"How To Kill," by Keith Douglas, addresses the idea of how simple it is to kill, and how easy it is to detach yourself from what that kill really means. In the second stanza of his poem, Douglas says, "Now in my dial of glass appears/The soldier who is going to die./He smiles, and moves about in ways/His mother knows, habits of his." The speaker of the poem watches the person he is about to shoot and recognizes that, once he pulls the trigger, somebody's little baby will be gone forever. Surprisingly, he seems undisturbed. Here, the poet uses, "now in my dial,"to point out the idea that the shooter is in fact a sniper, and this soldier seems to be recounting his actions. He may have been unshaken at the time of the shooting, but now he
It illustrates when troops are back from the war their are considering taking their lives because their feel like murders since; they took someone else’s life and all the killing that happens within the war. For example, when one of their comrade’s is killed they feel guilty, and it will lead them to feel like their should have done a better job protecting each other. As a result, what they experience during the war can cause trauma to the brain, trigger the memory system and every man’s life
In stanza five, the narrator sounds matter-of-fact while describing the soldier’s dead and decaying body, but also seemingly lacks pity as the narrator mocks the dead soldier. The narrator notes that the soldier’s girlfriend “…would weep to see to-day/ how on his skin the swart flies move;” and though another casualty in war is saddening, it is simply another casualty and nothing more. Douglas’ simple and unsentimental language emphasizes that war cannot be sugar-coated, it is bloody and
The soldier himself is frightened on why he could not save him which haunts him in his dreams as he says “In all my dreams/ before my helpless sight” is how every time he dreams he sees the soldier and he cannot control it causing him to think of it every night frightening him everyday. Soon he will feel that the dead person wants revenge for his death as the soldier states “he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning”, The dead soldier always comes into the narrator's dream wanting revenge as he chokes him as how he was being choked by the gas clouds and then drowning as how the dead soldier drowned in the green sea of chlorine gas. The horrors of war is what scares the soldier even after the war. At first soldiers imagine themselves as heroes creating them eager and excited they are until they finally get to the front and see no man's land. No man's land is usually bumpy with shell holes and dead trees that are either broken or burnt.
In the text “Ambush” and “Why Soldiers Won’t Talk,” the narrator showed many signs of PTSD. PTSD is common and it should also be treated or it could get very bad. The three signs that showed in the text was the following: flashbacks, guilt, and he also felt slowed down. The narrator had many flashbacks from when he was in the Vietnam war.
So the soldier went to the trench to lie down and die. There is also another shift when the author says “and soundlessly attending, dies…”. In the last stanza, the audience can infer that the author is at peace with the death. He says “misted and ebullient seas and cooling shores, towards Amphibia’s empiries.” The audience can feel the relaxation.
Michael Pollan publishes an inspiring article, "Why Bother?" to The New York Magazine in April 20, 2008. Pollan desires to discusses the problems with society and how climate changed can be impacted. With only a few words in one can tell how passionate Pollan is in illustrating his "why bother?" question.
In All Quiet on the Western Front, the main character Paul faced a challenging decision in which he decided to take the life of an enemy soldier while stuck in a trench. After the chaotic bombardment that occured he quickly realized that “[He] did not want to kill [him]...[he] was only an idea to [him] before... But now for the first time, [he] see[s] [he] is a man like [him]” (Remarque 223). The immoral action of killing
The next lines read, “To hear gunfire on a Thursday afternoon, it could be for a wedding, or it could be for you / Always enter a home with your right foot, the left is for cemeteries and unclean places” (1-4). Meaning, that the Middle Eastern natives still go about their daily lives in this war zone. There are some couples getting married, living their life, no matter if there are gun shots disrupting the fresh air. These common occurances in the Middle East are not ones thart American soldiers are acustomed to in their everyday lives. The soldiers are foreigners coming into their land, disrupting their sacred practices.
“The sniper look at his enemy falling, underline and shuttered. The lust of battle died in him.” This is the end result when violence and assumption overcome us: we react in the right away. From the short story, “The Sniper”, we learn that assumption and violence can cause us to act in regrettable ways. The enemy sniper kills innocent people, the sniper fakes his death, and kills the enemy sniper.
In Liam O’Flaherty’s The Sniper, the main character, a sniper, is in the middle of a civil war in Dublin, Ireland. It is his assigned duty to assassinate anyone on the the other side of the war, no matter who they are. This creates a huge conflict, considering that the sniper ends up killing his brother. This supports the central theme that war is cruel, and this can be supported by the craft elements of the dialogue used and the setting of the story.
The soldier is either shooting at the enemy from a distance or sending a drone. This little interaction with the enemy results in soldiers forgetting that they are in fact killing people when they fire their weapon. This dehumanization of the enemy is necessary in order to keep the soldiers from showing too much regret or empathy on the battlefield. Paul experiences this dehumanization in the book All Quiet on the Western Front "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too.
“His hand trembles with eagerness. Pressing his lips together, he took a deep breath through his nostrils and fired” (208). This quote is showing the nerves and anxiety the sniper had received from out tricking his own brother. The last example in “The Man He Killed” the war had
This shows how the sniper’s actions without thought affect him for the worse. O’Flaherty establishes the theme of “The Sniper” by using description and irony. After the sniper turns over the dead body, he realizes what he has done. He was not thinking when he shot the enemy.
If you knew who you were shooting at, would you pull the trigger? In the story called ¨The Sniper¨ by Liam O'Flaherty, a man, who is referred to as ´the sniper´ is about a man who is in a war in Dublin. The first thing that happens is when he shoots a man in a turret and a woman. Then he gets shot in the arm. Then he shoots an enemy sniper.
He then contrasts between the bomber’s view to the civilians’ view from the ground. The bombers view is recognized from a plane filled with ammunition. This suggests the bombers are carefree of their acts committed, but the civilians are petrified for the safety of their lives due to the uncertainty of the attack which is to occur. The effect on readers is that while reading the poem they begin to notice the different views of the bombers and civilians while experiencing war. Also, the readers tend to realize the savagery conveyed by the