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Mental and physical consequences of war for soldiers
Effects of War
How does war affect people
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War has a detrimental effect on the individual as the idea of killing another could be horrific to anyone; though from a war perspective it is expected that they were to kill another to defend and honour their country. War can affect the individual mentally, physically and emotionally, causing major distress and discomfort with, not only how they see themselves, but how they see war. is “Regeneration”, written by Pat Barker in 1991 inspired by her grandfather who had been bayoneted in the war and she was able to see the scars he had when he washed in the sink. His war experiences had affected her understanding of the war in a more immediate and personal way. Unlike Barker, R C Sherriff (a play writer and an ex officer in the East Surrey Regiment in World War One) wrote “Journey’s End” based on his own personal experiences as it mirrors the way he and his comrades had lived and fought together. [161] When looking at Stanhope’s child-like behaviour with Osborne, it may also have been because of the alcohol he had been drinking beforehand. Alcohol can affect the brain and how it functions; it can cause mood swings and loss of judgement. Phil Mellows, a theatre critic, wrote about how Stanhope “numbs the pain with drink” as he uses drink to escape the reality that he is in; Mellows even goes on to say how Stanhope can only cope with the war “by being constantly drunk.” His dependency on the alcohol is evident to the men too, as they notice he’s “drinking like a fish, as usual” suggesting that it was becoming more of a habit than the typical one off night out binge that men back home had, such as Prior. Prior only appears to have got drunk the one time with Sarah, this chapter could show the side effects of alcohol that wasn’t shown ... ... middle of paper ... ...mental, physical and emotional state, this is recognisable in the way Works Cited http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=journey's%20end%20sheriff%20parent&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thetutorpages.com%2Ftutor-article%2Fa-level-english%2Fjourneys-end-the-tension-of-the-journey%2F5024&ei=voqUUpPSIZKThQfW3IH4Bg&usg=AFQjCNHtnHwBPvs_zdseA2p0WGX8EHL6Ow http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/regeneration/ http://www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupDownloadFile.asp?GroupID=880755&ResourceId=2610947 http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/alcoholism4.htm http://202.204.49.168/UploadFile/20111231095337348.PDF http://www.sleepio.com/blog/2012/11/14/sleep-disturbance-in-the-military/ http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=11671 http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/alcoholism4.htm
In the book Soldier's Heart By Gary Paulsen the main theme is how war changes a person.
It’s hard for civilians to see what veterans had to face and still do even after all is said and done. The rhetorical strategies that contribute to Grady’s success in this article is appealing to the reader’s emotions through the story of Jason Poole. Denise Grady’s “Struggling Back From War’s Once Deadly Wounds” acts as an admonition for the American public and government to find a better way to assist troops to land on their feet post-war. Grady informs the reader on the recent problems risen through advancements in medical technology and how it affected the futures of all the troops sent into the Iraq war.
Both “Regeneration” and “Journey’s End” are set during world war one, with “Regeneration” looking at the mental effects of the men removed from the war and “Journey’s End” focusing on a short period of time in a trench. Sherriff used a play when writing “Journey’s End” so that he could give a true representation of trench life rather than the dramatized version that was commonly presented when it was written in 1928. Barker used novel form when writing “Regeneration” to show us the after effects the war left on men involved; it showed us how many men were suffering with what seems like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which was an unrecognized mental disorder until 1980. However both texts are similar in that they aim to dispel common views of the war, they show people what was hidden from them and present the truth about the war from their own experiences; Barker’s granddad having served in the war and Sherriff himself serving in the trenches, so it could be argued they are both pieces of faction literature.
Pat Barker's riveting World War I novel Regeneration brilliantly exemplifies the effectiveness of fiction united with historical facts. While men aspired to gain glory from war and become heroes, Regeneration poignantly points out that not all of war was glorious. Rather, young soldiers found their aspirations prematurely aborted due to their bitter war experiences. The horrible mental and physical sicknesses, which plagued a number of soldiers, caused many men to withdraw from the battlefield. Feelings of guilt and shame haunted many soldiers as they found themselves removed from the heat of war. Men, however, were not the only individuals to experience such feelings during a time of historical upheaval. Women, too, found themselves at war at the dawn of a feminine revolution. One of the most contentious topics of the time was the practice of abortion, which comes to attention in chapter 17 on pages 202 and 203 of Barker's novel. Through Baker's ground-breaking novel, we learn how men and women alike discovered that in life, not all aspirations are realized; in fact, in times of conflict, women and men both face desperate situations, which have no definite solutions. Illustrated in Barker's novel by a young woman named Betty, and many broken soldiers, society's harsh judgments worsen the difficult circumstances already at hand.
Review of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" 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 concludes how all of his world experiences tie together. Throughout his book, he unifies themes present in all the 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.
O’Brien has many characters in his book, some change throughout the book and others +are introduced briefly and change dramatically during their time in war and the transition to back home after the war. The way the characters change emphasises the effect of war on the body and the mind. The things the boys have to do in the act of war and “the things men did or felt they had to do” 24 conflict with their morals burning the meaning of their morals with the duties they to carry out blindly. The war tears away the young’s innocence, “where a boy in a man 's body is forced to become an adult” before he is ready; with abrupt definiteness that no one could even comprehend and to fully recover from that is impossible.
Imagine being in an ongoing battle where friends and others are dying. All that is heard are bullets being shot, it smells like gas is near, and hearts race as the times goes by. This is similar to what war is like. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator, Paul Baumer, and his friends encounter the ideals of suffering, death, pain, and despair. There is a huge change in these men; at the beginning of the novel they are enthusiastic about going into the war. After they see what war is really like, they do not feel the same way about it. During the war the men experience many feelings especially the loss of loved ones. These feelings are shown through their first experience at training camp, during the actual battles, and in the hospital.
A Comparison of the Techniques Employed in Portraying the Horror of War in Regeneration and Journey's End
World War I was a war of new technology. There were machine guns, gas bombs, and trenches. Because of this new technology, World War I was also a war filled with atrocities. The men fighting in the war experienced horrors that no human being should have ever experienced. The novel Regeneration by Pat Barker addresses the question of how these soldiers were supposed to recover from these horrors. For Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, there was only one answer -- psychology. On page 29, a patient of Rivers' named Anderson tells Rivers, "That's what you Freudian Johnnies are on about all the time, isn't it? Nudity, snakes, corsets." Freudian therapy is also alluded to on pages 31 and 46, although Freudian methods of analyzing dreams, recognizing symbols, and understanding the unconscious are constants. Rivers helps to bring the traumatized soldiers back to a reality where they can accept life and the duties that they must fulfill through the use of a psychology which draws upon Freud's theories. The appearance of Freudian psychology in Regeneration helps to acknowledge the frailty of the human mind, body, and soul. Rivers' use of psychology is a way to restore the delicate balance of life, giving renewal to a life thought hopeless by its possessor.
"...no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both."
War always seems to have no end. A war between countries can cross the world, whether it is considered a world war or not. No one can be saved from the reaches of a violent war, not even those locked in a safe haven. War looms over all who recognize it. For some, knowing the war will be their future provides a reason for living, but for others the war represents the snatching of their lives without their consent. Every reaction to war in A Separate Peace is different, as in life. In the novel, about boys coming of age during World War II, John Knowles uses character development, negative diction, and setting to argue that war forever changes the way we see the world and forces us to mature rapidly.
The three narratives “Home Soil” by Irene Zabytko, “Song of Napalm” by Bruce Weigl, and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen all have the same feelings of war and memory, although not everyone experiences the same war. Zabytko, Weigl, and Owen used shifting beats, dramatic descriptions, and intense, painful images, to convince us that the horror of war far outweighs the devoted awareness of those who fantasize war and the memories that support it.
Regeneration, an historical anti-war novel written by Pat Barker in 1991, deals with the process of ‘regeneration’ of soldiers shell-shocked in World War One. The protagonist of the novel is Dr. Rivers, a practising psychiatrist at Craiglockhart War Hospital who created a new approach to treating shell-shocked soldiers, through speech therapy rather than through physical therapy. Just how innovative Rivers’ methods are becomes apparent in Chapters Twenty and Twenty-One when we meet Dr Yealland, who is presented as the polar opposite to Rivers, both in demeanour and in his methods of treatment. He is arrogant in his speech, treating his patients in a cold, sadistic fashion, attempting to ‘play god’. Yealland believes in using a single session of painful electroshock therapy, in order to cure patients “whose weakness would have caused them to break down, eventually, even in civilian life”. It is the description of this treatment which is the focus of Chapters Twenty and Twenty-One, allowing Barker to contrast the two characters and their methods. The
... stated that ‘There were only two ways of breaking the strain…this. (He holds up his glass.)’ This suggests prolonged exposure to the war situation, resulting in a need to escape from and cope with war. This shows how Stanhope accepts his drinking issues as a way of dealing with the exposure to the war, but also the time he has alone to his thoughts. He himself admits that of late he has become more prone to looking at things in a deeper way. ‘Looking at you now there’s your uniform – your jersey – shirt – vest – then beyond that.’ He fears he is going ‘potty’ but Osborne dismisses it as ‘nerve strain’ suggesting that the time spent in, the trenches are beginning to take their toll on Stanhope so that he begins to resort to drinking. So, the men a physical addiction to alcohol in order to cope with the trauma of the war, as it allows men psychologically to escape.
War is such a debatable topic of whether it is just to wage a war on our neighbours or invade a country.One thing is very clear there are consequence and a cost. Martin Luther once stated,“War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity, it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families”. This was exactly what did. War was not a fun game like what Jessie Pope described it as in her poem, ‘Who’s for the game’. What war did was it changed people and society. The war caused soldiers to suffer from PTSD, it left families to face the feeling of grief and it crippled the economy.