The Moon is Down Chapter One: Here we learn that a small town has been taken over by one of the many Nazi groups during World War Two. Mr. Corell “ The town good guy”, the way I view it, sent the town postmen and policemen on a boating trip, keeping them from the invasion (we learn later that “The town good guy” is really a back-stabber later in the book). After the invasion, the Nazis request a meeting with the town’s Mayor, Mayor Orden. Joseph and Doctor Winter, two of Mayor Orden’s colleagues, await the arrival of Nazis too. The two meet Captain Bentick, a rank lower than Colonel Lanser who is the one who had requested the meeting. Bentick searches the home. During the meeting Annie, Mayor Orden’s cook, becomes very aggravated by the soldiers who wait outside the front porch of the Mayor’s home, and throws a pot of boiling water at them. Chapter Two: In this chapter, Steinbeck explains the characteristics of each of the Nazis. Major Hunter, an engineer, “arithmatician”, and seemingly indifferent to the fact that he is a soldier. Captain Bentick, a family man, was old and kind. Bentick also has certain admiration to the English. Captain Loft, a young man, took much pride in the fact that he was a soldier. He dreams of his own death on the battlefield, where he is respected. “Lieutenants Prackle and Tonder were snot noses, undergraduates, lieutenants, trained in the politics of the day” (Quoted out of the book; there seemed to be no sense putting it in my own words since it was right there, and couldn’t have been worded any better). Colonel Lanser takes much pride in what he does. To me, he sees life as an order given by a higher rank that must be taken out. It is also in this chapter that Captain Bentick dies by one Alexander Morden, a town dweller. Chapter Three: The chapter begins with a discussion between Annie and Joseph, who are talking about Alexander Morden and the death of Captain Bentick. Joseph reveals to Annie what he surely thinks will happen... “They’ll shoot him”. Annie is rejecting the awful thought. Unfortunately it is true and Alex will be tried. Molly Morden, Alex’s wife, met with the Mayor because of a rumor that had been circulating in the town. “You wouldn’t convict Alex would you?”, the replies, “No”. To the Mayor’s anger he found that he did have to sentence Alex to death; luckily he managed to shirk the awful duty. Chapter Four: This Chapter is very brief, it simply goes into Alex’s trial, where he IS convicted, and shot in a public area.
Most war novels center on themes of valor and heroism. Some concentrate on the opposites of these virtues in an attempt to display raw realism. Harrison, right from the beginning of his novel, shows us both. The narrator of this first-person narrative paints a picture of a totally un-heroic bunch of soldiers preparing for debarkation. The drinking and debauchery are followed the next morning by a parade that the suffering soldiers must march through, while the people watch their ‘heroes’ leaving to bravely fight the good fight. While this clearly demarcates the innocent civilians from the savvy soldiers, it also shows the reader that the narrator is going to try to tell the real story.
This independent reading assignment is dedicated to Slaughterhouse-Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut experienced many hardships during and as a result of his time in the military, including World War II, which he portrays through the protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim. Slaughterhouse-Five, however, not only introduces these military experiences and the internal conflicts that follow, but also alters the chronological sequence in which they occur. Billy is an optometry student that gets drafted into the military and sent to Luxembourg to fight in the Battle of Bulge against Germany. Though he remains unscathed, he is now mentally unstable and becomes “unstuck in time” (Vonnegut 30). This means that he is able to perceive
The story takes place through the eyes of a German infantryman named Paul Baumer. He is nineteen and just joined up with the German army after high school with the persuasion of one of his schoolteachers, Mr. Kantorek. Paul recalls how he would use all class period lecturing the students, peering through his spectacles and saying: "Won't you join up comrades?"(10). Here was a man who loved war. He loved the "glory" of war. He loved it so much as to persuade every boy in his class to join up with the army. He must have thought how proud they would be marching out onto that field in their military attire.
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...
...display how the average citizen would see war for the first time. Colonel Kelly sees her as “vacant and almost idiotic. She had taken refuge in deaf, blind, unfeeling shock” (Vonnegut 100). To a citizen who even understands the war process, war is still heinous and dubiously justified when viewed first hand. The man who seems to have coldly just given away her son’s life without the same instinct as her has participated in this heinous wartime atrocity for so long, but it only affect her now because she cannot conceive of the reality of it until it is personally in front of her. That indicates a less complete political education of war even among those who war may have affected their entire lives. The closeness and the casualties of this “game” will affect her the most because she has to watch every move that previously could have been kept impartial and unviewed.
In the first chapter, the narrator, Paul Baumer, and his troop have just returned from the front line after suffering heavy casualties. He is joyous because his troop, the Second Company, has been served double rations due to the losses. He and his friends laugh and eat, feeling privileged. They are not at all deterred by the fact that they were gifted this excess of food by 70 fallen comrades. When the cook hears of the losses, he is shocked, but not because of the deaths; he is astonished that he has prepared nearly double the amount of food needed. The soldiers' disconnection shows more personally when Paul and his friends, Muller and Kropp, go to visit a fellow soldier named Franz Kemmerich who is hospitalized with a leg wound. They realize that he will not leave the hospital alive, but they are not too concerned. In fact, their thoughts revolve more around Kemmerich's well-crafted boots and who will inherit them once he is passed. It isn't that they don't care for their friend; it's simply that they have learned to push away sadness and other emotions. They must focus on their own lives before mourning the loss of others.
War slowly begins to strip away the ideals these boy-men once cherished. Their respect for authority is torn away by their disillusionment with their schoolteacher, Kantorek who pushed them to join. This is followed by their brief encounter with Corporal Himmelstoss at boot camp. The contemptible tactics that their superior officer Himmelstoss perpetrates in the name of discipline finally shatters their respect for authority. As the boys, fresh from boot camp, march toward the front for the first time, each one looks over his shoulder at the departing transport truck. They realize that they have now cast aside their lives as schoolboys and they feel the numbing reality of their uncertain futures.
However, the books present response to war in a contrasting way. The incorporation of repetition, balance, and the idea of little control of one’s fate display parallelism between Billy Pilgrim and the soldiers of The Things They Carried while still distinguishing the existing psychological and internal contrast between them. When Billy is leading a parade in front of the Dresdeners prior to the bombing, Vonnegut
The chapter begins with German soldiers at rest after fourteen days of fierce battle on the Western Front. A double ration of food has been prepared so the soldiers are eating their fill. Paul Baumer, the protagonist and narrator of the novel, watches in amazement as his friends, Tjaden and Muller, eat another helping; he wonders where Tjaden puts all the food, for he is as thin as a rail. Baumer is only nineteen years of age. He enlisted in the German infantry because Kantorek, his high school teacher, had glorified war and talked him into fighting for the fatherland. Kropp, Behm, and Leer, former classmates of Baumer, were also persuaded by Kantorek to join the infantry. They are all now fellow soldiers along with Tjaden, Westhus, Detering, and Katczinsky.
War affects everyone involved - the conquerors and those being conquered. War is a struggle that is internal and external. Man can be a dedicated and loyal soldier for only so much at a time. He then longs for laughter, music, girls, a good meal and more. In The Moon is Down, the soldiers feel the need to return home. They begin to doubt what they are doing and if they are being told the truth. They become uneasy when the enemy doesn't talk to them. The townspeople's hatred is growing. They remained indoors and stared from behind curtains while the patrol walked through the town.
All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of Paul Baumer’s service as a soldier in the German army during World War I. Paul and his classmates enlist together, share experiences together, grow together, share disillusionment over the loss of their youth, and the friends even experience the horrors of death-- together. Though the book is a novel, it gives the reader insights into the realities of war. In this genre, the author is free to develop the characters in a way that brings the reader into the life of Paul Baumer and his comrades. The novel frees the author from recounting only cold, sterile facts. This approach allows the reader to experience what might have been only irrelevant facts if presented in a textbook.
Apollo 11 was the mission that landed the first man on the moon. On July 21st, 1969 the whole world stopped to watch as Neil Armstrong took his first steps, making man’s first footprints on the surface of the Moon. Meanwhile, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were growing and the heat of the arms race was smoldering. Upon the conclusion of the mission, Apollo 11’s crew of three was successfully recovered along with the photographs taken on the lunar surface; many of which are quite iconic to this day. However, one in particular stood out with respects to American achievement. It displayed an astronaut on the moon saluting the stars and stripes of the American flag in front of the Eagle Lunar module. One could argue that this photo was taken to represent the extent of America’s interest in scientific exploration. But before we should jump to any conclusions, we must first take a closer look into why we chose to send Americans to the Moon in the first place. Does the photograph of the saluting astronaut truly represent America’s interests in science and exploration? Or does it in fact reveal the hidden agenda of the United States to keep a leg up in the Cold War?
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.
Vonnegut also describes the Martian Army planning a failed attack on Earth. He illustrates the soldiers on the planet as unthinking puppets forbidden by radio. In order to embed the antenna into a soldiers' intellect, one's head must be shaved and bald. Vonnegut also men tions people who are volunteers. As you can see Vonnegut's description of a soldier is quite ironic. Another significant point in the novel is Vonnegut's believe of God and other religions. He illustrates how ppl blindly and enthusiastically follow Gods and their religions and how ridiculous it is. "Boaz's home vault had a boor on it, a round boulder with which he could plug the vault's mouth" (200). For instance, he also "had slept with his door open, he would have awakened to find himself pinned down by hundreds of thousands of his admirers. They would have let him up only when his heart stopped beating" (142).