‘The Quiet American’ by Grahame Greene is more of a political statement than anything else, condensing the main characters to represent each country and their involvement in the Vietnam War. But Green makes this political issue into a human and personal one. The novel explores the concept of inner conflict as represented by Fowler’s journey throughout the novel. Fowler from the very beginning insists that he is not engaged, he only reports what he sees because that’s his job. But he realises what Pyle is involved with in Vietnam he finds himself forced onto a path of action to take action against Pyle on a public and personal level.
Gas! Quick, boys! – He uses even the I-figure in the 14th line, because he feels one of the soldiers. The third stanza, where he describes the death of a soldier, is the shortest, but three words are enough to makes us feel the horror that he feels: guttering, chocking, drowning. The fourth stanza is the most important because he appeals to the reader: he’s talking to the whole country who encourage young men to go dying in the threnches telling them that if they could see what he had seen: My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardentfor some desperate glory, The old
Tim O'Brien writes how throughout the war, "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide" (O'Brien, 21). Having to return to normal society after experiencing the hideous faces of war was not an easy task. For many veterans it proved to be more than they could handle.
Effectiveness, rather than pure efficiency, is the key to the work of professionals—the sick want a cure, the accused want exoneration, and the defenseless seek security. “I am an expert and I am a professional” (the ninth statement of The Soldier’s Creed) eludes to our duty as soldiers to know our job and be able to perform it under any circumstance imaginable without hesitation or question. Second, professionals are capable of making judgment calls, applying their skills and reaching informed decisions in situations that the general public cannot, because they have not received the relevant training. Professions create their own standards of performance and codes of ethics to maintain their effectiveness. One of the examples of professional ethics is the Hippocratic Oath to which medical doctors adhere to.
Phelps is a “toxic force.” He implores of his reader: “who can read these facts and not hope that Phelps is gravely punished and Albert Snyder is comforted in his loss?” While using the emotional appeal of Snyder’s side, he also attempts to persuade the reader to look deeper than that. Cohen wants the reader to consider logos over pathos. Cohen reiterates many times that the apparent real problem is not the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church, or any other group wishing to voice hurtful opinions in controversial ways. He wants his readers to see the bigger picture and what he perceives as the actual reason for worry. Cohen states “the trouble is, once courts begin making exceptions of this sort, the First Amendment quickly gets whittled away”.
When his soldier Ted Lavender died all he could do was cry and blame himself for his death, “He felt shame. He hated himself.... this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of war.” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 42) but he didn’t let that very heart-wrenching emotion of feeling responsible for someone’s death cloud his judgment or cause him to take his job lightly. Towards the end of the story he stepped up, over-coming the guilt he felt after the death of Ted Lavender. Learning from his mistakes and changing the way he lead his platoon “He would not tolerate laxity. He would show strength, distancing himself.” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 100) He showed courage while seeing the bigger picture telling himself “that his obligation was not to be loved but to lead.” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 101) Masculinity is very apparent in this platoon.
ritique of power- Americans “innocence” and ignorance, fighting a war they know nothing about - must have an in depth knowledge of country and people and tailor it to their needs - democracy= little value in an agricultural country that has functioned without democracy for so long- world with different conccepts different circumstnaces, not a material world - applies to personal level of Phuong and political level - people can be blinded to strict adherence to ideology • even in love pyle is determined to his ideology- views love in a intense romantic sense rather than through phuongs eyes as a need for financial security, sex and companionship • pyle falls in love as an attempt to help someone mirrors need to help Vietnamese as a nation
Wade Berrigan 5-26-07 The Moral Ambiguity of War In the novel Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Meyers, shows us many examples of soldiers struggling between making morale choices or staying alive. New soldiers look at other soldiers who have been in the war for a while as if they are sick soulless creatures killing everything in their way. Later we find these same characters that are doing the questioning doing the same thing. For example Perry wonders to himself how someone can die in front of them and no one remember it the following day. This shows his morals are still intact.
One British soldier wrote of how “despite the flag-waving that greeted us [Britain's returning troops] many felt nothing but hatred for the leaders and those back home who'd sent us to die.” Both novels, “Regeneration” by Pat Barker and “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Marie Remarque discuss how the brutalities and horrors experienced at war have left the men who fought in it feeling alienated and ostracised from civilian life. It is as though the war has somehow consumed their whole beings leaving them forever tainted by the corruption of war and separated from the society that forced them to make this personal sacrifice.
and why? components.] The reader-response thesis (as an unhelpful way of dealing with the “so what?”): Bell Irvin Wiley, in The Life of Johnny Reb, shows how the common soldier dealt with the war to get the reader to understand that the war was about more than politics and politicians. [All texts are addressed somehow to readers. This is not an analytical point.]