They seem to be indifferent to the fact that they have killed someone because assassination merely becomes their ‘job.’ In a similar manner, Generals Die in Bed by Charles Yale Harrison, is inclusive of the same insensitiveness and indifference towards the death and murdering of people. The narrator says, “I lunge forward aiming at his stomach. It is a lightening, instinctive move…I become insane…I want to strike again and again.”(Harrison, 26-27) Since this was an “instinctive” move, he didn’t even think over the fact that he is taking someone’s life nor have any humane feelings which prove that he has become inhumane towards a person’s life. In addition, a humane individual would experience feelings of regret and guilt, but instead he has the urge to stab him continuously. He becomes one of the negative byproducts of the war because it causes him to become “insane” and inconsiderate towards the sentimental values associated with death.
“You never know who your enemy is.” I found this statement to be a reoccurring theme in “The Sniper” while reading. I believe this is a perfect theme because the sniper had no idea who was on the other side and would not have known if he didn’t look at the dead body. The main character in this selection was not officially named but was referred to as the sniper. In the selection the sniper had both an internal and external conflict. The external conflict was that he was fighting in the middle of the war and the only way to survive was to kill all the opponents.
Because they are afraid of what will happen if they do. Remember Sai Seng, beaten to death because he deserted? For child soldiers, disobedience is unacceptable. They don’t even think of disobedience because they see what happens to those who do disobey. They are told that spirits protect the commanders and they are brainwashed to just shoot at the enemy.
The protagonist, who was keen to remove himself from the rat and lice infested trenches, enrolled himself in a bombardment of the German’s, with little knowledge of what he was getting himself in to. The protagonist was experiencing the concept of ‘Kill or be killed’, had a German soldier at the end of his bayonet and his howling had unnerved him. His rifle stood between him and death and the decision to leave unarmed and possibly die or kill the soldier and survive was to be made. The emotional turmoil was unbearable and the pulling of the trigger was excruciating. Even after this ordeal and the shock, the protagonist was still able to sympathise with the dead German’s soldier’s brother.
Although they know there is a sniper, they still fear him because they cannot discern when he will shoot them. “Sooner or later this German sniper, who keeps us cowering in cold fear, will be caught in an advance by our troops.” In the same chapter, the sniper kills the character Brown. Brown’s death has made the narrator more fearful of the unknown because he now knows what the sniper’s ability. This shows us why the narrator would fear the unknown in the novel. What’s more, the inhumanity is another big deal.
This was all due to the promises he had made, one of them being to completely eradicate unemployment within Germany. Everyone then feared him and only stood behind him due to all the deaths he caused, which is very similar to Jack and the boys. This is not expected
No, they are not, all they know is that their son or brother is gone, and the only reason for their loss, is a war which is completely futile, a pointless war which destroyed an entire generation. The novel also talks about pointless attacks on the enemy that can only result in certain death. A specific example of this is Pages 172-175 of Private Peaceful. This is the section of the novel where Sergeant Hanley gives a direct order to a group of men to storm the enemy’s line in broad daylight, which can result only in death. When Charlie refuses to follow the order, he is sent to the
He was not involved with any decisions regarding the Final Solution or the Holocaust, his job was to solely present them as good to the German people. He was very manipulative as a result, and so this can be seen as an evil trait. After learning of Hitler’s suicide, Goebbels planned to kill himself and his family, an evil action which he eventually carried out. | Albert Speer | March 19th 1905 | September 1st 1981 (76) | Minister of Armaments and War Production | 4 | Speer is sometimes nicknamed ‘the Nazi who said sorry’. This is because during his Nuremburg trial he accepted his guilt and responsibility for his actions.
123); this shows a completely different side of the war mind that’s implanted within these soldiers as they spend their days continuously racking up horrible and gruesome deaths of other human individuals. Azar, in this case, seems to find a sense of joy within himself as he establishes a kill. He seems to believe in the mentality that a person’s history, life story, and family play no role in war, and the simple main ideology he beholds is the “kill or be killed” point of view. On the other hand, O’brien’s friend Kiowa tells Azar to “go away” and then proceeds to try and convince O’brien that it’s not really a big deal and that his death was justified. Kiowa talks about if O’brien would rather be in the dead man’s shoes and urges him that “there’s was nothing else that he could have done.
Owen starts the second stanza with an ironic ‘merry.’ The war front was not a happy place, but a place filled with intense pain and death. In the next line Owen exposes reality of how ‘death becomes absurd and life absurder’ and how soldiers lost all morality and became desensitised as they felt no ‘remorse of murder.’ The soldiers were trained to be mindless tools of their government as they did what they were ordered to do without questioning the morality of what they were instructed to do. Owen personifies fear as something which can be ‘dropped off’. Fear can be paralysing which can be disastrous for a soldier. ‘Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon’