Three Day Road Essay

In Three Day Road, Xavier voiced this by saying, “We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the other facing what we do to the enemy” (Boyden, p.301). This quote poetically summarizes the emotional pain that soldiers are subject to. Service members become desensitized to the brutality of war. So even after a soldier leaves a battle without physical injury, he cannot escape the guilt and remorse of the violence he has committed.. Depression and anxiety disorders can lead to changes in personality and can make it very difficult for someone to complete basic tasks and take care of themselves.

-There is a focus on storytelling as a means of healing: "It is the story of my childhood. Now I tell it to you, Xavier, to keep you alive."(35)

Xavier’s experiences in World War One also remind us of how circumstances can smudge the line between morally correct and incorrect. Though most people in Canada have been taught the inalienable right to life and respect for the lives of others, soldiers who once killed for necessity alone can become caught up in the glory of the battlefield. In “Three Day Road,” Xavier’s childhood friend, Elijah, becomes known for his skill as a sniper and begins to see killing as a game. He even goes to the extent of collecting trophies in the form of scalps. Xavier describes this as “war madness” (Boyden, 2005, p.269). Through that ability to kill without thought, people like Elijah have been able to establish a place for themselves in the military, earning medals and honours, but they suffer greatly when the war ends and they return home. According to Lawrence (2003), after World War One Britain experienced a period of turmoil in which former soldiers played a large role. The country was gripped by violence as people with revolutionary intent motivated the working class to overthrow the upper-class once and for all, and ex-servicemen caused disorder among civilians (Lawrence, 2003). Many citizens feared that peace would never return because the men of the country had been so brutalized by the war, and that they would never be able to settle into life as it used to be (Lawrence, 2003). Though the state of affairs in Britain quieted down, the aftermath of war is always

As a sniper, you can either feel you are the predator or the prey. One mistake and you can give away your position and you would not make it home. In the book Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, Xavier and Elijah find themselves as snipers in WW1. Xavier struggles emotionally with his role as a killer. This stress preys on his emotions and makes

There are many things that can cause psychological effects while being in active duty during the war. The effects of the war will vary and be dependent on many factors. Soldiers will be affected by the war in ways that will be different from other people who went through the war. These soldiers will not just be affected physically, but also psychologically. Overall, everyone will deal with the war differently and in All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque shows it through the point of view of Paul. We notice everything in his perspectives, what he sees, and what he has to go through within the book. Conflict was a literary device that was highly shown within the characters with the possibility of raising higher psychological effects.

Warfare in Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road: Excavating the Trauma Within All soldiers that enter the war are challenged with two extremely significant encounters; the one against the opposition and the personal battle within themselves. In Joseph Boyden's, Three Day Road, the unique experiences of ancestral history and cultural assimilation indeed challenge the characters of Xavier and Elijah. Their experiences from a residential schooling system burrow a hatred into Xavier, but more predominantly Elijah, and is revealed as the two friends experience the war together. Xavier’s own ancestry of windigo killers is exposed when the war presents unconceivable problems, but he is able to revolt against most of them due to his strong spiritual

An adult's growth is reflective on their background and childhood development leading up to adulthood. Some common questions that are often reflected on include "What did your childhood and background look like? Who influenced you the most? What are the events that shaped who you are? " These questions can be applied to the main character, Xavier from Joseph Boyden's novel "Three Day Road."

Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road, entails a story of two Oji-Cree Indians who are numbed by the horrors and burdens of the trench warfare encountered during WWI. Xavier and Elijah were life long best friends who grew up under Xavier’s aunt Niska, gracing them with wisdom and, raised them in the ways of old tradition as their ancestors did. Adolescent life consisted of exploring and, hunting animals in the bush and in isolation, boys quickly turned men. Once matured they would eventually enlist in the army, a decision that would signify the beginning of the nightmares to come. The hash realities and, grim scenes they experienced during war, would change them in numerous ways. Warfare uprooted

Starting off, the military has brought many innocent men into the hands of war, these wars cause death and infect the purest men with the darkest memories. Before the war, many people can barely stand, their mind sits on the rise of fear of many things, but the main creation of that fear is death. “...Dale to the wars, against their wills… produces a palpitation of the

In addition to emotional and mental problems are presented on the battlefield, but physical and more long-term effects teach us how wars take a toll on a human being. Firstly, due to injuries faced in wars, people are in pain physically, so they feel like they have to end their lives to let the pain be free and as well as relieve themselves from all the monstrosities that happened while on the battlefield. In the novel, Eugene Taffler lot both his wrists, and thought that he

The war hurt Charlie and he knows that he is slowly dying, and Henry leaves the war with dramatic stress and lives with it for the rest of his life. Charlie dies young from the affection of the war and Henry lives to be older. Henry and Charlie have saw many dramatic events while in war. Charlie helped stack dead soldiers to keep the wind off a surgeon. Henry saw men fall dead while running beside them. These men would never be the same people as they were before the war.

When the people who fought in World War II were born, they weren’t born thinking “You know what I’m going to do when I get older? Fight in a war that engages every single country on the planet and risk my life for the sake of the nation,” rather they were born thinking “ooh it’s time to sleep, ooh it’s time to eat, ooh it’s time to poop.” Major events, such as war, cause children to prematurely be exposed to certain events and ideas which rapidly decrease their innocence and their future. Gene, for example, believed that his only future could be participate in the war effort because that was what he had been exposed to during his years of growing up. Gene’s lack of innocence towards the violence that is faced by millions of people every day impacted his future in the sense that he was never able to even think about college or any other job than fighting in the war alongside his best friend.

Emotionally the soldiers went off to work feeling unbeatable with a strong nationalistic pride. However, they soon realized that all their emotions would not be able to conqueror the evils the war had to offer. One of the most horrific memories for Jean was when he spoke about the different type of corpse he saw while they were on their way to another town. They had crouched down on their knees under a pile of debris. When they got up they saw a decapitated head of a soldier who probably died days ago. Jean is shaken up by this horrific site by saying that when he looked at the man’s face he could fell like the man was blaming him for his death. He reminisces on all the horrific events emotionally that left him scarred, however, he goes on to say that this was the “most horrible impression” that he could take away from the war front. Jean later goes on to describe the agony and numerous positions where the corpse would lay. Personally, as the reader, I could really fell the suffering of the dying soldiers when Jean describes the “glass eyes and twisted mouths” of the dead bodies in the trench”. This evidence took a toll on Jean because he leaves the scene in disgust and without hope of a return home.

The effects of war in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini are not only limited to those caused by international conflict but also between individual characters and races/sects. These place an ongoing burden on the protagonist, Amir, who is motivated to atone for his cowardice at the beginning of the novel. Similarly, Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks portrays not only the physical, but psychological effects of the war on the protagonist. Both novels represent the effects of war in a way typical of the genre, in terms of crisis in masculinity and emotional turmoil. Overview the extract – context

The war has taken such an intense toll on him that it steals away his sanity leaving him extremely mentally unstable. Overall, World War 2 slaughtered Esme and Charles’ father leaving the poor children orphans and pushing them quicker in maturity while also traumatizing Sergeant X, causing him to be completely unbalanced to the point where he thought he may never returning to