Ordinary Men by Browning The men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 were just ordinary men, from a variety of backgrounds, education, and age. It would appear that they were not selected by any force other than random chance. Their backgrounds and upbringing, however, did little to prepare these men for the horrors they were to witness and participate in. The group was made up of both citizens and career policemen. Major Wilhelm Trapp, a career policeman and World War I veteran headed the battalion
Christopher Browning, a professor of history at Pacific Lutheran University, wrote a book focusing on the Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland and named it Ordinary Men. Browning states the historical problems he hopes to solve with his book "the fundamental problem is to explain why ordinary men- shaped by a culture that had its own particularities but was nonetheless within the mainstream of western, Christian, and Enlightenment traditions - under specific circumstances willingly
In the novel Crime and Punishment, the so-called "extraordinary man" theory plays an important role. Raskolnikov, downtrodden, and psychologically battered, believes himself to be exempt from the laws of ordinary men. It is this creedo that makes him believe he has the right to murder Alyona Ivanovna. In the nineteenth century, the extraordinary man theory was widely popular. There were two main schools of thought on the subject, the proponents of which were the philosophers Georg Hegel and Freiderich
redemption. Raskolnikov believes that by a law of nature men have been “somewhat arbitrarily” divided into two groups of “ordinary” and “extraordinary”. Raskolnikov believes that the duty of the ordinary group is to just exist, in order to form the world and the society. The second group, those who are “extraordinary”, are a step above the normal. They have the ability to overstep normal bounds and violate the rights of those who are simply ordinary. They are the prime movers; they have a right to cross
000 in Polish ghettos. Who were the men that carried out these terrible murders? One would think them to be savage killers specially selected for their history of brutality and violence. But, in fact, these men were typically normal middle-aged business men. How could these ordinary men be influenced in such a way to allow them to commit such atrocities? The governmental policies, pressures of comrades and individual behaviors helped to transform these men into the mass murderers of European
Falcon Robert Scott’s tragic expedition to the South Pole. In the radio play, Stewart skilfully positions the audience to accept the dominant reading of the play by showing the dominant discourse: that heroes’ nobility depends on their action and ordinary people can become heroes too. Stewart also positions the audience by using the role of the Announcer as a mask for himself to give comments to the stages during play in lyric verse forms and factual commentary statements, and also involve the men’s
European Superiority in Oroonoko Throughout Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, we can see the comparison between European and African culture occurring in many places. In a majority of the imagery, Behn's attitudes can be seen behind the text weighing heavily toward portraying European characteristics as socially more admirable. Oroonoko's introduction acquaints us with a person so refined in every way as to be almost god-like. Every feature of this great warrior-prince is shown in detail to be the most beautiful
character of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1921), discovers an immense and rigid counterculture and drowns himself in it, only to surface without anyone with whom to relate. Each author suggests the irony of a prophetic mind being wasted and outcast among ordinary men. Raskolnikov, a former student, forced to drop out of the university because he is unable to afford the tuition, is forced to work part-time with his friend Razumihin as a translator. Through this endeavor, Raskolnikov, or Rodya as his mother calls
understand how humans can behave so cruelly toward their fellow man. Theories have been formed that cite the men of Battalion 101 as “ exceptions” or men with “faulty personalities,” when, in fact, they were ordinary men. The people who attempted to perform a genocide were the same people as you and me with the only difference being the environment in which they worked. The behavior of the men in Battalion 101 was not abnormal human behavior, rather, their actions are testament to the premise that when
the invisible narrator has to deal with the enemy of a chaotic and prejudice world around him. In contrast, Roskolnokov, in Crime And Punishment, is his own enemy, and struggles with his two separate identities. One which feels he is superior to ordinary men and the other which is kind, caring and sensitive to those around him. Existentialists are responsible for their own actions and their own fates. While the outside world affects their lives, these characters inevitably choose their own fates; which
Salieri continues to interject throughout the mens’ conversation until he is included. Salieri is jealous of Mozart’s musical ability. While it appears to everyone the Salieri is the most talented musician in Vienna, he, himself, knows that Mozart’s music is much deeper than his own. Salieri vents his jealousy when he states, “We were both ordinary men, he and I. Yet he from the ordinary created legends-and I from legends greeted only the ordinary” (Amadeus, 63). Mozart and his wife, Constanza
law is interpreted by a jury who are seen as expressing the sense of justice of ordinary men and women. Juries date back to the Middle Ages in England, and while membership, role, and importance have changed throughout the ages, they were part of the system of England’s Common Law. The purpose of the jury system was to ensure the civil rights of the ordinary citizen. It is important to remember that at the time, ordinary people had few rights. I believe that the jury system is an unfair system due
Great as they were, these men still lacked a significant amount of originality. Relating their themes and structures results in little to no variation. One author, though born into the era of Romanticism dared to expand the possibilities nineteenth - century literature had to offer. Through works such as "Young Goodman Brown," "The Minister's Black Veil," and "The Birthmark," Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporated Romanticism into his own style. Including ordinary men, such as Mr. Hooper, Goodman
The Bull Moose "The Bull Moose" is a poem by one of the great Canadian poets, Alden Nowlan. It is a finely crafted poem by a very talented poet. It reminds us how far away from Nature the lives of ordinary men and women have strayed. This is something common to all of us who live so much our lives in buildings and who so rarely experience Nature in its raw form. Nowlan creates powerful layers of images, and contrasts them in a way to make us feel just how damaging to our minds and souls this separation
of the most complex individuals for historians of literature to deal with. His early work sought to replace romanticized glory with realistic views. A good example of this is the way he often portrayed battle as an unglamorous act performed by ordinary men. After his marriage, though, Tolstoy started to reexamine his attitudes towards life, especially his moral, social, and educational beliefs (Shepherd 401). Many commentators agree that Tolstoy’s early study of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques
completely unwarranted. These were students like Paul, farmers like Detering, and other ordinary men who were enlisted and taken to the front, not really knowing what they were fighting for, stripped of even their humanity. At one point Paul even said "[i]n many ways we are treated quite like men" (91). However, they were men, even though they were made to feel like animals. They were still men. Remarque effectively used Paul's experiences to illustrate his criticism of World War I
destined to save the human race is dominant in both the movie and book. Men that were later to become their instructors and teachers chose both Neo and Ender. For Ender that man was Colonel Graff and for Neo he was Morpheus, both of who believed in their pupils even when others had doubts. Ender and Neo were uprooted from there normal lives (Ender was a student and Neo a programmer), by people who stood above ordinary men and women, and had the ability to watch them. In the book these people were
Panza, who serves him as a squire, sets forth in search of adventures. Don Quixote interprets all that he encounters in accordance with his readings and thus imagines himself to be living in a world quite different from the one familiar to the ordinary men he meets. Windmills are thus transformed into giants, and this illusion, together with many others, is the basis for the beatings and misadventures suffered by the intrepid hero. After the knight's second sally in search of adventure, friends
"There are no extraordinary men... just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are faced to deal with" (William Halsey). The same can be said about volatile men. This is the quote Christopher R. Browning thought of when he named this book. The men of the 101st battalion were rarely faced with decisions. Even if it had been proposed by Trapp the morning of Jozefow that "any of the older men who did not feel up to the task that lay before them could step out" (Browning, chapter 7, pg. 57), he
John Steinbeck's Compassion for the Loneliness and Isolation Suffered by Ordinary People in Of Mice and Men The Great Depression was the worst and longest economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world, lasting from the end of 1929 until the early 1940's. The Depression was caused by a number of serious weaknesses in the U.S. economy. The lingering effects of World War 1 caused economic problems in many countries, as Europe struggled to pay war debts and reparations. These