While the effort of America was important in winning the war, there was a lot of discrimination and prejudice against blacks, Native Americans, women, and homosexuals within the military. The men who fought in the war saw terrible conditions and many had mental breakdowns. This chapter in the book explains the deaths that many soldiers witnessed and how many men became separated from humanity. This caused many soldiers to become insane. The final two chapters in the book talk about changes in the American society throughout the war and the results from the war. This war was greater for the American society than it was for their soldiers. While many of the soldiers lost their mind, American saw great economic growth and overcame the Great Depression. Finally, in the last chapter, Adams talks about the knowledge of postwar history. Although evil groups, such as Nazism, had been overcome, many problems remained in the home front that and some still exist
Tim O’Brien’s uncommon ending sentence that have caught many people by surprise in the story, “Where have you gone, Charming Billy?” which was wrote as a historical fiction that revolves around the Vietnamese war. It leads you to O’Brien’s perspective on why war is bad. The story also shows how things are not okay, even after the war. O’Brien shows the realities of war through repetition of thoughts about fear, how soldiers deal with it, and the effect it has on their actions.
“The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, brings to light the psychological impact of what soldiers go through during times of war. We learn that the effects of traumatic events weigh heavier on the minds of men than all of the provisions and equipment they shouldered. Wartime truly tests the human body and and mind, to the point where some men return home completely destroyed. Some soldiers have been driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to survive day to day. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery. Over all, this story allows us to observe changes within the mentalities of army officers.
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity” (Dwight D. Eisenhower). Throughout all of history war has surrounded human existence. From the Spartans in Rome to Infantry Marines patrolling the streets in Afghanistan, the presence of war has affected generations since the beginning of time. In the book, Fallen Angels, the author, Walter Dean Myers portrays how the harsh realities of war have a substantial impact on soldiers and their experiences by displaying the internal transformations, the power of fear, the permanent psychological damages, and the cruelty of the environment through a classic Vietnam War story.
Teenagers have always sought to be their own person, forgoing rules and even recommendations in favour of self-determination. While an honourable undertaking, this path to self-discovery, leads them to experience new ordeals, where mistakes will be made. To reassure us that these mistakes are not necessarily bad, Elizabeth Alexander, in her poem "Nineteen", illustrates how youth 's desire for freedom¬ and to escape from their reality allows them to grow into adulthood and leads them to make choices that will impact their perception of the world. This theme will be analysed through structure, symbolism and contrast.
War is the graveyard of innocence for boys who become men through the loss of humanity. The book “Fallen Angels,” by Walter Dean Myers, is a story about Richard Perry, a young man who mistakenly joins the Vietnam War to avoid the shame of not going to college. As the book goes on Perry discovers his mistake and in the process, not only loses his innocence, but also his humanity. Wars will always be the dark parts of our history and no war is devoid of horrors that can strip anyone of everything they are, and in war soldiers must use coping mechanisms to deal with these very apparent horrors.
In Rumor of War, the author, Philip Caputo, brings many themes and concepts of The Vietnam War to the table. These points are thoroughly supported throughout the rest of the novel. Philip Caputo’s first hand experience, which was laid out in his 1977 memoir, is simply about war. Every aspect was described in it such as the things men do in war, and the things war does to them. It is about his service, at the young age of twenty, in the United States Marine Corps. He entered the war because he thought he could be a hero, due to the large amounts of propaganda, and the fact that he thought it was going to be a quick war. He was wrong. Philip Caputo illustrates the unique experience of war. The author shows what the soldiers go through physically and mentally by evolving them as a person, while shaping their morals and values of life.
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.
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.
Brutality and images of war are abundant in this book, giving the story a feeling of reality. From the first few pages, it reveals that Second Company has made it out of a battle, losing close to half their men. Soon after, we see a detailed description of Kemmerich’s death, a fellow soldier injured and amputated before the beginning of the story. The way his fellow soldiers reacted, not with apathy yet not with unbridled misery, immediately sets the tone for the book. Other scenes throughout the
The theme for this chapter is that war changes people for the worst because when Mary Anne, (Fossie 's girlfriend) comes to the medic camp, she is an good down-home American girl of her time but, as time advances, she becomes more intent to join the fight and become a soldier. She starts to sneak off during the night and never coming back to be with Mark Fossie. Eventually, she leaves him to live in the woods. Soon after she is seen, and she has transformed from how she was at the beginning, as a normal American to what she is today. This shows us how war can change people not for the better but for the
The Wars is a symbolic masterpiece that illustrates the great impact war brings on the microcosm of society and how individuals juxtaposed to the war are affected. The novel itself requires active reading; because without it, the novel would seem very simplistic; however, after further examination, readers can evidently recognize the complexity of Robert’s character with the aid of many heteroglossic components, techniques, devices, and the reworking of literary conventions. Robert’s physical, mental and emotional journey he endeavours, followed by the constant re-evaluations of his truths and becoming a more proficient soldier, can be seen through a formalist perspective with the use of foreshadowing to signify Robert’s transition from a sane to insane soldier; the utilization of animal imagery highlighting Robert’s development through the horrific experiences of war; and the several themes in the text to illustrate Robert’s evolution as a soldier through his inner
Robert E. Lee once said, “What a cruel thing war is… to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors”. The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien takes place in Vietnam. He and a handful of other men experience things only one can image and hope they will never have to experience again. They learn how death among them can greatly affect them, and many others. War is not an easy task to get through and these men all had different coping methods. O’Briens intended audience is people who have an interest in war, and uses mortality and death, along with morality to help the audience get a deeper understanding of what could possibly occur at war.
Unless you have been in war or have read The Things They Carried, you can't fully
In 2013 when Viet Thanh Nguyen began to write The Sympathizer, it had been 40 years since the Vietnam War. It had been 40 years since French and American military involvement ravaged a once beautiful countryside and littered lush forests with napalm. It had been 40 years since 2 million people were displaced from their country and left to die in the Pacific Ocean. In those 40 years, many works were published about the Vietnam War. These stories came from many, contrasting, perspectives. Young or old, male or female, the war was told differently by every person who was involved in the battle, no matter how small their role. Despite the cacophony of standpoints vying to tell the definitive tale of what happened in Vietnam, the perspective of