In various works of literature, the moral ambiguity of a certain character is used to teach readers a lesson and empower them to change their community. This use of moral ambiguity can be seen in the book Native Son, by Richard Wright. The main character, Bigger Thomas, is difficult to identify as good or evil. Throughout the book, Bigger committed many crimes, including two murders and the writing of a ransom note. His aggressive nature and unhindered anger towards the world makes it difficult for readers to like him or connect with him.
Analysis The author lists the objects the soldiers carried to represent the emotional burdens the soldiers bear. One is the necessity for the soldiers to face the tension between fantasy and reality. These emotional burdens are intensified by their young age and experience; they no perspective on how to rationalize killing someone or witnessing their comrade’s death. One major effect the war has had on these soldiers is turning them cynical or gloomy. In the story “Love,” O’ Brien’s tells the story of the reunion of Martha and Cross; this is a reference to the fallout of Vietnam.
This shaped John to not proceed to find his identity. These variables weighed heavily on John’s identity causing it not to be his own. James Baldwin used John as a vessel you could say. A vessel for an important message. He used John to show the struggles that African Americans experience in America trying to find their identity.
The repetition of question marks and dashes illustrate the confusion and frustration witnessing Owens fellow comrades, it is a demanding tone begging for explanation for the entrapment of victims. And as a result, it encourages the reader to consider the impact the war had on both, the soldiers who survived, and those who didn’t. Dulce et Decorum Est brings to reality that war is not what people say it is. Given by its very title, ‘It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country’. Although, it only an illusion reinforced throughout the poem, along with its irony and sarcasm that is ‘The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori’, it is not sweet and fitting to die for ones country.
Lord of the Flies is a terrifying novel. How far do you agree with this statement? What methods does Golding use? Lord of the Flies is considered a frightening novel, because of the message it conveys: there is darkness within all of us. Some people, like Simon, understand this concept and he says: ‘Maybe there is a beast... maybe it’s only us.’ Other people, like Ralph, do not want to believe that there is a dark side to humanity and in Chapter 2 he constantly shouts: ‘but there isn’t a beast!’ Golding successfully gets across his message that there’s ‘darkness in man’s heart’ by the frightening way he describes several events in the book.
In Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, distinctive characters convey the theme of the story, sense of moralities of the lost generation during the post war. Almost all characters in this novel are injured somehow physically and psychologically. They are not able to live their own lives and show the lack of morality in many ways. Four characters, Jake, Brett, Count, and Mike each have a different code of morality or immorality. Their way of living should not be respected, but it is true that each of them is somehow struggling with their lives The antagonist and narrator of the story, Jake Barnes, experienced World War I as a soldier.
We see fragmentation in their respective relationships through the structure. The Manhunt is written in couplets which suggest a relationship between two people. However, there is little rhyme in these couplets which shows us that there isn’t harmony in their relationship. Perhaps the war in which Eddie was in has made his mind focus on the destruction of war to the extent that he can’t think of his relationship. After all, he suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Tim describes the dead body over and over in the story which means he have trouble to move on from his guilt. Therefore, we understand that Tim is under a shock because he realizes that he kills a human been. In the other hand, Azar dehumanizes the Vietnamese man. He compares the dead body to food “wheat” “like oatmeal”. Azar deals with the situation irony and mockery.
O'Brien's extract conveys to the readers the contradictory feelings that war evokes in a person. War can be seen in different perspectives and can be felt with many different emotions. The author describes war as astonishing; an adjective rarely used in the general opinion. But O'Brien has seen and felt first hand, and writes that war makes you grow up and learn about yourself as a person. You learn to value life in those desperate moments where death comes close.
In the novel, ‘Regeneration’ by Pat Barker, the themes of horror and futility are significantly explored. As a result of the horrific events in the war, many soldiers developed psychological problems such as shell shock. In effect, many soldiers such as Siegfried Sassoon reacted against the war and the fact that it was futile, as the motives turned from ‘a war of defence and liberation to a war of aggression and conquest’. In his war poetry, Siegfried Sassoon shows the horrors of war through vivid imagery, and the futility of war, as non combatants such as civilians and generals do not understand what the soldiers experience at the front. In many ways, Barker’s ‘Regeneration’ contrasts with Sassoon’s poetry, due to the fact that the novel is written in the 20th Century, where the characters recount their horrors of war in the safety of Craiglockhart Hospital.