It is hardly reasonable to expect a man who will forgo employment that allows such benefits like the necessity of food to attend to the needs of a war. Yet some people criticized Henry Miller because he did not take action; he hardly discussed the war in Tropic of Cancer; and, in their opinion, it is his moral obligation as a citizen-writer to address it. However, Miller is defensible only because his “mind is on the peace treaty all the time” (Miller, 143). The silence about the war in the novel suggests a stance of “extreme pacifism,” which is defensible because of his autobiographical honesty about his radical individualism and the artistic intent to describe the beauty of keeping in touch with humanity in spite of eventual annihilation (Orwell, 1 ).
Miller’s passive attitude toward the war has been described by Orwell as “a declaration of irresponsibility” because Miller acts in a way to of “extreme pacifism, an individual refusal to fight, with no apparent wish to convert others to the same opinion” (Orwell, 1). Orwell shows he senses irresponsibility in Miller’s point of view because Miller exclaimed it was “sheer stupidity” to “mix oneself up in such things from a sense of obligation” if there were no “purely selfish motives” in a conversation he had with him (Orwell, 1). The endorsement of “selfish” demonstrates Miller’s “individualism,” because he’s not expecting anyone to be anything more than a rational egoist, or someone who has acts to “maximize one’s self-interest” [1]. Furthermore, his refusal to “mix oneself up” shows the passivity in his stance; it shows how he “hardly wishes to control” the “world-process” (Orwell, 1). The war is also a force that is outside one man’s control. Orwell also gets the impressi...
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...tributions’ to society like work, engages in carnal acts with little remorse; he is constantly moving from place to place in search of food and shelter; and has a focus on the physical. In Tropic of Cancer it has even been suggested that he lives on a “higher plane” of existence (Miller, 191). Perhaps he doesn’t really belong to society. Therefore, it makes little sense for him to fight in something he doesn’t have control over in a society to which he doesn’t belong in or to fight for or against an abstract idea like a nation that he doesn’t believe in. The concept of a nation is particularly foreign because “ideas have to be wedded to action;” they are “related to living” (242). He describes a physical world in which abstract ideas aren’t really abstract. Perhaps there’s value in an account of a primal, non-abstract world that exists on the fringe of society.
O’Brien, Tim. “How To Tell a True War Story.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2003. p. 420-429.
An article called, “The Real War,” written by Roger J. Spiller, begins with a quote by Walt Whitman, “The real war will never get in the books.” The author writes about an interview with Paul Fussell, who was a soldier in World War Two and has written many books about World War One and World War Two. Fussell is very opinionated and critical about other books written about these wars, asserting they are not realistic or portray the true essence of what really occurred by soldiers and other people participating in the wars. I claim that it is impossible to convey the actual personal feelings and emotions of those involved in a war in books or any other forms of media.
Their behavior shows what will happen if we succumb to our desires without realizing the moral wrong that we may be subject to others and ourselves. In order to prevent that possibility, we should recognize the consequences of our actions before it becomes too late to do anything. Miller exhibits his understanding of human nature by revealing these characters to our face and forcing us to watch as they warp their values and ideals to uphold the acceptance of this behavior. As The Crucible is read, people are forced to see how wrong it is to place the value of material things over the price of a human's life; and by knowing this, hopefully people will start to discover these aspects within themselves, and will gain the courage to change.
Life as a human is dictated by an inborn hunger or purpose, and people, in general, will act on this hunger for their own personal gain in their individual ways. This hunger, be it for wealth, land, love, power, revenge, or pride, can, and will be the undoing or failing of all mankind as Miller so clearly points out in his play 'The Crucible';. This essay will explore the motives of characters within the play and even the motives of Arthur Miller himself and therefore show how conflict stems from certain recognisable human failings including those mentioned above, fear, and hysteria.
From sunrise to sunset, day after day, war demolishes men, cities, and hope. War has an effect on soldiers like nothing else, and sticks with them for life. The damage to a generation of men on both sides of the war was inestimable. Both the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and the poem “I Have a Rendezvous with Death,” by Alan Seeger, demonstrate the theme of a lost generation of men, mentally and physically, in war through diction, repetition, and personification.
A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain ...
...s, demonstrated through the author's talent, are denouncing the authority figures who were supposed to guide his generation into adulthood but instead turned the youth against each other in the pursuit of superficial ideals. The soldiers were simply the victims of a meaningless war.
Momentarily, Leper maintained a similar mindset that “the war would come for [him] when it wanted [him]”; however, his genuine characteristic protrudes from the surrounding beliefs when he decides he “[is] going to [to the war]” on his own (Knowles 125). Knowles’ wording of this minute quotation makes Leper’s attribute obvious because he willingly gives himself to the war. Leper’s ability to voluntarily bring himself to participate in the war is a direct representation of his genuine personality because he is able to put a secular matter above his own well being. Similarly, while the other characters push the war away in an attempt to stay detached from the war, Leper is “glad [the] war came along [because] it’s like a test (Knowles 125)”. Once more, Leper does not allow the other characters’ mindset of the war to sway his own mindset.
...l, Miller attempts to criticize societies that are governed by hypocrisies as they open the gateway for many to attain previously unreachable levels of power and are able to commit a crime without paying for it by blaming it entirely on someone else on false charges. Miller’s The Crucible does an excellent job in reflecting not only the society in its direct context of Salem but also other societies such as the society of the U.S during McCarthyism. Miller even though being accused of being a communist, is able to pass on his views about how hypocrisy is a dangerous yet immensely famous tool to which societies sometimes fall to in order to achieve almost an anarchy where people’s survival are based on their ability to blame others.
In the short story, “On the Rainy River”, Tim O’Brien reflects on how an individual’s values and identity shifts in the face of adversity. This idea is portrayed in the character of Tim O’Brien and how he is able to compromise his values when he is faced with internal turmoil in the presence of adversity. “Oddly, though, it was almost entirely an intellectual activity. I brought some energy to it, of course, but it was the energy that accompanies almost any abstract endeavor”. This quote portrays how weakly Tim clung onto his values even though he held an opinion against this war. Tim never really takes initiative to fully fight this war, he only puts in the bare minimum. He talks about how the editorials he wrote were “tedious’ and “uninspired”
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.
While most scholars have agreed that war is a real and significant part of human history, these same scholars have yet not reached a consensus on the characteristics of war. History books often lean toward glorifying war with stories of soldiers dying for their honor and homeland; novels, on the other hand, tend to point out the emptiness of war with stories of soldiers losing their youth and contact with the world. The selected passage from Gabriel Garcia Marquez' novel One Hundred Years of Solitude adds to the debate over war's characteristics. Through the literary techniques of irony, symbolism, and imagery, this text reveals the major theme that, in reality, war is not glorious but empty.
word alone. Miller shows how judgement affects us and how quick we are to jump to it
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 “How to Tell a True War Story” by Tim O’Brien, Orwell’s ideas are questioned and the competition between the truth and the underlying meaning of a story is discussed. O’Brien’s story depicts that the truth isn’t always a simple concept; and that not every piece of literature or story told can follow Orwell’s list of rules (Orwell 285). The story is told through an unnamed narrator as he re-encounters memories from his past as a soldier in the Vietnam War. With his recollection of past encounters, the narrator also offers us segments of didactic explanation about what a “true war story” is and the power it has on the human body (O’Brien 65). O’Brien uses fictional literature and the narration of past experiences to raise a question; to what extent should the lack of precision, under all circumstances, be allowed? In reality, no story is ever really truthful, and even if it is, we have no proof of it. The reader never feels secure in what they are being told. The reliability of the source, the author, and the narrator are always being questioned, but the importance of a story isn’t about the truth or the accuracy in which it is told, but about the “sunlight” it carries (O’Brien 81).