...aims to express the internal destruction that war causes among individuals who live through it. The nonlinear, extremely unpredictable layout of the novel directly correlates to the internal chaos Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, feels after the war. Billy skips back and forth in time. Events happening in his current life seem to trigger flashbacks of terrors he experienced during the war. He is so shell shocked, so mentally distressed by the horrific war he has experienced that he is “unstuck from time” and unable to ground himself in reality. He even convinces himself that he is abducted by friendly, peaceful aliens called Tralfamadorians who live in a fourth dimension where all time exists eternally and simultaneously. He reports that they explain to him that because of this fourth dimension, there is no free will. With this knowledge the aliens become an outlet through which Billy dispels the...
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...In the poem “Dulce et Decorum est,” the author Wilfred Owen describes how war is hell. Men are pushed savagely across wildernesses to battle against their greatest fears. During the progressive era of World War I the use of barbaric tools of destruction were used in the midst of the war. Chemical Warfare was introduced and new mechanical demands were developed to destroy men’s hopes of freedom. Men feared each other because of the deeds they would perform to survive. Wilfred Owen transmits in words the emotions that men felt as death rained down upon them. Through Wilfred Owen’s poem, “Dulce et Decorum est,” he argues that men’s ethics had to be destroyed because of the will to conquer and survive, he portrays the logic behind a soldiers’ minds...
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...War does not determines who is right, only who is left. In All Quiet on the Western Front, a historical war novel, by Erich Maria Remarque, war is described realistically and losses were revealed. Earth and nature play huge roles among the wars; they both have opposite uses. For example, earth is both protection and danger as they seek refuge in it down within the trenches as the shells explode on the surface of it. As Paul travels through the horror and destruction of war, he realized the comfort brought to him by nature. Earth might not have an significant effect in our lives, however, it has great impacts on soldiers. The earth shields exterior forces and acts as an protection, yet it is a battlefield where soldiers lose their lives. When Paul and his friends were preparing for a bombardment and hiding from possible attack, he realized...
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...War destroys more than buildings and villages, it destroys the hearts of those who are fighting and the families’ of those soldiers. Liam exploits this with many different literary devices in the story. Soldiers in the middle of the battle that have seen so much death and destruction, see it everywhere, even in their own dreams. Additionally, the soldier’s family has to deal with the depression and destruction when the family’s son or daughter falls in the midst of the war. In a war both sides have to spend ginormous amounts of money to pay for all of the destruction that occurred in the duration of the war. As a result, one side may lose more than what it was trying to gain from the...
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...Michelle Zhang Dr. Bloomquist 2/13/2015 Rhetorical Analysis A Whole New World: Construction and Destruction in The Things They Carried While the Vietnam War was a complex political pursuit that lasted only a few years, the impact of the war on millions of soldiers and civilians extended for many years beyond its termination. Soldiers killed or were killed; those who survived suffered from physical wounds or were plagued by PTSD from being wounded, watching their platoon mates die violently or dealing with the moral implications of their own violence on enemy fighters. Inspired by his experiences in the war, Tim O’Brien, a former soldier, wrote The Things They Carried, a collection of fictional and true war stories that embody the struggles that soldiers who fought in the war faced before, during, and after the war faced. These stories serve as an outlet for O’Brien, allowing both a cathartic release of his experiences and a documentation of the significant experiences that shaped him. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien explores the psychological destruction that fighting in the war encompassed while he was still a soldier as well as many years after being out of the war. In one of the stories, “The Man I Killed,” O’Brien encapsulates the psychological devastation he faced after he kills a Vietnamese soldier, his first time ever killing a man. However, in revealing his experience, he attempts to remove himself from the situation by using the third person to portray...
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...Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front was revolutionary in how it spoke not about the glory and honor of war, but instead the cruel, dark reality of it. World War I was very different than any other war that had come before it through the combination of the number of large, powerful countries fighting in it and new, innovative fighting techniques that came about. In this novel, Remarque wrote about reality; the complete destruction that comes with war and how nationalism was used to trick men, but the themes and ideas of this novel still stand true today and it should not be forgotten. World War I was completely different than any other war the world had seen so far, it was gruesome and violent; the majority of this novel follows...
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...involvement in the Second Gulf War. On March 17, 2003, President Bush gave Suddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, an ultimatum: demanding the Hussein leave Iraq within a forty-eight-hour period or The United States would declare war. Suddam Hussein had been the President of Iraq since 1979 and was a major reason for the First Gulf War. In 2002, Congress and the Senate passed a law “authorizing the use of armed force against Iraq. This resolution empowered the President...
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...Speech on war War is often portrayed as a ‘need’ and people are labelled as unpatriotic if they aren’t pro-war, but what is patriotic about encouraging our soldiers to put themselves at danger for the sake of our own nations pride? War has been something that I have always disagreed with. I have done reports and essays on this topic and hours of research as well. The motive for war is not worth overall devastation that it causes and wars need to be stopped. War has a plethora of impacts that affect whole countries and individuals. A number of problems arise when there is a war – causalities, economic and environmental problems. How can you support a cause that is the reason for so much damage of our earth and its people? Death is something we all fear for ourselves, and our loved-ones. In a war, death is always prevalent and unavoidable. No conflict between nations could be worth the lives of our people; this is one of the many reasons wars need to be stopped. For a soldier that has been deployed death is always around the corner. In World War 2 (1939-1945) an estimated 60-85 million people were killed. That's more than triple the Australia population. And that's only one war; there has almost been a war every year for the past hundred years. There have been many different causes for war, all unnecessary. The Iraq War (2003-2011) was instigated over the assumption that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, putting America and its Allies in danger. After the invasion...
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...All Quiet on the Western Front: Removing of War From Nature “Here the trees show gay and golden, the berries of the rowan stand red among the leaves, country roads run white out to the sky line, and the canteens hum like beehives with rumours of peace” (295). All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, takes place in the late 1920’s, located in Berlin. The book was published in 1928, although many speculations were pointed towards the book. Once word got around of the anti-war book, a controversial storm started brewing. There was a prohibition of the book’s production, and many countries banned the book from entering its borders. Thus being an anti-war novel, the true horrors of war quickly spread like wildfire, giving people a...
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...America was birthed from war. It was the Revolutionary War which granted the colonists independence from the British, who imposed upon their rights and liberties, and brought about the United States. The Civil War aided in the abolition of slavery and the creation of new rights and liberties for even more people. The World Wars helped establish peace between the major world powers by standing up and “[fighting] against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history” (Reagan). Moving into the late 20th century, those who grew up listening to the heroes of World War II “[worshipped] the veterans” inspiring many to enlist in the Vietnam and Korean wars (Samet). War has been engrained in the history and culture...
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...of the leaves that masked them. Desperate, the boys looked at each other for they knew it was a fellow comrade who was in trouble. Grasping their rifles, they charged from behind the bush into the front lines of the war… a war they were forced and drafted into…. a war they which they could not find the meaning for. Such a story was faced by many soldiers during the Vietnam War, as they attempted to understand the destruction that lay amongst them in the small Asian country. Often, they searched for a symbol that would explain what they were doing there. In Tim O’Brien’s book, “The Things They Carried”, the author,...
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...The Dichotomy of War According to Freud our life is played out in two different, opposing forces. One of them, Eros, is the drive for sex, love, and self-preservation, whereas the other is known as Thanatos, the drive for death and self-destruction. It is the yin and yang of motivations and urges. Put simply, Eros wants us to live and struggle through and with pain and suffering; Thanatos prefers to end it all with death, the equalizer, the dark force, the state of constant peace, calm and rest. My father, a 66 year old retired plumber, is a Vietnam vet seeking treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for the first time in his life. He has two purple hearts and a plethora of mal-adaptive coping skills which have come rather pronounced in his golden years. He lives on a 117 acre ranch in Ellensburg, Washington. His home is off-grid meaning he is not connected to any public utilities and produces his own energy and his home is completely self-sufficient. Most would say this is a remote way of living. Some would say it’s a form of isolation. With all of this privacy at his fingertips, my father still chooses to venture out into the wilderness for days at a time by himself, with his rifle. There is no question in my mind that war gave my father purpose and meaning that is still a part of his identity today but in ways he still doesn’t fully comprehend. As a result of his war experience, he felt pulled in both directions of Eros and Thanatos; the will to survive and the...
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...Africa in Cinema- Final Paper Professor Rice May 2010 Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone This semester, the topic of Child Soldiers presented a very interesting dilemma that several countries in Africa continue to face today. Sierra Leone, in particular, has struck an interest because of the many films and readings that try to depict this story of the civil war. In class, we have viewed two films representing the problems with child soldiers in Sierra Leone which include films titled Blood Diamond and Ezra. Both films represent opposite sides of the spectrum, as Blood Diamond shows the Western view of child soldiers and Ezra represents the first African view of child soldiers. Before discussing the two films, there are also two articles that depict the issues of child soldiers in great detail. In the first article by A. B. Zack-Williams titled, “Child Soldiers in the Civil War in Sierra Leone,” the author describes the reasons behind children even joining rebel based armies such as the RUF, why children are chosen as soldiers against their will, and the examination of policies that are yet to be instilled on this matter. The first valid point that the author makes is the purpose of the RUF (Revolutionary United Front). The focus of this organization is to seek a better life for the people in Sierra Leone. They feel as if their lives have been wasted because of poor housing, malnutrition and no opportunity to succeed and that the government is to blame. With that said...
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...Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich: Omer Bartov Ioan Popescu 500182744 HST 603-011 The autonomy of the Wehrmacht within the confines of the Third Reich, particularly with respect to its relationship with the Nazi party has been open to considerable debate post World War II. In Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich, Omer Bartov addresses the motivating factors responsible for transforming the Wehrmacht from merely a highly efficient and professional military organization into an extremely politicized armed forces motivated by National Socialist ideals. Bartov argues four distinct yet related theories which, when taken together bring insight into the Nazification of the Wehrmacht in ultimately becoming Hitler’s Army. His arguments first highlight the war experience through the de-modernization of the Wehrmacht particularly on the eastern front along with the social organization relating to the destruction of the ‘Primary Group’. These factors resulted in the Wehrmacht to compensate through the ‘Perversion of Discipline’ which directly attributed to many war crimes along with harsh punishment of its own soldiers. Finally, the distortion of reality through propaganda all shaped the soldiers perception of the war and ultimately allowed Hitler to assume total control of the Wehrmacht. Murray Sager argues that the Wehrmacht supported Hitler, not just in gratitude, but because the Wehrmacht closely identified with the aims of National...
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...In the short story taken from the novel, The Things They Carried, Tim O’ Brien narrates a chilling excerpt taken from his past during the Vietnam War. Each soldier carries a mental and physical emotional burden as they struggle through the march. The main protagonist, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, has to lead his men through a gruesome war and is forced to transition from his unrestricted past to a life as a soldier. O’Brien reinforces the destruction of young male innocence—especially in the case of Jimmy Cross, who blames himself for the death of his soldiers. Through the use of tone and writing style consistency, diction, and symbolism, the influences of the war cause the soldiers to see war is actually hell. Jimmy Cross is forced to take the...
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