Essay 2
"The historian Will Durant calculated that there have been twenty nine years in all of human history during which a war was not underway somewhere." (Hedges, 2003). In fact more than half of my lifetime has consisted of the United States, my country, being at war. It is sad to know that I have no experienced peace. It is also alarming because I, like my peers, have become somewhat immune and numb to war. We have come to think of it as just another issue going on, and do not really see it as the drastic event that it really is. It is something that is just there; just in the background. Hedges in his book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, tells us of his 15 years of reporting in the front lines. He has seen war and the effects it brings to those who engage in it. In this book Hedges is telling through his personal experience the great damage
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Hedges reflects on the atrocities that he witnessed while he uncovered mass graves, was imprisoned in Sudan, expelled from Libya, shot at in Kosovo, and ambushed in Central America. His experience brings about a new reality that he is now able to see in retrospect. At the beginning he reveals that in the midst of war "I would rather die like this than go back to the routine of life."(Hedges, 2003). However after having been exposed to carnage and slaughter of not only soldiers, but women and children, he starts to see war in a different light. Hedges finds now that war "exposes the capacity for evil that lurks not far below the surface within all of us."(Hedges, 2003). He then surmises that wars "are manufactured, born out of the collapse of civil societies, perpetuated by fear, greed and paranoia, and they are run by gangsters, who rise up from the bottom of their own societies and terrorize all, including those they purport to protect."(Hedges, 2003). The result of war, Hedges concludes that "all countries wind up
In the novel, My Brother Sam is Dead, by James and Christopher Collier, they teach that there are many other ways to solve conflict besides war. War is violent, disgusting, and gruesome and so many people die in war. Families separate in war because of how many people want to be in the thrill of the war and also how many innocent family members die in the midst of war. Lastly, war is worthless and it was caused by a disagreement over something little and the outcome of war is not worth the many lives, time, and money and there are other ways to solve conflict besides to fight. War causes so many negative outcomes on this world that it needs to be avoided at all costs.
Tim O’Brien states in his novel The Things They Carried, “The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can’t help but gape at the awful majesty of combat” (77). This profound statement captures not only his perspective of war from his experience in Vietnam but a collective truth about war across the ages. It is not called the art of combat without reason: this truth transcends time and can be found in the art produced and poetry written during the years of World War I. George Trakl creates beautiful images of the war in his poem “Grodek” but juxtaposes them with the harsh realities of war. Paul Nash, a World War I artist, invokes similar images in his paintings We are Making a New World and The Ypres Salient at Night. Guilaume Apollinaire’s writes about the beautiful atrocity that is war in his poem “Gala.”
War deprives soldiers of so much that there is nothing more to take. No longer afraid, they give up inside waiting for the peace that will come with death. War not only takes adolescence, but plasters life with images of death and destruction. Seeger and Remarque demonstrate the theme of a lost generation of men in war through diction, repetition, and personification to relate to their readers that though inevitable and unpredictable, death is not something to be feared, but to calmly be accepted and perhaps anticipated. The men who fight in wars are cast out from society, due to a misunderstanding of the impact of such a dark experience in the formative years of a man’s life, thus being known as the lost generation.
... Paul's strong words, 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. In conclusion, Remarque's firsthand encounters with trench warfare, Owen's vivid descriptions of the soldiers' experiences and Baker's touching accounts of the lives of historical figures, all state that there were no victors in war, only losers in a hopeless battle for territorial supremacy.
This book is definitely a piece of writing that helps open our eyes to the ugliness that is going on in the world today. Chris Hedges' central message is to stop hating and start learning how to love. This book is a deep, personal reflection on many wars by an award-winning journalist. Every civilian, military member, and political leader should undoubtedly read this book. War skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a constant battle between death and love.
Hedges, Chris. War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. Random House LLC, 2003. 10. eBook.
We often view war as a disastrous chaos stemming from the fact that wars are fought to kill other people. However, when we look back on our history, all the wars that have been fought are a part of one greater war ever since the start of humanity, the war against peace. In the novel, A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, readers realize that is impossible for a separate peace to exist because as products of nature, humans naturally gravitate toward war since it connects them to their survival instincts, ultimately leading humans to the conclusion that war is the natural order and that peace is a threat to humanity's bloody, yet unsettling harmony.
War always seems to have no end. A war between countries can cross the world, whether it is considered a world war or not. No one can be saved from the reaches of a violent war, not even those locked in a safe haven. War looms over all who recognize it. For some, knowing the war will be their future provides a reason for living, but for others the war represents the snatching of their lives without their consent. Every reaction to war in A Separate Peace is different, as in life. In the novel, about boys coming of age during World War II, John Knowles uses character development, negative diction, and setting to argue that war forever changes the way we see the world and forces us to mature rapidly.
In War Gives Us Meaning Author Chris Hedges outlines a few points that give light to the whole book. He outlines three main points. War is part of our culture, we have a myth behind what is actually there and finally, we use war as a crusade. These three main points make up the entree of the whole book.
The physical effects of war overwhelm the naïve causing pain and suffering. Initially, war entangles the lives of youth, destroying the innocence that they experience as an aspect of their life. The girl “glid[ing] gracefully down the path” (1) and the boy “rid[ing] eagerly down the road” (9) have their enjoyable realities striped by the harshness of war. Likewise, war enters women’s lives creating turmoil. The woman who works “deftly in the fields” ( ) no longer is able to experience the offerings of life. The “wire cuts,” ( ) pushing her away from the normal flow of life. In addition, man undergoes tragic obstacles as a result of war. “A man walks nobly and alone” ( ) before the horrible effects of war set in on his life causing disruptions. War enters the life of man destroying the bond man shares with his beloved environment ( ).
Ginzburg insists that time cannot heal the wounds of war and that her generation, tied to war by its suffering and by its destiny, uncompromisingly carries the truth. She effectively uses all her rhetorical tools: repetitive imagery, fatalistic tone, and purposeful lack of organization, to show how war makes people lose their world forever.
“War, it will be seen, not only accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way” (Orwell 158). Most people agree that war is a terrible thing, but it can also be used as a tool to guarantee peace. In the book 1984, by George Orwell, the government slogan “War is Peace” is true because the government’s peace relies almost entirely on the people’s belief that they are at war.
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.
Earnest Hemmingway once said "Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime." (Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference) War is a gruesome and tragic thing and affects people differently. Both Vonnegut and Hemmingway discus this idea in their novels A Farewell to Arms and Slaughterhouse Five. Both of the novels deal not only with war stories but other genres, be it a science fiction story in Vonnegut’s case or a love story in Hemingway’s. Despite all the similarities there are also very big differences in the depiction of war and the way the two characters cope with their shocking and different experiences. It is the way someone deals with these tragedies that is the true story. This essay will evaluate how the main characters in both novels deal with their experiences in different ways.
War has been around for centuries. From the time modern civilizations began, war has played an integral part in human history. It shaped the world into the modern world we live in. War has been said to be a great motivator, for example, the Great Wall of China was built to fend off the attackers from the north. However, the negative aspects of war far outweighs any positive effects it might have. The destruction of civilizations, cities and countries, mass killings of men, woman and children alike, the disastrous effect it has on economy and the after effects of war can last for centuries.