prosperity, Americans were kept in the dark about the truth regarding World War II resulting in the popular belief and myth that World War II was a good war.
First, the reader must understand just what makes a good "war story". The protagonist of the novel, Tim O'Brien, gives us his
This book does give you the feeling of actually being there and living it. I’d give this book a three star, because it gives you just enough to keep you interested, but it doesn’t give you enough to have you hooked on it. To say the leas t this not the most exciting read so don’t let the title fool you by making you think “war? Oh yea!” it’s not that intense.
Throughout the world, there have been a number of war novels that have been written. But, even if many war novels are about the same thing, they would mostly differ from each other. One difference is that there can be "War Novels" and there can be "Good War Novels." What exactly is the difference? To help understand, the following quote will be partly supported. "If a novel is poor history, it will not be a good novel. Good history, however, will not necessarily produce good art...Every work of history, including every historical novel, has an ideological message. But the novel is above all else an art form concerned with people as they interact with each other and as they develop and change." (McFarland) The quote basically means that a "poor war novel" has a message behind it, but every "good war novel" has a message behind it, and also shows how people "interact with each other". I agree to a certain extent. That can be accepted as a meaning of a "poor war novel", but I
An anti-war novel often portrays many of the bad aspects and consequences of war. Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel set in the First World War that is against war. Remarque describes the terrible reality of the war, focusing on the horrors and involved. The novel portrays an anti-war perspective as it brings up issues about the brutality of war, the narrator’s change of attitude towards war, the futility of war and the deaths of the narrator’s friends.
was not the truth. This book showed the harsh reality of war that most people
As for this book investigation, the novel for this assignment is called, When Books Went to War, by Molly Guptill Manning. The purpose of this novel is to demonstrate how books helped soldiers in World War II. Throughout this book, it explains how American troops read textbooks to help escape the world around them. Soldiers turn to books to release the tension they have from the war. Most of the time veterans feel lonely or depressed and by reading novels, it helps them to manage their emotions. This novel is written because it indicates how powerful books are towards people. These books have the power to “... soothed troubled minds and hearts...” (Manning 110). As the author claims, books helped win World War II.
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 Forever War by Joe Haldeman is a classic work of military science fiction depicting a war between the human race and an unfamiliar alien entity known as the Taurans. The overall plot line follows a fairly typical path, but Haldeman’s real genius is realized through the interactions that take place between the protagonist, William Mandella, and the Earth he returns to between military operations. Developing beneath the ever-present war of the two species lies a much subtler conflict between generations of human thought and culture. Brought about by the way troops are transported in space, time dilation creates an interesting dichotomy between the early soldiers of the war and the rapid evolution of human society and culture remaining on Earth. The Forever War questions the stability of human nature by creating a scenario where its fluidity is exposed through an invariable link to time. The expression of human nature changes as cultural and personal identities adapt to new situations; viewing these changes through Mandella, we begin to see how different expressions of human nature can impact human nature itself.
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.