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Essays on war literature
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It is more than normal for soldiers of war to feel anxious and depressed after they return from war. I have chosen to look into the themes “ the war never ends for soldiers’’ and ‘’soldiers continue to receive no thanks for their commitment”. This theme is exposed immensely and shows this theme strongly in the texts 21 guns by Green Day, Hero Of War by Rise Against, Siege Of Jadotville by Richie Smith, and Rambo by Ted Kotcheff.
At the beginning of the official music video ‘21 Guns’ by green day a man is feeling anxious and depressed as the war is still present in his head. This man has just returned back from war, but the war has not ended, the battle still continues. He is experiencing PTSD ( post traumatic stress disease) people get diagnosed
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The last man from green berets has no family and friends left and Americans try to kill him because he didn’t look the part to the American Sheriff. John Rambo was an experienced killing machine in the green berets, and when the Americans tried to take him out he took them out 1 by 1 in the nicest way possible. Rambo had nobody left all his friends and family are all gone he has nobody to go back too. Rambo put his life on the line for these Americans now they are trying to kill him, he sacrificed everything! Evidence of Rambo sacrificing his life was shown when he went overseas to fight for America with the Green Berets. Rambo could of killed these Americans 1 by 1 but instead he had an emotional break down. “I gave up everything for my country, and this how they treat me’’.This is evidence meaning he could of got revenge and killed this uneducated society 1 by 1 but he decided to give up and just let out all his emotions. John Rambo spent his whole life helping out these Americans defending his country and putting his life on the line. Then the government and society he sacrificed his life for try to kill him. John gave up and didn’t take anymore americans lives. You don’t and Americans don’t understand what John would of been experiencing, depression loneliness anxiety. John has feelings like everyone else and he was hurt and he just wanted to give up. Rambo left war and he still had to face the battle of depression and loneliness. Veterans shouldn’t have to experience this! It is unfair society and the government needs to
The voices of individuals in shaping the perspective on Australian issues are presented in Bruce Dawe’s poetry. Dawe's ability to express the drama and beauty of everyday life has made his work readily accessible to the general public. Bruce Dawe’s primary purpose in his poetry was to depict the unspoken social issues, concerning the typical Australian suburban residents. His concern for these matters is evident through his mocking approach to the issues he presents in his poems. The poem “___” and the related text help shape our perspective on Australian issues through Dawe's use of techniques and context.
Without the use of stereotypical behaviours or even language is known universally, the naming of certain places in, but not really known to, Australia in ‘Drifters’ and ‘Reverie of a Swimmer’ convoluted with the overall message of the poems. The story of ‘Drifters’ looks at a family that moves around so much, that they feel as though they don’t belong. By utilising metaphors of planting in a ‘“vegetable-patch”, Dawe is referring to the family making roots, or settling down somewhere, which the audience assumes doesn’t occur, as the “green tomatoes are picked by off the vine”. The idea of feeling secure and settling down can be applied to any country and isn’t a stereotypical Australian behaviour - unless it is, in fact, referring to the continental
Paul says, “ Our knowledge of life is limited to death”(Remarque, All quiet n the Western front). The main character and his classmates were only nineteen and twenty when they enlisted to go to war. Even before going to war the only thing these young men knew was death, cruelty, suffering and hopelessness. War forces men to be in constant fear for their lives. When they are in the war front they are not fighting for their countries, they are fighting for their own lives. Remarque writes about how the war has a destroying effect on the mental and physical health of the soldiers. Also, it makes them feel hopeless and sacred, they do not have any hope for a future after the war. Therefore, soldiers that were fighting the World War I disconnect themselves from their emotions to survive the horrible situation the war they were fighting. “We want to live at any price; so we cannot burden ourselves with feelings which, though they may be ornamental enough in peacetime, would be out of place here”(Remarque, All quiet on the Western front). Remarque in this quote shows how soldiers are coping mentally with the burden of war. All soldiers have a great bond of friendship and loyalty since they all share the experiences of
The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger once said “Perjor est bello timor ipse belli”, which translates to: “the dread of war is worse than war itself”. With this quote, Seneca identifies that war has both its physical and mental tolls on its participants. The psychological and emotional scars of war do much more damage to a solider than the actual physical battles. Tim O’ Brien repeats this idea many years later in his novel “The Things They Carried”, by describing how emotional burdens outweigh the physical loads that those in war must endure. What keeps them alive is the hope that they may one day return home to their loved ones. Yet, the weight of these intangible “items” such as “grief, terror, love, longing” overshadow the physical load they must endure since they are not easily cast away.
and rotting flesh, from monotony and fear to a profound sense of futility. As Paul Berlin narrates, “It was a bad time” (O’Brien 1). And the young soldiers undergo all of this while being “led” by an ill, alcoholic, mis...
War deprives soldiers of so much that there is nothing more to take. No longer afraid, they give up inside waiting for the peace that will come with death. War not only takes adolescence, but plasters life with images of death and destruction. Seeger and Remarque demonstrate the theme of a lost generation of men in war through diction, repetition, and personification to relate to their readers that though inevitable and unpredictable, death is not something to be feared, but to calmly be accepted and perhaps anticipated. The men who fight in wars are cast out from society, due to a misunderstanding of the impact of such a dark experience in the formative years of a man’s life, thus being known as the lost generation.
Wars affect everyone in some way, especially soldiers who fight in them, like those in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. O 'Brien concentrates a lot on the psychological trauma that solders, like himself, confronted before, during, and after the Vietnam War. He also focuses on how they coped with the brutality of war. Some were traumatized to the point where they converted back to primitive instinct. Others were traumatized past the breaking point to where they contemplated suicide and did not fit in. Finally, some soldiers coped through art and ritual.
“War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead,” (80). In the fiction novel The Things They Carried, the author Tim O’Brien reminisces fighting in the Vietnam War and the aftermath of the war with his platoon mates through short stories and memories. He goes in depth about the emotional trauma and physical battles they face, what they carry, and how Vietnam and war has changed them forever. O’Brien’s stories describe the harsh nature of the Vietnam War, and how it causes soldiers to lose their innocence, to become guilt-ridden and regretful, and to transform into a paranoid shell of who they were before the war.
...often times tragic and can ruin the lives of those who fight. The effects of war can last for years, possibly even for the rest of the soldiers life and can also have an effect on those in the lives of the soldier as well. Soldiers carry the memories of things they saw and did during war with them as they try and regain their former lives once the war is over, which is often a difficult task. O’Brien gives his readers some insight into what goes on in the mind of a soldier during combat and long after coming home.
United States Marine veteran, Phil Klay, recounts the experiences that he and his comrades/soldiers encountered during the Iraq War. “Redeployment” consists of twelve stories that illustrate the soldier’s battles on and off the battlefields that they are placed in. The story begins with Klay’s blunt claims about the things he had done as a soldier and the things he enjoyed as a person, back at home. Klay introduces us to the transition time for soldiers between fighting and the end of deployment, where soldiers are put on a logistics base to “decompress.” He articulates the enigma surrounding the term, and asserts that soldiers are hardly aware what that even means, but he makes a point in saying that it wasn't “a straight shot” back to their normal lives.
War is no child 's play, but unfortunately, we have had times in our past when the youth of our great nation had to defend it. Combat is not an easy for anyone; watching death, the constant ring of gunfire, the homesickness, fearing for your life, and witnessing bloodshed daily, this will begin to take its toll. The minds threshold for brutality can only handle so much and eventually will become sickened by these events. This sickness is called Post-traumatic stress disorder. As shown through the characters of The Things They Carried, soldiers of war may begin to show PTSD symptoms before the war is over, and may continue to fight the disorder after the war has ended.
Tina Chen’s critical essay provides information on how returning soldiers aren’t able to connect to society and the theme of alienation and displacement that O’Brien discussed in his stories. To explain, soldiers returning from war feel alienated because they cannot come to terms with what they saw and what they did in battle. Next, Chen discusses how O’Brien talks about soldiers reminiscing about home instead of focusing in the field and how, when something bad happens, it is because they weren’t focused on the field. Finally, when soldiers returned home they felt alienated from the country and
Tim O’Brien served in the Vietnam War, and his short story “The Things They Carried” presents the effects of the war on its young soldiers. The treatment of veterans after their return also affects them. The Vietnam War was different from other wars, because too many in the U.S. the soldiers did not return as heroes but as cruel, wicked, and drug addicted men. The public directs its distaste towards the war at the soldiers, as if they are to blame. The also Veterans had little support from the government who pulled them away from their families to fight through the draft. Some men were not able to receive the help they needed because the symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) did not show until a year
...ust deal with similar pains. Through the authors of these stories, we gain a better sense of what soldiers go through and the connection war has on the psyche of these men. While it is true, and known, that the Vietnam War was bloody and many soldiers died in vain, it is often forgotten what occurred to those who returned home. We overlook what became of those men and of the pain they, and their families, were left coping with. Some were left with physical scars, a constant reminder of a horrible time in their lives, while some were left with emotional, and mental, scarring. The universal fact found in all soldiers is the dramatic transformation they all undergo. No longer do any of these men have a chance to create their own identity, or continue with the aspirations they once held as young men. They become, and will forever be, soldiers of the Vietnam War.
As a first hand observer of the Civil War, the great American Poet, Walt Whitman once said,"The real war [of the mind] will never get in the books."Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a horrible mental ailment that afflicts thousands of soldiers every year. Besides the fact that it is emotionally draining for the soldier, it also deeply alters their family and their family dynamics. Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier's Home” illustrates how this happens. Harold Krebs returns home from World War I. He has to deal with becoming reaccustomed to civilian life along with relearning social norms. He must also learn about his family and their habits. The ramifications of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have a ripple effect on the lives of not only the victim, but also the friends and family they relate to.