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Recommended: Emotional effects of war on soldiers
Mary Emeny’s poem, “Barbed Wire,” depicts war as a negative force, destroying every decent aspect of human existence. Written during the Vietnam War, the work displays Emeny’s negative views on war. In one way or another everyone experiences and identifies with the presence of war. Although some wars are fought for justifiable reasons, every war tears into the lives of those undeserving. The tragic effects of war consume the innocent creating an unconquerable path of entanglement. The physical effects of war overwhelm the naïve causing pain and suffering. Initially, war entangles the lives of youth, destroying the innocence that they experience as an aspect of their life. The girl “glid[ing] gracefully down the path” (1) and the boy “rid[ing] eagerly down the road” (9) have their enjoyable realities striped by the harshness of war. Likewise, war enters women’s lives creating turmoil. The woman who works “deftly in the fields” ( ) no longer is able to experience the offerings of life. The “wire cuts,” ( ) pushing her away from the normal flow of life. In addition, man undergoes tragic obstacles as a result of war. “A man walks nobly and alone” ( ) before the horrible effects of war set in on his life causing disruptions. War enters the life of man destroying the bond man shares with his beloved environment ( ). Although a great deal of physical effects exist in Emeny’s work, the spiritual consequences of war serve as the most devastating ones. The will and spirit of those amidst the harshness of war diminishes because of the seriousness of war. Prior to the complexities of war, the “spirit flees gleefully to the clouds,” ( ) illustrating the freedom one expresses without repression. As soon as the “wire catches,” ( ) or the war commences, and intervenes with the lives of innocent bystanders, the innocence is lost. Furthermore, the hearts of the untainted human beings experience demolition due to the irrationality of war. Before the tragedy of war enters the picture, a heart “goes openly to the street,” ( ) showing the freedom that one possesses until the “wire snares,” ( ) and the sense of innocence disappears. Significantly, as a direct result of the entanglement of war, man’s mind suffers pain and misfortune. A man’s mind “grows in searching” ( ) preceding the brutality of war, exhibiting the ability of man to explore his surroundings without interference.
The controversial issue of sweatshops is one often over looked by The United States. In the Social Issues Encyclopedia, entry # 167, Matt Zwolinski tackles the issues of sweatshops. In this article Matt raises a question I have not been able to get out of my head since I have begun researching this topic, “ are companies who contract with sweatshops doing anything wrong?” this article goes on to argue that the people who work in the sweatshops willingly choose to work there, despite the poor environment. Many people in third world countries depend on the sweatshops to earn what they can to have any hopes of surviving. If the sweatshops were to shut down many people would lose their jobs, and therefore have no source of income. This may lead people to steal and prostitution as well. this article is suggesting that sweatshops will better the economy by giving people a better job than what they may have had. Due to this the companies contracting with sweatshops are not acting wrong in any way. This was a deductive article it had a lot of good examples to show how sweatshops are beneficial to third world countries. Radly Balko seemed to have the same view point as Matt Zwolinski. Many people believe the richer countries should not support the sweatshops Balko believes if people stopped buying products made in sweatshops the companies will have to shut down and relocate, firing all of the present workers. Rasing the fact that again the worker will have no source of income, the workers need the sweatshop to survive. Balko also uses the argument that the workers willingly work in the current environments.
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.
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.
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, written by the talented author Chris Hedges, gives us provoking thoughts that are somewhat painful to read but at the same time are quite personal confessions. Chris Hedges, a talented journalist to say the least, brings nearly 15 years of being a foreign correspondent to this book and subjectively concludes how all of his world experiences tie together. Throughout his book, he unifies themes present in all wars he experienced first hand. The most important themes I was able to draw from this book were, war skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a constant battle between death and love.
It has not only been a trend, but almost a necessity, for novelists who depict wars to depict humanity. Wars are largely, if not totally, alienating; it alienates humans from who they are—or at least whom they think they are—to fighting machines programmed exclusively for mass destruction and ruthless killing. Romantic love and strong sentiment seem to be incompatible with the nature of wars and are rarely found in wars as well. However, in Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier shows us the reshaping of humanity and personality of the male protagonist Inman during the war; he conveys an idea of rebirth in the war—a process of gradually discovering and finally adopting a new, more introspective self-identity; and this journey to rebirth is led by love, courage, and the desire for freedom.
Gang involvement has been quite higher than past years. The 2008 National Youth Gang Survey estimates that about 32.4 percent of all cities, suburban areas, towns, and rural counties had a gang problem (Egley et al., 2010). This represented a 15 percent increase from the year 2002. The total number of gangs has also increased by 28 percent and total gang members have increased by 6 percent (Egley et al., 2010). This shows how relevant gang related activity is in today’s society. More locations are beginning to experience gang activity for the first time. Gang crime has also been on the rise in the past...
In addition to doing time for the offense, gang members do extra time for violent offense. The STEP Act allows for law enforcement to come up with a s...
The Gang Prevention and Deterrence Act was presented by Sen. Orrin Hatch and Diane Feinstein in the winter of 2003. The Act stated an increase in funding for the federal prosecutors and FBI agents needed to conduct coordinated enforcement efforts against violent gangs. There are much better alternatives than trying to pass a law that most people will never even hear about, or increasing funding for prosecutors and FBI agents. Creating new gang-prosecution offences will not prevent teens from getting into gangs. Jeralyn Merritt, a criminal defense attorney in Denver, Co. also suggested sports and mentoring programs. We should not just focus on the children and forget about the adults, help those adults that are already gang involved by actually employing them, but under certain guidelines. If there were more options out there, people would be to mentally and physically busy to even consider joining a gang. Gang Prevention and Effective Deterrence Act would not do any good to assist in the fight against gangs.
The presence of gang violence has been a long lasting problem in Philadelphia. Since the American Revolution, gangs have been overpopulating the streets of Philadelphia (Johnson, Muhlhausen, 2005). Most gangs in history have been of lower class members of society, and they often are immigrants into the U.S (Teen Gangs, 1996). Gangs provided lower class teens to have an opportunity to bond with other lower class teens. However over time, the original motive of being in a gang has changed. In the past, gangs used to provide an escape for teens to express themselves, let out aggression, and to socialize with their peers. It was also an opportunity for teens to control their territory and fit in (Johnson, Muhlhausen, 2005). In the past, authorities would only focus on symptoms of gang violence and not the root. They would focus on arresting crime members instead of preventing gang violence. Gangs are beginning to expand from inner-city blo...
In recent years, the state of California has spent a lot of money to rid their streets of gangs and gang-related violence. The money that is being spent is just recently starting to pay off as the city of Salinas California which sees a population of 150,000 people and 3,500 gang members had 131 shootings and 15 homicides in 2010. Now even t...
Throughout their lives, people must deal with the horrific and violent side of humanity. The side of humanity is shown through the act of war. This is shown in Erich Remarque’s novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”. War is by far the most horrible thing that the human race has to go through. The participants in the war suffer irreversible damage by the atrocities they witness and the things they go through.
In “The Son of Man,” Natalia Ginzburg asserts that while the war did irreparable psychological damage to its survivors, it also gave the young generation enough strength to confront the stark reality of the precarious nature of human existence. Passionately but concisely, through the use of repetitive imagery, fatalistic tone and lack of classic organization, Ginzburg shows how the war changed the world around Man and how Man changed his perception of the world.
War has always been something to be dreaded by people since nothing good comes from it. War affects people of all ages, cultures, races and religion. It brings change, destruction and death and these affect people to great extents. “Every day as a result of war and conflict thousands of civilians are killed, and more than half of these victims are children” (Graca & Salgado, 81). War is hard on each and every affected person, but the most affected are the children.
The simple definition of war is a state of armed competition, conflict, or hostility between different nations or groups; however war differs drastically in the eyes of naive children or experienced soldiers. Whether one is a young boy or a soldier, war is never as easy to understand as the definition. comprehend. There will inevitably be an event or circumstance where one is befuddled by the horror of war. For a young boy, it may occur when war first breaks out in his country, such as in “Song of Becoming.” Yet, in “Dulce et Decorum Est” it took a man dying in front of a soldier's face for the soldier to realize how awful war truly is. Both “Song of Becoming” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” are poems about people experiencing the monstrosity of war for the first time. One is told from the perspective of young boys who were stripped of their joyful innocence and forced to experience war first hand. The other is from the perspective of a soldier, reflecting on the death of one of his fellow soldiers and realizing that there is nothing he can do to save him. While “Song of Becoming” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” both focus on the theme of the loss of innocence, “Song of Becoming” illustrates how war affects the lives of young boys, whereas “Dulce et Decorum Est” depicts the affect on an experienced soldier.
Freud's often-controversial psychoanalysis was an attempt to explain the human psyche (mind) which is comprised of three components: the id, ego, and superego; and the conflict between these components shaped personality (Swanson, 1963, p. 14-16). He believed the ego is responsive to the id that developed at infancy. He also believed that defense mechanisms are unconsciously adopted to protect the ego from anxiety. He was convinced that anxiety was used to warn the ego of potential threats. He focused on internally held forces, including conflicts, biological dispositions, and sexual motivation for his theories (Macintyre, 1963, p. 98-99). He sought to address underlying issues in a person's life, and personal cha...