In Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Fountain uses fanatical imagery to describe the numerable possessions of the Dallas Cowboys stadium as a reference to the overall excessiveness that Americans believe to be average. This quantitative synopsis of the country as a whole leads the American people to undervalue other countries and other ways of life outside of what is perceived as “normal.”
America is home of the free, the brave, and the powerful…according to Americans. One of the benefits of being the biggest and the “bravest” countries is that it has the ability to protect and help others. Since many civilians of the United States have never seen the reality of serving in the military it is easy to cheer the military on, but
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Fountain gives the reader a glance into the comforts that these football players would be leaving behind like the equipment room is the size and dimensions of a small airplane hangar” (180). Without this “stuff” the football players would be nothing. Without this team the Dallas Cowboys fans would be nothing. Without a military that is numerically larger than any other military in the world the American people, Fountain suggests, would feel they are nothing, left unprotected. Billy questions this ingrained typical American idea when he says, “How does it all come to be, that’s what he wants to know, not just the how but the why of all this stuff. Only in America, apparently. Only America could take such a product-intensive sport and grow it into the civic necessity it is today” (183). These questions resonate with Billy. He cannot seem to understand these “children blessed with too much self esteem” (45). The normality of the ignorant behavior that has been perceived by Billy is accurately described. For many, it takes partaking in a similar situation in order to practice empathizing rather than pity. But “no amount of lecturing will enlighten them as to the state of pure sin toward which war inclines”
In one of his many quotes, Lewis Lapham speaks about what he believes sports represent in America, how the fans pay to see, “a world in which time stops and all hope remains plausible” and how the games are about much more than just winning or losing. This is not evident in the behavior, observed by H.G Bissinger in Friday Night Lights, of the town of Odessa, Texas. I disagree with Lapham’s claim that sports are more than just winning or losing, but agree with his claim that the hope felt by the fans is an illusion. For the vast majority of people, sports in America solely represent winning or losing.
All of a sudden the once inclusive NFL that was helping to create an “ideal world”, was an unrecognizable “polar opposite”. In order to depict this transition, Kyle utilizes rhetorical questioning to demonstrate the unwinding of America. Questions such as,“ Will we stand with you? Will we stand with our flag?What does it mean?What does it mean if we buy a tick or NFL gear?”, demonstrates the questions the people of America began to ask themselves and signifies the divide of the American
“We must strive to be like the moon” p.16 Why does suffering happen to the innocent? Maybe without suffering in war there wouldn’t be any compassion and love in the world. Ishmael Beah a boy soldier who lost his childhood and everything he loved, fought with his conscience as the years went by as he killed his memoirs. This book is memoirs of boy soldiers and war.
The book highlights the good and the bad of the sport. For someone who may not be too interested in it, or just has to read it for a history class, he made it entertaining. Giving not only a history lesson on the sport but just as much on the working class of America and the emerging commercialized leisure’s and shifting social classes in the nineteenth century. Gorn is able to interweave social and political issues of the times all told with characters as colorful and wild as the early days of this country. Men crave the order of violence with rules and attach elevated importance to such contests in part because so much of life is entirely unjust and oppressive.
She also reveals about the various aspects of military training which drives these soldiers into the state of war. These soldiers are trained to kill without even thinking once, due to which they themselves suffer from both trauma and loss of their own souls. She
Question 1: In his article Rosenblatt’s claim that “America is its sports” presents the idea that the American dream is represented through its sports, and that sports represent American ideologies expressing self-determination, freedom of expression and equal opportunity for all. Sports are perhaps the means in which Americans silently measure their aspirations, hopes and fears. “But basketball, football and baseball are ours- derived in unspoken ways from our ambitions and inclinations, reflective of our achievements and our losses, and our souls.” (Beckelhimer 4) Rosenblatt’s choice of words in his comment “part of being American is to live without too much introspection.
In Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger appeals to his audience’s sense of emotions in order to persuade his readers that the obsession with high school football negatively affects everyone’s future in Odessa, Texas. Bissinger relies on emotional appeals by employing devices and techniques to present individuals’ personal stories and experiences. His searing portrayal of Odessa, and its Permian High School football team, exposes the side of sports that severely impacts the people living in this society. Bissinger shows the long term consequences of this delusion on the people who are directly and indirectly associated with Permian football. This demonstrate how detrimental the burdens are for the children, which touches the reader’s heart.
The Irony of “Born in the U.S.A.” As the fireworks explode in the night sky to celebrate Independence Day, “Born in the U.S.A.” by Bruce Springsteen plays loudly for the audience to hear. As the men, women, and children bellow out the chorus proudly, they never seem to grasp its intended meaning. By studying the appeals and irony used in Springsteen’s lyrics, it is easy to see how Springsteen’s message of the poor treatment of Vietnam War veterans is misconstrued by millions of listeners into American pride. Springsteen’s intended audience is a group made up of mainly white, blue collar Americans-
War and its affinities have various emotional effects on different individuals, whether facing adversity within the war or when experiencing the psychological aftermath. Some people cave under the pressure when put in a situation where there is minimal hope or optimism. Two characters that experience
The reader understands that it is “fitting” to feel this sense of responsibility, feeling how they should be somewhat responsible, that - as Sherman describes - “a zero-sum game” - where surviving can have a cost. But it is also important to overcome and forgive oneself, certainly when one did nothing wrong. It should not be where “not feel[ing] the guilt is to be numb to those pulls ( Sherman 155 ). ” It should be the part of moral repair that helps one who has survived in such a situation, to feel that “what duties to others need to make room for, even in a soldier’s life of service and sacrifice, are duties to self, of self-forgiveness and self-empathy.
As Herbert Hoover eloquently put it, “Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.” War has no mercy. It takes homes, tears families apart, and steals childhoods from innocent people. Such is the case in A Separate Peace, by John Knowles.
In Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s article, “Insulting Colin Kaepernick Says More About Our Patriotism”, the author argues that Colin Kaepernick’s choice to not stand with his teammates during the US national anthem was patriotic. Abdul-Jabbar first compares Kaepernick’s choice to Army Reserve 2nd Lt. Sam Kendricks’ decision to interrupt his pole vaulting attempt at the Rio Olympics and stand at attention when the US national anthem came on. He believes that Kaepernick and Kendricks should be praised because they both behaved in a patriotic way. Abdul-Jabbar reminds us that Kaepernick’s reason for not standing during the national anthem is due to ‘things that are going on that are unjust that people aren’t being held accountable for.
He makes the argument that those who did not take the lessons of the First World War to heart may find themselves in the midst of yet another conflict. In either case, the concept of accountability permeates these crucial sentences; if society cannot learn to take care of one another, it will eventually
The sun illuminates countless all-American names, with the occasional Coke or Papa John’s sponsor signs. The play clock ticks down to zero, and the stadium is finally filled to maximum capacity. Kickoff commences, players scramble across the field, and suddenly the only problems in the world hinge on if the Nike plastered football is past the downs marker. There are the elite suites high above the stadium cloaked in shade, but the majority are cramped and blisteringly hot. We are all united as one, cheering our team to victory, and thriving on the culture that is modern day sports.
Goldman tells how the “spirit of militarism has already permeated all walks of life” (Patriotism: A menace to liberty). With this, it can be put together that the growing militarism of America has begun to be troubling. During this speech, America is subjected to growing industrialization and militarism throughout the