Imagine going on a trip a long way from home for a job, and then all of a sudden, instead of going to your job that you went for on the long trip, you have to fight the Germans? In "Going Solo" by Roald Dahl, a young man (Roald Dahl) was on a ship traveling for his job, when he was called to fight the Germans when the war broke out. It was World War Two. He was chosen to be a leader of a squadron. He meets many people on his while fighting with them and learning new things in the war with them. His life is crazy with all of the transferring and learning new things. He is learning how to fly now for Britian right after learning how to be a leader with no military experience and no fighting experience. He had tons of responsibility for his squadron. …show more content…
Since Roald is still trying to learn how to fly he doesn't know much about how it works and what to do. He meets the corporal during his travels. He describes the corporal as selfish and hopeless. "‘You bring a brand-new kite, an absolutely spanking brand-new kite straight from the factory and you bring it all the way from ruddy Egypt to this godforsaken place and what’s goin’ to ’appen to it?’"(First Encounter with a Bandit, paragraph 7)."The corporal only cares that he is the one that has to fix the planes and doesn't even care about the pilots only the work of the planes. He is complaining about his own life while other people are dying in the war. He is very hopeless that Roald is going to survive the war. "Why, this kite won’t last one week in this place! None of ’em do!’"(First Encounter with a Bandit, paragraph 11). He is pretty much telling Dahl he is going to die. He is saying that he is going to be up there one second, and the next, he's gone. He is useless there. The corporal thinks this because he has probably seen this happen to other people many times. He is just jumping to the conclusion by telling Dahl that he won't last one day. He is saying that he shouldn't have even been sent there and his hurricane is a waste. Dahl is just another useless person. The corporal is negative because of what he has
In the book Soldier's Heart By Gary Paulsen the main theme is how war changes a person.
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print.
When people think of the military, they often think about the time they spend over in another country, hoping they make it back alive. No one has ever considered the possibility that they may have died inside. Soldiers are reborn through war, often seeing through the eyes of someone else. In “Soldier’s home” by Ernest Hemingway, the author illustrates how a person who has been through war can change dramatically if enough time has passed. This story tells of a man named Harold (nick name: Krebs) who joined the marines and has finally come back after two years. Krebs is a lost man who feels it’s too complicated to adjust to the normal way of living and is pressured by his parents.
Paul Baumer is a 19-year-old volunteer to the German army during World War I. He and his classmates charge fresh out of high school into military service, hounded by the nationalist ranting of a feverish schoolmaster, Kantorek. Though not all of them want to enlist, they do so in order to save face. Their first stop is boot camp, where life is still laughter and games. “Where are all the medals?” asks one. “Just wait a month and I’ll have them,” comes the boisterous response. This is their last vestige of boyhood.
The two classic war novels ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque and ‘Catch 22’ by Joseph Heller both provide a graphic insight into the life of soldiers serving their country in the historic world wars. One distinct theme of interest found in both books, is the way in which war has physically and mentally re-shaped the characters. Remarque creates the character Paul Baümer, a young soldier who exposes anxiety and PTSD (commonly known as Shellshock) through his accounts of WW1’s German army. ‘Catch 22’ however, is written in the third person and omnisciently explores insanity and bureaucracy in an American Bombardier Squadron through its utter lack of logic. The two novels use their structure, characters, symbolism and setting to make a spectacle of the way war re-shapes the soldiers.
Chris and Finny have the same drive to try something that they had never done before and breakaway, much like other young adults and that is “why [it] has always been so easy for nations to recruit young men to go to war” (Krakauer 182). Finny, an adventurous, daring boy at Devon wants to be a participant in the World War, like the other boys his age, but is not able to due to his leg injury. In most countries, the average age of people in the army is 18-20, usually young adults. It has always been easy to have people involved in the wars because many young adults want to prove that they are old enough to be independent and free from their parents and society’s expectations. Finny wrote to the army and the navy to try to be a part of the war, because he will “hate it everywhere if [he is] not in this war” as a result of the daring and confident side that he and many other boys of that time had (Knowles 103). Finny and Chris McCandless wanted to leave the simple life that they were leading and live a life of adventure. Many adventurers would agree that living a life full of unknown and adventure is the most exciting life that anybody could live, and that is what Chris and Finny wanted to achieve. Finny and Chris want to escape the horrid life that they lead and
Khaled Hosseini 's novel, The Kite Runner uses lots of literary techniques. The authors use of craft reveals how Amir’s childish psychological state results in his betrayal of hassan and his irrational behavior afterwards. The main elements used are setting, conflict, and point of view.
Guy Sajer was a half-German, half-French teenager who joined the Wehrmacht in order to be part of something magnificent. He begins his novel in the Chemnitz barracks on 18 July 1942 in hopes of becoming a JU-87 pilot. After failing the mandatory Luftwaffe tests, however, he is sent to basic training in the infantry. Although Sajer describes infantry life as less amusing, his spirits are high. He is issued a brand-new uniform and first class boots and soon makes his first comrades. Sajer proclaims to be exhausted due to severe physical challenges, yet is overwhelmed with a sense of joy he cannot understand. It would not be long, however, that he soon experienced numerous atrocities which forced him to ...
As WWI began, William, who had always been interested in flying, was eager to volunteer in the Royal Canadian Air Force. To protect and defend one’s country is a duty of a southern gentleman, one of the most masculine aspects of the south. Though he did not see any battle first hand, he came back to Mississippi, walking with a limp caused by a supposed metal plate in his head, and elaborate stories of plane crashes and battle.
War has a definite effect on the mentality of a soldier, so much so that many result in insanity during or after the leave of combat. Timothy Findley’s The Wars, portrays the “stupidity, futility and the horror of the terrible losses of the First World War, describing war as an image of the worst that can be within a man” (Anne Nothof Interview). Findley portrays mental aspects as well as physical, that lead to Robert Ross’ demises, specifically, the conditions of war, overall aspect of war taking someone’s life and the feeling of loneliness and silence.
Since September 11, 2001, the Western world’s view of the Middle East, specifically countries like Iraq or Afghanistan, has shifted drastically. Whenever the media portrays the Middle East, they manage to spin a story negatively or violently. Due to these extrinsic influences, the youngest generation of Americans has never known an America that did not express at least some hatred toward certain parts of the Eastern world. Novels like The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini strive to encourage a healthy interest in Afghanistan and the Middle East while breaking the stereotypes that westerners have come to accept as fact about the culture and religion of Afghanistan. Hosseini manages to conjure a universal story line with relatable characters that introduce the world to the everyday people of postcolonial Afghanistan. On a grander scale, in The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini utilizes his own life experiences alongside his firsthand account of the contemporary history of Afghanistan to craft a novel that breaks down these negative stereotypes and offers a significant contribution to Afghan American literature.
We all are heroes of our own story, and it is a quality seen in many movies and books. The hero's journey is about progress and passage. This journey involves a separation from the unknown, known world, and a series of phases the hero must go through . Each stage of the journey must be passed successfully if the person is to become a hero. In “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, the main character Amir faces a series of trials and goes through obstacles where the concept of his childhood dies. Amir's mother passes away during his birth, and his left with the suspicion that his father blames him for her death. Amir longes for his father's attention and approval, but does not receive any affection as a son. He grows up with his Hazara best friend, Hassan. In Afghanistan culture, Hazaras are considered lower class and inferiors in society. Amir describes his friendship with Hassan saying, “then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break." (20). Amir first refuses the call of action due to being afraid of the adventure ahead of him. Call to action is the very first step of the hero's journey, where the hero is disrupted and the
"Out, Out--" by Robert Frost is a poem about a young boy who dies as a result of cutting his hand using a saw. In order to give the reader a clear picture of this bizarre scenario, Frost utilizes imagery, personification, blank verse, and variation in sentence length to display various feelings and perceptions throughout the poem. Frost also makes a reference to Macbeth's speech in the play by Shakespear called Macbeth which is somewhat parallel to the occurrences in "Out, Out-."
In the novel The Wars, Robert Ross is a sensitive nineteen year old boy who experiences first-hand the horrors of battle as a Canadian Soldier in the First World War in hopes of trying to find who he is. Being named a Lieutenant shortly after arriving in Europe, Robert is thrust into combat. War has been a constant part of human history. It has greatly affected the lives of people around the world. These effects, however, are extremely detrimental. Soldiers must shoulder extreme stress on the battlefield. Those that cannot mentally overcome these challenges may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Timothy Findley shows the effects wars have on individuals in his novel The Wars. Findley suggests that war can change a persons behaviour in many different ways, however it is seen to be negatively more often then not. Robert Ross, the main character of The Wars, shows symptoms of what is known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in today’s society.
The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, depicts the life of Amir, a male from Afghanistan, and his maturation through the social and political turmoil that emerged in Afganistan. Although the story is fictitious, the plot and storyline involves political, social, and cultural problems in Afghanistan. The book also provides a small window of contrast to the contemporary problems of terrorism, cultural battles and coup d'etat in the middle east.