Ford
The Good Soldier, utilises a variety of literary techniques to construct meaning and propel imaginative power. Ford uses figurative language to initiate the polarity of “Convention and Passion”(1) and a divergent narrative style and structure to present cultural issues such as the quest for human knowledge and the imprisonment of society. “The long afternoon wore on” commences in the context of Nancy’s revelations. She has read the account of the Brand divorce case in the newspapers and is apprehending the manifestations of recently discovered phenomena. Ford employs a vocabulary that is mournful and dull to conjure up images of shadow and anguish. He uses words like “frightened,” “writhed,” “agony,” “pain” and “gloomy” to connote feelings of “affaissement.” These are juxtaposed with the vocabulary of the second half of the passage: “lover’s,” “flame,” and “cheerful” which signifies the corruption of Nancy’s chastised mind.
Knowledge of convention takes “all sweetness…out of life.” The lexicogrammar interplays the theme of “Convention and Passion” as being unable to exist congruently in “the law of the land” and cognition of human nature as futile, leading only to darkness. Ford expresses the degenerative nature of human passion in the metaphor: a tune in which major notes with their cheerful insistence wavered and melted into minor sounds as, beneath a bridge the highlights on dark waters melt and waver and disappear into black depths. The anagoge alludes to images of passion fading into darkness. An antithesis of light and dark, black and white, the certitude of Passion succumbing to Convention: Society must go on, I suppose, and society can only exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly-deceitful flourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too truthful are condemned Samuel Hynes, ‘The Epistemology of The Good Soldier’, The Good Soldier, Norton Critical Edition (1995. W.W. Norton & Company)
to suicide and to madness. Nancy’s love must regress, as the etiquette of society must prosper. Fatally for those who were unable to conform to “the technicalities of English life” due to burgeoning eroticisms, “the end was plainly manifest.” Ford creates imagery of umbra and shadow elsewhere in the novel: “inevitably they pass away as the shadows across sundials.” Ford’s adumbrations of unillumination may also reflect the restrictions of human knowledge. Darkness reflects the tenuousness of human cognition. Dowell proposes earlier: what is there to guide us in the more subtle morality of all other personal contacts, associations, and activities?
As he immerses his audience into combat with the soldiers, Shaara demonstrates the more emotional aspects of war by highlighting the personal lives of the men fighting. For example, when Shaara reveals the pasts of James Longstreet and Lewis Armistead’s, I started to picture them as the men that they were and not as soldiers out for blood. After suffering a devastating loss of three of his children to fever, Longstreet is tossed into battle. In Armistead’s case, he not only suffered the loss of his wife, but also of a friend fighting on the Union side, General Winfield Scott Hancock. Shaara saves his readers a front row seat to the inner turmoil of General Chamberlain regarding his hindering duty as a soldier clashes with his duty to family as he strived to serve the Union as well as protec...
Another unique aspect to this book is the constant change in point of view. This change in point of view emphasizes the disorder associated with war. At some points during the book, it is a first person point of view, and at other times it changes to an outside third person point of view. In the first chapter of the book, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien writes, “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity (2).
The violent nature that the soldiers acquired during their tour in Vietnam is one of O'Brien's predominant themes in his novel. By consciously selecting very descriptive details that reveal the drastic change in manner within the men, O'Brien creates within the reader an understanding of the effects of war on its participants. One of the soldiers, "Norman Bowler, otherwise a very gentle person, carried a Thumb. . .The Thumb was dark brown, rubbery to touch. . . It had been cut from a VC corpse, a boy of fifteen or sixteen"(O'Brien 13). Bowler had been a very good-natured person in civilian life, yet war makes him into a very hard-mannered, emotionally devoid soldier, carrying about a severed finger as a trophy, proud of his kill. The transformation shown through Bowler is an excellent indicator of the psychological and emotional change that most of the soldiers undergo. To bring an innocent young man from sensitive to apathetic, from caring to hateful, requires a great force; the war provides this force. However, frequently are the changes more drastic. A soldier named "Ted Lavender adopted an orphaned puppy. . .Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device"(O'Brien 39). Azar has become demented; to kill a puppy that someone else has adopted is horrible. However, the infliction of violence has become the norm of behavior for these men; the fleeting moment of compassion shown by one man is instantly erased by another, setting order back within the group. O'Brien here shows a hint of sensitivity among the men to set up a startling contrast between the past and the present for these men. The effect produced on the reader by this contrast is one of horror; therefore fulfilling O'Brien's purpose, to convince the reader of war's severely negative effects.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” features a narrator who suffers from nervous depression and cannot control her marriage or her everyday life mentally. The narrator in “The Things They Carried” deals with the subjective conditions of war. Throughout the story, straining emotions often brought O’Brien’s teams emotions, especially after a death, causing a “crying jag” with a “heavy-duty hurt” (O’Brien 1185). The fury of emotion associated with death begins to erode the sharp minds of the soldiers and become mentally effective.
After their first two days of fighting, they return to their bunker, where they find neither safety nor comfort. A grizzled veteran, Kat, suggests these ‘fresh-faced boys’ should return to the classroom. The war steals their spiritual belief in the sanctity of human life with every man that they kill. This is best illustrated by Paul’s journey from anguish to rationalization of the killing of Gerard Duval; the printer turned enemy who leaps into the shell-hole already occupied by Paul. Paul struggles with the concept of killing a “brother”, not the enemy. He weeps despondently as war destroys his emotional being.
...ome aspect of war, from battling with enemies to how battle spiritually destroys young men. The one positive point of this novel is how friends cared for one another when going through tragedies and stressful experiences. It also portrays how strong a soldier needs to be, in order for them to be in the war.
Jünger’s opening chapter recalls the enthusiastic first thoughts on entering the war, upon arrival in Champagne, “Grown up in an age of security, we shared a yearning for danger, for the experience of the extraordinary. We were enraptured by war .” Though the illusion was soon dispelled, throughout the novel Jünger did not seem to be phased by the reality of his mission. When Jünger described reaching Orainville, he wrote, “We saw only a few, ragged, shy civilians; everywhere eels soldiers in worn tattered tunics, with faces weather-beaten and often with a heavy growth of beard, strolling along at a slow pace, or standing in little clusters in doorways, watching our arrival with ribald remarks .” This is Jünger’s first of a pattern of acc...
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 go 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 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. Training camp was the first actuality of what war was going to be like for the men. They thought that it would be fun, and they could take pride in defending their country. Their teacher, Kantorek, told them that they should all enroll in the war. Because of this, almost all of the men in the class enrolled. It was in training camp that they met their cruel corporal, Himelstoss.&nbs most by him. They have to lie down in the mud and practice shooting and jumping up. Also, these three men must remake Himelstoss’ bed fourteen times, until it is perfect. Himelstoss puts the young men through so much horror that they yearn for their revenge. Himelstoss is humiliated when he goes to tell on Tjaden, and Tjaden only receives an easy punishment. Training camp is as death and destruction. Training camp is just a glimpse of what war really is. The men do not gain full knowledge of war until they go to the front line. The front line is the most brutal part of the war. The front line is the place in which the battles are fought. Battles can only be described in one word- chaos. Men are running around trying to protect themselves while shooting is in the trench with an unknown man from the other side. This battle begins with shells bursting as they hit the ground and machine guns that rattle as they are being fired. In order to ensure his survival, Paul must kill the other man. First, Paul stabs the man, but he struggles for his life. He dies shortly after, and Paul discovers who he has killed. The man is Gerald Duval, a printer.&n Having to deal with killing others is one of the horrors of war. The men who are killed and the people who kill them could have been friends, if only they were on the same side. The other important battle leaves both Paul and Kropp with injuries.
Unique in style and content, the novel explores the emotions of a young Civil War recruit named Henry Fleming. What is most remarkable about this classic is that the twenty-four-year-old author had never witnessed war in his life before writing this book. Crane's story developed to some degree out of his reading of war stories by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy and the popular memoirs of Civil War veterans, yet he also deviated from these influences in his depiction of war's horror. Critics have noted that his portrait of war is an intensely psychological one, blending elements of naturalism, impressionism, and symbolism. Indeed, he broke away from his American realist contemporaries, including his mentor William Dean Howells, in his naturalistic treatment of man as an amoral creature in a deterministic world.
John Ford John Ford was an American motion picture director. Winner of four Academy Awards, and is known as one of America’s great film directors. He began his career in the film industry around 1913. According to Ellis, Ford’s style is evident in both the themes he is drawn toward and the visual treatment of those themes, in his direction of the camera and in what’s in front of it. Although he began his career in the silent film area and continued to work fruitfully for decades after the thirties, Ford reached creative maturity in the thirties.
When the war breaks out, this tranquil little town seems like the last place on earth that could produce a team of vicious, violent soldiers. Soon we see Jim thrown into a completely contrasting `world', full of violence and fighting, and the strong dissimilarity between his hometown and this new war-stricken country is emphasised. The fact that the original setting is so diversely opposite to that if the war setting, the harsh reality of the horror of war is demonstrated.
O’Brien’s unique verisimilitude writing style fills the novel with deep meaning and emotion. Analyzing the novel through a psychological lens only adds to its allure. Understanding why characters act the way they do helps bring this novel to life. The reader begins to empathize with the characters. Every day, the soldiers’ lives hang in the balance. How these soldiers react to life-threatening situations will inspire the reader. Life has an expiration date. Reading about people who are held captive by their minds and who die in the name of war, will inspire the reader to live everyday as if they are currently in the
"Reader Responses to Soldier's Home." Literature and Composition. 10 Feb.,2003. David Toth. 14 Feb., 2003. .
1. What is the difference between a. and a. Define and discuss Ford’s business-level strategy. Henry Ford began a family automobile business in 1903; this was during the industrial revolution. This business has become the most famous automobile brand in the world. Over the years, the business structure has adapted to changes in leadership, market trends and the economic conditions.
Theme is a literary element used in literature and has inspired many poets, playwrights, and authors. The themes of love and war are featured in literature, and inspire authors to write wartime romances that highlight these two themes. Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms deals with the collective themes in the human experience such as love and the reality of war. A Farewell to Arms is narrated from the perspective of Fredric Henry, an ambulance driver in the Italian army, and pertains to his experiences in the war. The novel also highlights the passionate relationship between Henry and Catherine Barkley, a British nurse in Italy. Henry’s insight into the war and his intense love for Catherine emphasize that love and war are the predominant themes in the novel and these themes contribute to bringing out the implicit and explicit meaning of the novel. Being a part of the Italian army, Henry is closely involved with the war and has developed an aversion to the war. Henry’s association with the war has also made him realise that war is inglorious and the sacrifices made in war are meaningless. Specifically, Henry wants the war to end because he is disillusioned by the war and knows that war is not as glorious as it is made up to be. The state of affairs and the grim reality of the war lead Henry towards an ardent desire for a peaceful life, and as a result Henry repudiates his fellow soldiers at the warfront. Henry’s desertion of the war is also related to his passionate love for Catherine. Henry’s love for Catherine is progressive and ironic. This love develops gradually in “stages”: Henry’s attempt at pretending love for Catherine towards the beginning of the novel, his gradually developing love for her, and finally, Henry’s impas...