Happy Birthday, 1951

709 Words3 Pages
Many people have a role model. A person you look up to and want to be like. It could as an example be a soldier who fights in wars. When we hear the word “soldier” we do often com-pare it to “war”. War is a big part of the story “Happy Birthday, 1951” by Kurt Vonnegut from 2008. Normally we will take the wars and changes it to paradise. We, as humans, are often afraid of try/trying something new, so we stay in the same cycle as we are used to. In “Happy Birthday, 1951” you will run into the decision of staying in war or replace the war with para-dise. In “Happy Birthday, 1951” we meet a 6-year old boy who is the main character, and an old man, who is the boys “consultative leader. They are opposite of each other if we think about war and peace. The boy thinks that war is better than peace. The old man thinks that peace is better than war. The boy does normally choose the opposite of what the old man says. Exam-ple on page 4 line 132-134: The old man: “But when you’re older, you’ll remember, and want to come back here – long after your little cart is broken”. The boy: “I don’t want my cart to be bro-ken”. The boy does not want to lose his cart. It could be a sign that the boy does not want to let the war go. He wants to keep the war in his life. In the short story, the man takes the boy out to a peaceful area – like paradise in the story about Adam and Eve. The old man wants to prove, that paradise is better than war, but the boy would not realize it, because he has grown up with war. Therefore it is they boys nature to be in it. It is also the boy’s nurture, because he has been brought up with war and violence. He cannot understand the danger about being in a war. He does probably just see the war as a game with guns and soldiers. The boy’s and the old man’s relationship is not the best that you can imagine. The old man wants the boy to realize that wars
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