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Short essay on consequences of war poems
Short essay on consequences of war poems
Short essay on consequences of war poems
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It touches the heart of every single human being on earth. It does not discriminate against age, sex, race, or religion. It only brings loss, brokenness, and death. We call it war, made it a science, and perfected it; unaware or uncaring about its cost, consequences, destruction, and devastation. Those who have witnessed it become broken, those who have fought in it become dark and disheartened, and those who wait the return of their loved ones live in a constant state of isolation, hopelessness, in despair. There is no coming back from war. It leaves only a waste land of minds, bodies, and spirits. This was a reality in which T. S. Eliot lived and this is why he wrote The Waste Land. It was through this poem that Eliot was able to show the world the true cost and consequence of war. It was his private testament of the cost of war, the truth of its aftermath, and it became "the most influential poetic work of the 20th century" (poets.org)
To understand The Waste Land, the reader should gain a better understanding of the man himself. Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri on the 26th of September, 1888. At 19 he attended Harvard university where he studied ________ earning both undergraduate and master's degrees. Several of his poems were published in the "Harvard Advocate" (cite ) while he attended. World war one was a deeply personal experience for Eliot. Its aftermath, the loss of friends, the erosion of a higher civilization, and the anguish and despair of an entire generation; he felt it all. The Waste Land, written during the interwar period, was Eliot's personal and deeply emotional response to the events and the people he witnessed after world war one. He saw a despondent nation overwhelmed ...
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... changed" (cite-guardian). By also alluding to the Sermon on the Mount, "a body moral teachings", Eliot completes the circle by presenting the reader with the knowledge of how to return to what is good and moral. Again, to cast out all that is wicked, evil and self-serving for that which is divine, holy, and good. His use of the Biblical text in line 310 and 311, "O Lord Thou pluckest me out", is Eliot's warning to society to turn back from its current path and seek the meaning of life through that which is wholesome and virtuous.
"Death by Water" is the fourth and shortest piece in the poem's entirety. This is also the most recognizable piece of the text in which discloses a intensely personal moment in Eliot's life. Phlebas the Phoenician, could be considered an allusion his friend, Jean Verdenal, who he lost in 1915. Verdenal's death was a tragic blow to Eliot.
Demolished cities, torn families and decimated countries are a few of the destructive properties of war. Throughout history, the world has been through war after war, never ceasing. Two of the greatest and most destructive wars were World War I and World War II. These wars involved most of the world’s countries and ended with tragic results. The wars also left many soldiers with various mental and physical problems that ruined their social lives. John F. Kennedy once said that “Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” For the most part, he is right; if war does not end, it will end humankind. The main problem with this is that most people barely even know how destructive war can be; people believe war is the only way to solve problems with other countries. The problem with that is that war often uncovers or starts new problems that can affect others more than the past problems. Literature has helped people grasp at the understanding of what happens during wars and the problems that it can create. Some go into deep aspects of significant wars while others go into wars that everyone fights within themselves. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Beowulf and John Milton’s Paradise Lost are a few pieces of the thousands of works of literatures that capture the tragic, destructive power of war, global and small.
What does war do to a man? It destroys his inner being; it crushes hope; it kills him. Experiencing battle leaves only the flesh of a man, for he no longer has a personality; it leaves a wasteland where a vast field of humanity once was. Through the main character, Paul Baumer, the reader experiences the hardships and consequences of war. During the course of the war, Paul reflects on how the young men involved in the war have no future left for them, they've become a "lost generation." Paul feels that his generation has "become a wasteland" because the war has made him into a thoughtless animal, because he knew nothing before the war, and because the war has shown the cheapness of human life.
What is war really like all together? What makes war so horrifying? The horror of war is throughout All Quiet on the Western Front. For example Albert says the war has ruined them as young people and Paul agrees. “Albert expresses it: "The war has ruined us for everything." He is right. We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.” (Remarque, Chapter 5). The way the war has affected each soldier has changed them forever. The boys who were once school boys will never be the same.
Eliot, T.S. The wasteland. In The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. Edited by Paul Lauter et al. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991: 1447-1463.
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. ed. M. H. Abrams New York, London: Norton, 1993.
Williamson, George. A Reader's Guide to T.S. Eliot; a Poem by Poem Analysis. New York:
World War one and two. Both these wars stole many young men’s lives from them. Stole sons from their mothers. Stole brothers from their sister but also stole many innocent lives in the process. An estimated 60 million lives lost and for what? For land, for power, wealth. War is brutal, gruesome, costly and pointless. What good could possibly come from a war? The truth is without these wars, the world of literature wouldn’t be the same. These wars bought rise to names such as Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, and Edward Thomas. Among all that death, destruction, and calamity; somehow great poets were born.
"T.S. Eliot: Childhood & Young Scholar." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
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.
...In "The Waste Land," Eliot delivers an indictment against the self-serving, irresponsibility of modern society, but not without giving us, particularly the youth a message of hope at the end of the Thames River. And in "Ash Wednesday," Eliot finally describes an example of the small, graceful images God gives us as oases in the Waste Land of modern culture. Eliot constantly refers back, in unconsciously, to his childhood responsibilities of the missionary in an unholy world. It is only through close, diligent reading of his poetry that we can come to understand his faithful message of hope.
T.S. Eliot is often considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th Century. Not only were his highly regarded poems such as “The Wasteland” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” influential to the literary style of his time, but his work as a publisher highlighted the work of many talented poets. Analyzing his poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” with psychoanalytic criticism reveals several core issues in the speaker of the poem, and may reflect Eliot himself.
This poem is considered to be “one of the most difficult poems in a difficult literary period”. The Wasteland is a poem that is said to be one of his most influential works. At first glance, critics considered the poem to be too modern, but then opinions changed as they realized the poem reflected Eliot’s disillusionment with the moral decay of World War I in Europe. T. S. Eliot in The Wasteland combines theme, style, and symbolism to explore life and death. The Wasteland was written in 1922 and is a long poem divided into five sections.
...to subjects relevant to today, such as religion.Eliot argues that without religion we are all lack direction and more importantly we lack substance in our lives. Without religion, we are superficial and it is due to this that we turn to pop culture. Pop culture is a filler for that which is intellectually rewarding. Eliot recognized this and for this reason he wrote “The Wasteland”. Eliot’s poem made bold statements about what was really happening in the modern world. Whether one argue with Eliot’s positions or not, his work joins the canon of the classic and ironically provides an opportunity for readers to plug into something greater.
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is an elaborate and mysterious montage of lines from other works, fleeting observations, conversations, scenery, and even languages. Though this approach seems to render the poem needlessly oblique, this style allows the poem to achieve multi-layered significance impossible in a more straightforward poetic style. Eliot’s use of fragmentation in The Waste Land operates on three levels: first, to parallel the broken society and relationships the poem portrays; second, to deconstruct the reader’s familiar context, creating an individualized sense of disconnection; and third, to challenge the reader to seek meaning in mere fragments, in this enigmatic poem as well as in a fractious world.
The First World War, The Great War between Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria) and Allies Powers (Russia, France, Britain, Italy, and the United States) started in July 1914 and ended in November 1918. It changed the people and their point of views; writers changed their subjects and their literary techniques, readers changed their taste and expectations. It has had many significant influences on Literature in American culture. For instance, T.S. Eliot's poems, "The Waste Land”, which he referred to post-war Europe, expressed a sense of anguish about life, using many different historical, religious and literary references. Eliot witnessed the social turmoil and transformation surrounding World War 1. The modernist movement heavily influenced his work, and his works became the greatest expression of the perspective of the modern mind. In his poem, The Waste Land, Eliot explains that the Fire Sermon corresponds in importance to the Sermon on the Mount. It combines contrasting religious references that create a sense of multiplicity, ambivalence, and...