War literature derives much of its impact from the fact that many readers will never have (and are never likely to) experienced the subject matter themselves. It has been postulated that poets such as Ciardi have been damaged psychologically by what they have seen and felt. In his case much of the evidence for this lies in his abandonment of his war diary, leaving it unfinished. Readers derive meaning from the unwritten words and see it as evidence of the concept that war is an exclusive experience, only comprehensible by those that have participated in combat. If one is to accept such a statement, one is likely to discover difficulty in the war literature and poetry of James Dickey, a man that has created a fiction around his war experience that was utterly convincing to his readers and friends. In his biography, The World as a Lie, Henry Hart notes the extent of his deception; ‘Even a well-known Dickey scholar like Richard Calhoun could affirm in a standard critical study: “Dickey was in the Air Force from 1942 to 1946, heavily involved in combat, flying nearly one hundred combat missions in the Pacific campaign in the Philippines, at Okinawa, and participating in the bombing of major Japanese cities”’ This of a man whose discharge sheet tells a remarkably different story; That he was a ‘radar observer’ with a total of thirty-eight missions served between January 1945 and the end of the war. Lorrie Goldensohn analyses him succinctly as one ‘who lied about every possible aspect of his wartime career as a pilot and clung to the grandeurs of participating in wartime rituals of masculinity’. Not, then, a man who commands respect in war literature circles. The assumption of many is that war experience cannot be faked, that even ... ... middle of paper ... ...d prose concerning the Second World and other wars, the concept that the enemy army is composed of real people just like the people that compose the army of which one is a member, just as intelligent and moral, indistinguishable without uniforms. His war poetry and literature, then, is not invalid but unenlightened due to his seemingly compulsive lies about his role in it. Bibliography Ciardi, John. Saipan (University of Arkansas Press, 1988) Dickey, James Crux: The Letters of James Dickey, Edited by Bruccoli, Matthew J. and Baughman, Judith S. (Random House, 1999) Dickey, James. To the White Sea (Scribner, 2002) Hart, Henry. The World as a Lie: James Dickey (Picador USA, 2000) Goldensohn, Lorrie. Dismantling Glory: Twentieth-Century Soldier Poetry (Columbia University Press, 2003) Shapiro, Harvey. Poets of World War II (The Library of America, 2003)
On the other hand there are some people that have criticized the poem. They say that "Jarrell should not tell the horrors of war and let the people find it out when the have to go to war.
As with any genre, all novels termed ‘war stories’ share certain elements in common. The place and time settings of the novels, obviously, take in at least some aspect of at least one war or conflict. The characters tend to either be soldiers or are at least immediately affected by the military. An ever present sense of doom with punctuated moments of peace is almost a standard of the war novel. Beyond the basic similarities, however, each of these battle books stands apart as an individual. Charles Yale Harrison’s World War I novel, Generals Die in Bed is, in essence, quite different than Colin McDougall’s Execution. Coming years earlier, Generals can almost be seen to hold the wisdom one would expect see in an older sibling, while Execution suffers the growing pains that the younger child inevitably feels.
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.
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.
Many war pieces express a distinct sense of truth, hatred, and anger that can be found in the style, tone, and imagery they possess. Incredible images are created in ones mind as war writings are read and heard. Works written by such writers as Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Tim OBrien really reach out to the audience by way of the authors choice of words and images that they use in their writing. These talented writers create very touching and heart-felt images as they write about the true occurrences, problems, feelings and emotions that soldiers encountered throughout times of war. It is by way of these writers words that the bloody truth of war is heard, rather than the glorified victories heard which overlook the pain that soldiers went through.
Magill, Frank N. Magill's Survey of American Literature, Volume 5. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 1991. 29 Apr. 2011
O’Brien, Tim. How to Tell a True War Story. Literature and Ourselves. Sixth Edition. Eds.
...ke the reader suffer, but to create recognition of the psychosis involved in co-existing with war.
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.
As Bertrand Russell once said “War does not determine who is right - only who is left.” No one ever truly wins a wart. The horrors of war are devastating; both mentally and physically. The horror is not only ever present during life on the Frontline, it lives on in the survivors guilt. I believe that althought the horror of war is represented in the soldiers, we are all too quick to forget about the feelings of those at home, the friends and families, and the effects the war had on them. The effects of war are prominent throughtout the Novels “Regeneration” and “All quiet on the Western Front” and is also explored deeply in Wilfred Owen’s “Selected War Poetry”. Throughout these works we discover that war was inescapable for these men, they had no choice, and it+++++s events were also inescapable. We discover that the men would rather die defending their country as a hero than live with the flashbacks, the guilt, the both mental and physical scarring. They would rather lose their lives than their limbs. I find these works encompass this question fully, as it covers all angles. Pat Barker never really shows her opinion in the novel, it is more factual, and as it is based upon real events and real people it’s a reliable source of information on the horror of war and it’s effects, without bias. Erich Maria Remarque had first hand experience in the First World War, and he gives us an insight into what life on the frontline was really like. Althought fictional, I believe his suffering would have still haunted him years later, compelli...
War and its ramifications for those who are unfortunately entangled in it, is an issue that has fueled both political discussion and literary exploration throughout the previous century. Underived, authentic accounts of the experience and effects of war, from those who have served in it, can be especially enlightening for the majority of society who have had the fortune of not being intimately familiar with war. Through the examination of poems and stories written by soldiers, who were inspired by their involvement in conflict, one can obtain a greater understanding of this gruesome aspect of life, without having to directly experience it. Similarly, soldier turned poet, Bruce Weigl, has contributed his perspective on war through his literary
“The war correspondent is responsible for most of the ideas of battle which the public possesses … I can’t write that it occurred if I know that it did not, even if by painting it that way I can rouse the blood and make the pulse beat faster – and undoubtedly these men here deserve that people’s pulses shall beat for them. But War Correspondents have so habitually exaggerated the heroism of battles that people don’t realise that real actions are heroic.”
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.
In this essay you will notice the differences and similarities between ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ and ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’. ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ was written in nineteenth century by Alfred Lord Tennyson. In contrast, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ was written in the twentieth century by Wilfred Owen. The main similarity we have observed is that they both capture war time experiences. However, the poets’ present these events using their own style, and the effect is two completely different observations of war.
As one can imagine, Kien is haunted daily by gruesome hallucinations and memories from the battlefield. Kien begins to write about his war experiences, which turns into an obsession. He claims it is obligated as his duty to write about the war, and yet “seems to write only to rid himself of his devils” (Ninh, 49). His motivation is to “expose the realities of war and the tear aside conventional images” (Ninh, 50).