He was a lance corporal who became a sergeant and is quite inquisitive. He starts by playing the favourite wishing game of the men, Broadbent takes the food from Brown’s haversack after he dies. He also attacks Cleary as he believes Clearly is cheating with the bread. Broadbent has the patience and self-control to shoot Renaud after he has been hit by a flamethrower. He is with the soldier in Arras and in the final battle at Amiens he and the soldier are the only two left of their company.
This resulted from the foot being left in water, which often accumulated at the bottom of the trenches, for long amounts of time and could sometimes cause the skin to fall right off the bone. Kemmerich, who is one of Paul’s classmates and comrade, has a similar situation happen to him in “All Quiet in the Western Front” when his foot became infected with gang green because of an artillery wound he suffered in battle which ultimately had to be amputated off. Kemmerich would lose the fight for his life. The conditions were so real and miserable that his fellow comrades tried to persuade him to give away his boots. It was then that Paul realized the true agonies of war—surviving the agony of war forces one to learn to disconnect oneself from emotions like grief, sympathy, and fear.
I eat what I’m given because at least I’ve got something. I try to be positive for the other deeply depressed soldiers. We get shot and bombed everyday and we have learnt to live like this. The smell of the bodies is a constant stench. We have to walk and sit on top of the dead
During the story it also describes their attempts to converse with an A&W employee, but no one will offer them consolation. O’Brien himself realizes that if he didn’t have writing to work through his trauma, he might be in wretched into a place as Bowker. Both stories also talk about the tragedy of the deaths that were occurring. In The Things They Carried Kiowa was an loved member of the alpha company and O’Brien friend. Although O’Brien is unclear about whether or not he actually threw a grenade and killed a man outside My Khe, his memory of the man’s corpse is strong and recurring, symbolizing humanity’s guilt over war’s horrible acts.
“At one point, I remember, we paused over a picture of Ted Lavender, and after a while Jimmy rubbed his eyes and said he’d never forgiven himself for Lavender’s death. It was something that would never go away, he said quietly, and I nodded and told him I felt the same about certain things” (Obrien 27). Another theme is fear of shame as motivation. Tim O’Brien experiences this himself when he is on the boat with Elroy. He decides to go to war because he is ashamed of running from it.
Any other person would be less likely to put up with an editor consistently firing him, but Quoyle endures others' disrespect as if he does not believe he deserves to be treated any better. He cries when he stains all of his laundry; he is not only a failure, but he is also resigned to his status as such. “Ah you lout,” said the father. But no pygmy himself. And brother Dick, the father's favorite, pretended to throw up when Quoyle came into a room, hissed, “Lardass, Snotface, Ugly Pig, Warthog, Stupid, Stinkbomb, Fart-tub, Greasebag,” pummeled and kicked until Quoyle curled.
This can be interpreted as Owen attempting to illustrate the voice of many soldiers, through a poem. The line, “…Waiting for the dark” indicates that soldiers were simply waiting for death to come, either because they were critically injured, or because they were waiting to go into battle. Another interpretation of this is that soldiers cannot bear the day, as the sight of their injuries, and their comrades’ injuries is too big of a strain for them, therefore they would rather choose isolation over companionship. The rest of the first stanza, Owen describes how war had changed everything. He writes that “voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn” which indicates that laughter of children saddens him as he isn’t capable of laughing, because of the war.
First poem that I will be discussing is “Dulce Et Decrorum Est” This poem expresses his own experiences of the war. The tittle "Dulce et decorum Est “ is in Latin that means “ It is sweet and right." Owen describes the condition the men were in as “All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue” and “coughing like hags” these men are physically dead and in pain. This is a slow pace but Owen soon reminds the render that there “hags” are still “boys” with “GAS! Gas!
The narrator in ATTH, killed because he claimed the old man’s eyes resembled that of a vulture’s and that he felt uncomfortable because he also claimed that whenever they fell on him, his “blood ran cold”. Though the motive was not because of hatred or wealth; “I loved the old man…For his gold I had no desire”, it was more than just his eyes that the narrator despised. He could have used a quicker method of killing, instead of haunting the old man for eight days, and enlisting fear into him till his last breath. “I knew that that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise…His fears had been ever since growing upon him.” The protagonist in each literature share the same selfish and irrational characteristics; to take away a good leader from it’s people and replace it with a dictator is a selfish and irrational act. Taking away someone else’s life
He doesn’t know any better and could possibly end up doing something really bad because of this feeling. Mrs. Joe also continuously mentions how Pip is lucky that she has brought him up ‘by hand.’ One day when Pip was asking questions about the marshes, Mrs. Joe loses her patience and yells at Pip, saying, “I tell you what, young fellow, I didn’t bring you up by hand to badger people’s lives out. It would be blame to me, and not praise, if I had. People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking questions.”(Page 13) This places a lot of guilt on Pip, making him feel like he shouldn’t ask any questions at all. To tell a little kid not to ask so many questions is a terrible thing.