The afternoon sun shined down Ernest's back as he stood on his toes to get a look over the trench wall. All of the men had been warned not to look over, despite the natural inclination to do so. Even when there was no attack at the moment, a random sniper shot could bring death to a soldier on his first day of service. “Johnson!” Ernest quickly lowered back down into the trench. He turned to the sergeant behind him. “Do you want to get killed Private?” The sergeant barked. “No sir!” Ernest hastily replied. He crouched back down into the trench as the sergeant left him. He looked down the trench. To his left were several more soldiers, some sleeping, waiting to be awoken by the sounds of gunfire, others crouched down uncomfortably, waiting for orders. To his right, the soldiers currently on pumping duty worked hard to keep the trench water free. It was hardly working though, as the floor of the trench was almost completely mud, with a few solid patches. He dozed off for a second staring down the trench, then looked away. If he hadn't become used to the smell of the trench, he wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything. The distant odor of poisonous gas from the night before, the smell of rotting sandbags and stagnant mud, the smell of dirty clothes that hadn't been cleaned in months, and a scent of food reminiscing from breakfast all combined to make the worst odor possible. Soldiers new to the trenches were traumatized by it. He turned to the soldier next to him. “I wish something would happen just to get this over with,” Ernest said. “Did you see anything when you looked up?” The soldier queried. “The fog was too thick, it might of cleared up by now though.” he replied. “I will check,” the soldier whispered as he looked around ...
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...mbed on the fire-step. After about an hour of watching for motion, his tired body began to slump. He tried to keep himself awake, but couldn't resist the urges, and fell asleep.
He was soon awakened to the sight of the glaring sergeant. No one had to say a word, he knew what was coming as he was led towards a empty area behind the trenches. “Sorry private, just following orders.” The sergeant declared as Ernest was tied firmly to a lonely tree. He couldn't help but think of all the other soldiers who had died by the hands of their own leaders on this very spot. Three soldiers stood by, ordered to shoot him. He held his breath, waiting. Shots rang out as his body slumped on the rope. A pool of blood quickly gathered at his feet as a soldier untied him and buried him in a shallow grave. His blood slowly seeped into the ground as the soldiers returned to their posts.
" I agree with Detering, as animals have no choice about going to war. On the way back to the trucks that would take them back to the barracks, Paul Baumer's company are hit again by heavy shelling and they have to take cover in a military graveyard. The shells blow huge holes in the graveyard and create large holes in the ground revealing the coffins; Paul uses a coffin to take cover as the author describes here.... ... middle of paper ... ...
middle of paper ... ... After I was disposed of, the corporal then made the majority of the 27 sufferers march with the rest of the troops. Most of the men, including an Australian chaplain, died during succeeding weeks, largely as a result of this calculated brutality.’ (Iggulden, 2009, p.22)
All of these hardships the soldiers faced caused an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and constant fear. To counter this sense of despair, the soldiers had many ways of coping with or avoiding the reality of the war. Tim O’Brien, with Going after Cacciato and In the Lake of the Woods, addresses th...
"Feature Articles - Life in the Trenches." Firstworldwar.com. First World War, n.d. Web. 05 Apr.
The sniper stared at his brother’s dead body. Remorse fell throughout his whole body and all of his senses numbed. As the morning sun started to glimmer through the sky, he looked up and laughed. His remorse laugher turning into tears as his senses started to work out what happen. He cursed everything, the war, himself, his memories, anything he could. The sniper question himself, ” Why? This is what war should be like and I have done this to a million others, but why does this one painfully death pains so much?”
...be exaggerated to grab the media’s attention. The source A9 is helpful as it tells us how terrible the trenches were such as the diseases and hygiene problems that were present in the trenches.
Everyone thinks that war is terrible, but those who experience first hand know what it is truely like. Soldiers know how it feels to have someone’s blood on their hands; they know the feel of holding a gun. Let me tell you how it feels when you have to end the life of a person you don’t know. It feels like you have the weight of the world crashing down on your shoulders. I do not know why you are are reading this and if I will be dead when you do, but I want you to know that it is not a joke. Everything that I mention in this journal happened to me, a simple man from Vermont, named Robert Gray. This is what happened to me in the Civil War.
It is inevitable when dealing regularly with a subject as brutal as war, that death will occur. Death brings grief for the victim’s loved ones, which William Faulkner depicts accurately and fairly in many of his works, including the short story “Shall Not Perish” and The Unvanquished. While the works differ because of the time (The Unvanquished deals with the Civil War while “Shall Not Perish” takes place during World War II) and the loved ones grieving (The Unvanquished shows the grief of a lover and “Shall Not Perish” shows the grief of families), the pain they all feel is the same.
After an event of large magnitude, it still began to take its toll on the protagonist as they often “carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die” during the war (O’Brien 1187). The travesties that occurred with the brutality of war did not subside and began to affect those involved in a deeply emotional way. The multitude of disastrous happenings influenced the narrator to develop a psychological handicap to death by being “afraid of dying” although being “even more afraid to show it” (O’Brien 1187). The burden caused by the war creates fear inside the protagonist’s mind, yet if he were to display his sense of distress it would cause a deeper fear for those around him, thus making the thought of exposing the fear even more frightening. The emotional battle taking place in the psyche of the narrator is directly repressed by the war.
It is apparent that the topic of war is difficult to discuss among active duty soldiers and civilians. Often times, citizens are unable to understand the mental, physical, and physiological burden service members experience. In Phil Klay’s Ten Kliks South, the narrator struggles to cope with the idea that his artillery team has killed enemy forces. In the early stages of the story, the narrator is clearly confused. He understands that he did his part in firing off the artillery rounds, yet he cannot admit to killing the opposition. In order to suppress his guilt and uncertainty, our narrator searches for guidance and reassurance of his actions. He meets with an old gunnery sergeant and during their conversation, our narrator’s innocence
... horrors of war such as, his parents who still view war as glamorous and idealistic. War takes a heavy toll on soldiers who fight in it and in these dangerous moments anybody would have gone insane. It takes a very special type of soldier to be able to handle both the psychological and physical challenges that a soldier has to face in everyday battle. A soldier such as this must be capable of handling the sight of a mutilated comrade and not immediately chatter to pieces. The author conveys this message in his extreme use of words with negative connotation such as shells, typhus, dysentery, and trenches. In this portion of the novel a great deal of emphasis is placed on the word death which is repeated several times and standing on its own it holds a great deal of negative connotations. Therefore, due to the severity of the situation and the extensive use of words with negative connotations the overall tone of the novel appeared to be very depressing or serious. This selection also demonstrates just how mythical the character of war that many individuals who have not experienced the tragedy of battle believe to be true by illustrating just how appalling and grim war is in reality.
The narrator recounts the story of how Curt Lemon dies to support his statement that “it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen.”(O’Brien pg. 68) When Curt Lemon dies, the narrator uses vivid imagery to describe the scene as “almost beautiful”: “…the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms.”(O’Brien pg. 67) The imagery and personification present in the story makes it seem surreal. However, the narrator explains that when someone dies, people only see bits and pieces of the whole picture as evidenced by when the narrator reports, “you look away and then look back for a moment and then look away again”(O’Brien pg. 67). Because of this, what actually happens becomes “jumbled” and influences the stories that soldiers tell, making the stories seem fake. This...
" The dead all lay with their faces in the mud—or turned to the walls of the trench. This was the only way they could be told apart from the wounded. All were a uniform shade of grey." (Findley, 131)
dead lying all about us as though they were so many logs(Brown, 115).” The soldier
In document thirteen, we encounter a letter written by a young English soldier fighting the Germans from the woods. He starts his letter by explaining how once again he was forced to be out in the trenches for forty-eight consecutive hours. The letter, addressed to his parents, illustrates how devastating it can be for a young man out at war. When he asked for time alone they told him to take a group of men with him and after a bit of difficulty they finally let him go off on his own. While he is out on a stroll he comes across a German trench and kills an officer, he does the same thing the next day. By the end of the letter he simply defines the experience as awful.