Obstacles are something that every living specimen struggles with on a day to day basis. They are the mountains of sand one is forced to overcome whilst walking through the endless Sahara desert of life. Saying that these monumental hills affect one as a person is an understatement, they are more of a drastic transformation leading to the person that is yet to be formed. It’s as though humans have an outline for where they’re going in life, and factors along the way act as an eraser, forcing them to take out their pencil and draw something new. Sam Watkins is one of the many examples of someone merely trying to make it through the desert with never-ending hills. The figurative eraser hits him at various times throughout his period in the the Civil War; from coming to the realization that his commanders were cowards, to witnessing the definition of a carnage war, to finally grasping the fact that soldiers are but another pawn …show more content…
His personal accounts gave the reader only a slight insight as to what it might have been like to be a participant in the carnage first hand. There are copious accounts from other soldiers, generals, and bystanders that have gone unheard. The war was a puzzle that got solved as the country figured out where the pieces went. Sam Watkins’ stories help put the lost pieces back in place. His exuberant stories were a roller coaster ride of emotions and actions. Although, the struggles that he had to face were small in the aspect of a broader view, they were mountainous to him as a person. The road of war for him, was a life lesson of figuring out who he was as a person and what his values actually were. Entering the war was an option in the beginning, but as it dragged on he realized that the option to leave was no longer available. He took out his pencil, looked the eraser of life in the face, and began drawing. Sam Watkins made art out of pure
The Civil War. Louis P. Masur’s book, The civil War: a Concise History, Is a book that gives an overview of the civil war from 18 to 1800, Providing multiple causes an consequences that emerged from the war. The book begins by reviewing the origins of the war. Chapter one covers the issues between northern and southern states and the tension over right and slave possession. The tension created a conflict that raised a number of political, social, and military events that then proceeded into a battle to abolish slavery from the colonies.
The war left him injured, shot in the shoulder and now unable to carry a gun. His hopes crushed, his mind crumbling, he was struggling to even stay sane in a passenger train. The jostling of the train car could not distract his mind from these awful thoughts. The only thing he had
The United States Civil War is possible one of the most meaningful, bloodstained and controversial war fought in American history. Northern Americans against Southern Americans fought against one another for a variety of motives. These motives aroused from a wide range of ideologies that stirred around the states. In James M. McPherson’s What they fought for: 1861-1865, he analyzes the Union and Confederate soldier’s morale and ideological components through the letters they wrote to love ones while at war. While, John WhiteClay Chambers and G. Kurt Piehler depict Civil War soldiers through their letters detailing the agonizing battles of war in Major Problems in American Military History.
From Browne’s first person experience, the American soldiers had no idea of how ill prepared the United States were in entering the war and how terrible the living conditions will be. These small details are important to fully understand the life of an American soldier in World War I. It is evident that David L Snead uses George Browne’s letters as factual information that greatly enhances the experience of what it is like to be an American soldier in World War I. Not only is there a first person perspective of what happened during the war, David L. Snead incorporates George Browne’s letters to Martha Johnson into a wider narrative about life, combat, hope, and service among the American troops and places context on the real horrors that the American soldier endured during World War
Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.
The two out four questions that I choose are to 1.) Discuss the causes of the civil war. Cite as many facts as possible to back up your analysis. And answer 2.) If the enduring vision of America is embodied in the Declaration of Independence's statements about equality and universal rights to justice, liberty, and self-fulfillment, how much progress toward those ideals had blacks and women made by 1877?
The short stories, ‘The Things They Carried’ and ‘How to Tell a True War Story’ by Tim O’Brien are stories about the Vietnam War. ‘The Things They Carried’ concerns a platoon of soldiers while in Vietnam. ‘How to Tell a True War Story’ is an imaginary portrayal of one of the storyteller’s encounters in the Vietnam War. The stories advise the reader that it is important for the stomach to believe in the truth of the story. This calls for careful analysis of why reader has to come away with visceral writing to understand the stories.
During the civil war (lasting from 1861 to 1865) many changes in our nation occurred. Some of those changes were in government, agriculture, work, laws, military, and machinery. The military and machinery advancements that occurred during the civil war were very large steps into the things we used today. They modernization of the military tactics and weapons made it easier for the U.S. to fight and the new machinery made those new “modern” ideas come to life.
During the civil war many events took place, some small and some big enough to change history greatly.. What if we changed an event in history? What will be affected? Who will be affected? For our assignment given will be analyzing the events that surrounded the Civil War, before, during, and after.
Using his past experiences as a soldier in Vietnam, O’Brien crafted a narrative that praises the ambiguous art of war-time storytelling and its power to shape the reader’s and/or listener’s perception of actuality. More so, the novel intentionally blends fact and fiction together to make the point that objective truth should retain very little relevance in the grand
In a true war story, one may find contradictory details or embellishments for the mental wounds inflicted by war. Memories can become foggy, fused with pain, and grief, which makes it harder to unravel what is fact and fiction through the lens of personal perception. O’Brien mentions how one who has not experienced the war can not fully understand and empathize with the war stories. Yet, with this inexplicable fabrication of the truth, the essence of a true war story lies in not its factual accuracy, but its ability to evoke empathy, and a deeper understanding within the
The book The Best War Ever, by Michael C. C. Adams, is about World War II, the events that led up to the war, and the years following the war. Adams starts the book off explaining some myths that people have about the war. The biggest myth associated with the war is that it was the best war ever. Adams then spends the rest of the book talking about why this may or may not be true. In the following chapters, Adams explains the events that led to the war and the events that accorded during World War II.
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the author retells the chilling, and oftentimes gruesome, experiences of the Vietnam war. He utilizes many anecdotes and other rhetorical devices in his stories to paint the image of what war is really like to people who have never experienced it. In the short stories “Spin,” “The Man I Killed,” and “ ,” O’Brien gives reader the perfect understanding of the Vietnam by placing them directly into the war itself. In “Spin,” O’Brien expresses the general theme of war being boring and unpredictable, as well as the soldiers being young and unpredictable.
This chapter “The Ghost Soldiers”, showed us how Tim O’Brien and the other soldiers were dealing with the war both physically and psychologically. It also shows us how the Tim O'Brien behaved and felt when he was shot, wounded and had a bacteria infection on his butt and how the war changed the way he thought, and viewed the other soldiers around him. This chapter also contain a lot of psychological lens. From the way Tim O’Brien felt when he was shot and separated from his unit to a new unit to when he wanted revenge on Bobby Jorgenson for almost “killing” him.
There were three main causes of the civil war including slavery, sectionalism and secession. Slavery was a huge part of it and it led to the Missouri Compromise where any states below the border would be slave states and the anything north of that was free states. (Mrs. Wise) "The south feared the declaration of freedom for the slaves by government leaders in the North." Next, sectionalism. Sectionalism-