Some died a quick death while others died a slow, painful death, showing the reality of war. Paul and his friends have realized that the ideals of patriotism are hollow. They no longer believe that war is honorable. The reality of war becomes evident to Paul when he kills the French soldier, Gerard Duval, in his first face-to-face combat. He is distraught to kill a man that he finds out has a wife and child.
It had destroyed a whole generation leaving the soldiers who had fought in it broken shells of the young men they had once been. It drove a wedge between society and soldier as no civilian would ever be able to understand what atrocities the young men had experienced while fighting at the front. This left the soldiers feeling betrayed by their nations who had forced them to carry out their patriotic duty and sent them to their deaths. Both novels describe how the soldiers felt alienated from the lives that they had left behind. 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.
The Movie, Dear America, questions the relevance of the Vietnam War by depicting the daily struggles of the soldiers in Vietnam. Focusing on the struggles of the soldiers shown by the movie Dear America, highlighting the selfish reasons behind the war and vividly emphasizing the war’s effects on society and soldiers indicate that the negative effects of war, citing Vietnam an example, outweigh the benefits. Throughout the movie, there are references to the hardships endured by the soldiers so as to emphasize their endurance over the war itself. The most memorable reference, made during the movie, is that all the soldiers need is “a razor and a bar of soap for comfort,” which is quite gruesome when one takes into consideration that most of them were teenagers. In addition, the death toll that is shown at intervals strengthens the sense of suffering and
This helps us understand and see clearly the horrors of war. Tommo is the narrator in the novel, which helps us to understand what it is like to be a soldier at war because we are reading what he has experienced. “let them come. I just want this to stop. I just want it to be over”.
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.
The Things They Carried, a novel written by Tim O’Brien, raises the question of the extent of truthfulness of stories that are told from experience in which the novel is solely based on the accounts of war-veterans and their lives in Vietnam. The soldiers fighting in the war describe certain stories that have affected them the most and from that reader’s can interpret that the armed forces are able to capture the attention of their listeners through providing immense detail of the conditions, adding false information in order to increase suspense, and to evoke emotions with listeners to create parallel feelings with the story at hand. Through O’Brien’s techniques of writing these war accounts he blurs between actual truth and fiction. As a
For example, when Antigone asks Ismene to break the law Ismene replies in fear saying "Think of how terrible than these deaths, our own death would be if we were to go against Creon." (Line 42). The power that Creon has over his people plays an important part in the play. When Creon makes a decree saying that Polyneices will not have a proper burial, his life starts to spiral out of control. This action leads to him being considered a tragic hero.
Fear that if he kills King Duncan, he will be killed himself, and that there will be public disgrace. He is disgusted that he has the impulse to murder. | | 5. | ‘Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye’ | | | 6. | ‘so green and pale’ | | | 7.
They end up feeling guilt and shame because they have violated tow of the basic rules of humanity. Those rules they have violated are incest and killing one’s parent. The guilt and shame gets to Jocasta to make her commit suicide and Oedipus blind himself. Bullying today in society could fit into this category. Guilt and shame could cause suicidal thoughts in a person.
From 1 November 1995 to 30 April 1975, it followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist countries (“Vietnam War”, n. d.). It occurred because “the U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment” (“Vietnam War”, n. d.). The war in Vietnam has been described as the war America watched from their living rooms. Images of combat and American GIs were projected through our TV screens and across our newspapers daily (“The National Archives,” n. d.). A large amount of photojournalists made every effort to keep the American people well informed of their troops’ problems and setbacks so that they could have resonance indirectly.