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.
In the book Paul feels that they have no reason to be fighting and that they have been abated to beasts just trying to protect themselves from others who are doing the same. At such a young age him and his comrades are exposed to so much tragedy, Paul stated that “Our knowledge of life is limited to death, what will come afterwards? And what will happen to us” (264). For the soldiers who die fighting in the war it is unfair what becomes of them. People who died a noble death get treated as if they are nothing, and were never anyone.
Realizing that the homeland was withdrawing from the war, soldiers became edgy. As put by Lieutenant Frank M. Campagne, “Nobody wants to be the last man in Viet Nam Killed.” Furthermore soldiers lacked inspiration and a sense of purpose. Leadership went out of their way to impress superiors with increased body count by slaughtering innocent civilians including women and children. A study ordered by Military professionalism concludes “in pursuit of selfish career goals, senior officers sacrificed integrity on the altar of personal success. They became preoccupied with trivial short term objectives even through dishonest practices and compelled subordinates to lie, cheat, and steal to meet the impossible demands of higher officers” (Millet, Maslowski & Feis, 2012, p.561).
Death was a constant companion to those serving in the line, even when they weren't under attack, many would die of disease. They would have to face body lice, rodents, small amounts of food, and some hated the life in the trenches so much, they would cause self-inflicted wounds so that they could be sent home. Before that though, the first thing a new recruit would be overwhelmed with on the way to the front line would be the smell, the smell of rotting bodies in shallow graves, men who had not washed in weeks, the lasting odour of
This simile is an important contrast of the information people were fed at the time of soldiers being strong and proud. Owen strips away the image of a glorified war to reveal the bitter and cruel nature of the war. The bitter imagery “Coughing like hags” and “but limped on” also develops the idea of these young man seeming old. Owen takes pity on these tired and weary soldiers as he describes them in the most unglamorous, inglorious manner. The statement “all went lame, all blind’, while being somewhat hyperbolic suggests that the soldiers had lost all previous objectives of war along with the line “cursed through sludge”.
Even though the narrtor do not believe in God but also begins to pray”God-God-please.” The soldiers just crawl over in the trenches and finding the safe places even there is no place to avoid the bombarment. They keep thinking that they don’t want to die in the trenches. We can seen that there is no heroism exist in the trenches. It not only no heroism exist in the threnches, but also survival is an important part of the horrible of the war which can prove that heroism and glory are never possible in war. Evidence of this is in the beginning of chapter 6, including what the soldiering means’ saving your own skin and getting a bellyful as often as possible.. that and nothing else.’ And the narrator describes the camaraderie – esprit de corps-good fellowship are no exist in the line.
Simply, I would use this poem to describe the end of the war and the Treaty of Versailles. I believe this poem can be used in three ways: firstly to describe the state of the people in the post-war world, secondly to describe the complete destruction of ww1, and finally to talk about the Treaty of Versailles and what this all meant for the future. First of all, it is important to note in this poem that all of the beings are damned due to some sort of sinning they have done. The straw dummies suffer both physically and spiritually. J. Hillis Miller believed that The Hollow Men showed where idealism leads – the poem takes place in a twilight realm of disembodied men and forces.
Therefore it is clear that abuse of power causes the destruction of spirituality. Next, symbolism is used in the novel to represent destruction of spirituality due to corruption. Here Roger kills the sow which they hunted in a very unusual/unpleasant way, that it clearly represents fallen spirituality. “Roger found a lodgment for his points and began to push till he was leaning with his whole weight. […] ‘Right up her ass!’ ‘Did you hear?’ ‘Did you hear what he said?’ ‘Right up her ass!’” (Golding 149).
Corrupt idealistic governments, assembled individual men like pawns and threw them into trenches of hell with their enemies. All for the sake of political gain and false patriotism, the Great War robbed a generation of men of their freedom and future. Today individuals involve themselves in a perpetual conflict against powers outside of their control: technology, death, social convention,
Or like I’ll give away that I don’t deserve anyone’s gratitude and really they should all hate me for what I’ve done but everyone loves me for it and it’s driving me crazy” (Powers, 143). What makes this so powerful, is the fact that Bartle, the narrator of the book, feels like a monster, feels like a murderer, while the outside world views him as a hero; an image he believes is wrongfully painted upon soldiers who have killed and done injustice to humanity. While one can argue that the war was one huge injustice to humanity, the reasons why we started the war were to fix even greater