In his novel, Dark Star, Alan Furst creates an atmosphere that supports the depressed and beat down setting surrounding Europe before the onset of World War II. He is able to capture our attention by immediately creating anxiety in the depressed and broken down country of Belgium. Furst is able to draw us into the mind of Andre Szara as he enters Ostend, Belgium, describing the atmosphere as unpleasant and anxiety-driven. He presents this atmosphere through the old and rusted freighter, Nicaea, the setting in Ostend, and the assignments that Szara must complete while staying in Ostend.
The thirty year old tugboat, Nicaea, represents an unforeseen road and ultimately places uncertainty in the eyes of Andre Szara. In the beginning, the atmosphere is immediately set with a dark and fearful outlook because of the depiction of the “tramp freighter” (Furst 3) that moves through the water with a distinctive roar of the engine, over powering the sound of clashing waves. The history of the Nicaea identifies the elements used by Furst to display atmosphere. It’s deep description indicates it has spent “blistering summers and drizzling winters” (3) over the years to be ruined by salt and rust. Old age has the ship “[creaking] and [groaning] sorrowfully” (4). The unhealthy environment creates an undesirable atmosphere that makes use of uncertainty as to whether the ship can carry on.
Salame 2
The weather plays a major role in shaping the atmosphere in Ostend. The weather
can be used effectively when presenting a certain atmosphere because it can dictate the mood. While travelling on the North Sea, Szara and Khelidze were accompanied by “rain” (3) and “darkness” (3), unaware of what lies ahead. With darkness, comes the idea of fear because its leading to the unexpected. The Nicaea has also been at sea for nineteen days through an “eternity of icy, seawater showers” (5). The weather foreshadows a dark future and maintains the uncertainty of what lies ahead.
Equally important, Andre Szara is given an assignment but does not know why, further adding to the suspense and obliviousness for any consequences. Szara’s assignment is to find out where his fellow passenger on the tugboat, Grigory Khelidze, is staying in Ostend. Szara has no idea why he must find out where this man is staying, thus creating a sense of bewilderment. It is as if Szara has been set out on to a winding and unforgiving path that leaves no indication or signs as to where it will lead him.
In the history of modern western civilization, there have been few incidents of war, famine, and other calamities that severely affected the modern European society. The First World War was one such incident which served as a reflection of modern European society in its industrial age, altering mankind’s perception of war into catastrophic levels of carnage and violence. As a transition to modern warfare, the experiences of the Great War were entirely new and unfamiliar. In this anomalous environment, a range of first hand accounts have emerged, detailing the events and experiences of the authors. For instance, both the works of Ernst Junger and Erich Maria Remarque emphasize the frightening and inhumane nature of war to some degree – more explicit in Jünger’s than in Remarque’s – but the sense of glorification, heroism, and nationalism in Jünger’s The Storm of Steel is absent in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Instead, they are replaced by psychological damage caused by the war – the internalization of loss and pain, coupled with a sense of helplessness and disconnectedness with the past and the future. As such, the accounts of Jünger and Remarque reveal the similar experiences of extreme violence and danger of World War I shared by soldiers but draw from their experiences differing ideologies and perception of war.
But nearly as soon as Marion's dreams of sailing became reality, the reality became a nightmare. On the voyage home, a whale rammed the schooner, ripping the seams and sending water into the hold. Before the schooner went down, the captain, al...
This extract emphasises the lonely, outworld feeling that would have been felt living in such settings. This puts into perspective the feeling that will be felt during the coarse of the plot development.
Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat” has long been acclaimed as a fascinating exemplar of Naturalism, generating many studies that range from the indifference of Nature to the “psychological growth of the men through the experience” (466). The psychological growth happens to every man on the boat, yet is mostly depicted through the voice of the Correspondent and in the form of his questioning and contemplating their desperate situation. Being a correspondent, who is innately able as well as inclined to interpret and communicate ideas, the Correspondent is singled out to articulate the mind of his three fellowmen and of Stephen Crane himself, should the story be seen partly as a journalistic account of his own adventure. Therefore throughout the story, the Correspondent takes the mediating role between the men and the outside world, combines a spokesperson with an interlocutor, and reflects the men’s growing awareness to the indifference of Nature.
The mood of Night is harder to interpret. Many different responses have occurred in readers after their perusal of this novel. Those that doubt the stories of the holocaust’s reality see Night as lies and propaganda designed to further the myth of the holocaust. Yet, for those people believing in the reality, the feelings proffered by the book are quite different. Many feel outrage at the extent of human maliciousness towards other humans. Others experience pity for the loss of family, friends, and self that is felt by the holocaust victims. Some encounter disgust as the realization occurs that if any one opportunity had been utilized the horror could of been avoided. Those missed moments such as fleeing when first warned by Moshe the Beadle, or unblocking the window when the Hungarian officer had come to warn them, would have saved lives and pain.
The use of light and dark motifs by Mulisch explains many reactions of Anton when encountered with problems of his past. Perception of darkness Anton Steinwijk, the main character, experiences such assault by soldiers during the Occupation and his family being shot by them. His desire to leave what has happened to him in the past has been influenced thoroughly by some of the people he encounters as well as the trauma. Light and darkness symbolizes Anton's sense perception as well as moral issues conveyed by people he met, which influences him observing the war and his past years of life, and the desire to leave the past behind and move on.
Storm of Steel provides a memoir of the savagery and periods of beauty that Ernst Jünger’s experienced while serving the German army during the First World War. Though the account does not take a clear stand, it lacks any embedded emotional effects or horrors of the Great War that left so few soldiers who survived unaffected. Jünger is very straightforward and does remorse over any of his recollections. The darkness of the hallucinations Jünger reports to have experienced provides subtle anti-war sentiment. However, in light of the descriptive adventures he sought during the brief moments of peace, the darkness seems to be rationalized as a sacrifice any soldier would make for duty and honor in a vain attempt for his nation’s victory. The overall lack of darkness and Jünger’s nonchalance about the brutality of war is enough to conclude that the account in Storm of Steel should be interpreted as a “pro” war novel; however, it should not be interpreted as “pro” violence or death.
In the film Rushmore by Wes Anderson, the character’s dispositions are extremely juxtaposed. Sometimes the characters seem to be engulfed by a feeling of emptiness, loneliness and depression. Other times the characters are extremely motivated and determined. Wes Anderson helps generate this emotional atmosphere by using distinctive weather too help set the tone. He uses weather as a metaphor for the characters emotional state. Wes Anderson utilizes weather to show the inner conflict and turmoil inside of the characters that they often never fully express through words. It may appear to just be random at first but upon closer inspection it is clear to see it is done purposefully.
When people are placed in difficult, desolate situations, they often change in a substantial way. In Night by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist, Elie, is sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he undergoes many devastating experiences. Due to these traumatic events, Elie changes drastically, losing his passion in God, becoming disconnected with his father, and maturing when it matters most.
In Eliezer Wiesel’s novel “Night”, it depicts the life of a father and son going through the concentration camp of World War II. Both Eliezer and his father are taken from their home, where they would experience inhuman and harsh conditions in the camps. The harsh conditions cause Eliezer and his father’s relationship to change. During their time in the camps, Eliezer Wiesel and his father experience a reversal of their roles.
Change is an unpredictable and inevitable thing. One cannot know what alteration it may bring but it can, without doubt, be expected said Hazel M, an Honor English student (par.1). Eliezer, the protagonist in Night, encounters change numerous times. One of the mainly considerable changes he comes across, while in the concentration camps, is that of his relationship with his father. Before the Holocaust, Eliezer’s relation with his father was very distant, I will say non existent.
From the beginning, the four characters in the aftermath of a shipwreck do not know "the colour of the sky" but all of them know "the colours of the sea." This opening strongly suggests the symbolic situations in which human beings are located in the universe. The sky personifies the mysterious, inconceivable cause of reality , which humans cannot understand, and the sea symbolizes the earthy, mundane phenomenon, which humans are supposed to perceive. The symbolic picture generated by the above conflict implies the overall relationship between the individual and nature. In fact, the daily life of human beings is at the mercy of the uncontrollable waves of the sea; while, at the same time, the essential part of reality remains unknown to feeble, helpless humans.
On the other hand, poor weather in the novel was used to foreshadow negative events or moods. In the opening of the novel, when Jane was living in Gateshead, she was reading while an unpleasant visit of John Reed was foreshadowed: “After it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud: hear, a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub” (2).
The story’s theme is related to the reader by the use of color imagery, cynicism, human brotherhood, and the terrible beauty and savagery of nature. The symbols used to impart this theme to the reader and range from the obvious to the subtle. The obvious symbols include the time from the sinking to arrival on shore as a voyage of self-discovery, the four survivors in the dinghy as a microcosm of society, the shark as nature’s random destroyer of life, the sky personified as mysterious and unfathomable and the sea as mundane and easily comprehended by humans. The more subtle symbols include the cigars as representative of the crew and survivors, the oiler as the required sacrifice to nature’s indifference, and the dying legionnaire as an example of how to face death for the correspondent.
Since its publication in 1899, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has rarely been disputed on the basis of its literary merits; in fact, it was long seen as one of the great novels of the burgeoning modern era, a sort of bridge between the values and storytelling styles of the waning Victorian period and those of the modern era (Gatten), and regarded a high-ranking space amidst the great literature of the century, if not the millennia (Mitchell 20). Conrad’s literary masterpiece manages references to other great literature, universal themes which cut to the heart of philosophical questions of the innate goodness or evil of man, and historical references such as the Belgium and Roman empires (Kuchta 160), among other accomplishments, and so has garnered a lexicon all its own in the annals of literary criticism, debate, and analysis.