The mockingbird was symbolic of Tom’s true, pure heart, and his death was because of nothing but the inequities within society. Mr. Ewell’s sin caused sorrow and horror in Scout’s life, but it also lead to her realization that discrimination was wrong, something that Atticus wished for her to know all along. Further along in the story, Scout’s growth is proved when Atticus suggests sending Boo Radley to trial for killing Bob Ewell. Scout says, “‘Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?’” (276).
In both works, the soldiers set aside their morals to overcome the horrors of war such as killing a man. This challenges their emotional endurance and has negative consequences on their mental disposition. Paul Bäumer, the protagonist in All Quiet on the Western Front, is put in a situation where he must suspend his ethics otherwise his supposed enemy, Gérard Duval, will murder him. This is the first time Paul has killed with his own hands, and “every gasp [of the enemy] lays [Paul’s] heart bare” (Remarque 221). He feels instant regret for his actions, and he “would give much if [Duval] would but stay alive” (Remarque 221).
In Slaughterhouse Five or Children’s Crusade By Kurt vonnegut Vonnegut depicts war as gruesome and unpleasant. This book is about Vonnegut journey of being a soldier at Dresden Germany in world war ll. He experienced death camps and bombing which later leads him having PTSD. Whereas the dominant narrative of war suggests that war is good and how brave people are meant for it This leads Vonnegut using humor to show what reality of war is really like , which is destructive,unbearable, and make life meaningless.
However, the lack of material covered on the Vietnam War further proves that the war remains an event Americans attempt to forget. In America today, the Vietnam War continues to be looked at negatively, which provides further proof of why we must learn about American troops’ ethical lapses in war and how this affected world power and human rights. In the My Lai Massacre, platoon leader LT William Calley Jr. and his men of Charlie Company murdered a village and gang-raped the population. It was not until helicopter pilot; Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) Hugh Thompson landed his helicopter and stopped the killing of the innocent civilians by Calley and his men.
Paul and his friends were eaten out, mentally, by the war and remained casings of their old lives. Further exemplifying their inability to reconnect to their past lives and in turn the normal world. Remarque creates Paul Baumer to represent a generation of men who are know to the outside
Have you ever heard of a war without having a tragedy, war without peace, or even a war without innocent people dying? Any war in the world has impacted the economy, people and other countries. The outcome of war and death that Author Kurt Vonnegut shares is a reality of war, intended to improve the lives of people, but always leading to the death of human life(Overview Slaughterhouse Five). Author Kurt Vonnegut endorses this view in his novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, he shows that war can never be justified as long as innocent life is lost. " The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought."(Vonnegut).
The sound of a weapon that snatches the life of an innocent person. The worry of a mother to knows that his son will not return home. The tears of the children when they saw how the soldiers killed other people mercilessly. It would be better if we decide to change the racial hatred for the compression, the luxuries for humility, the missiles for helping the people who live in poverty. All these terrible things we can prevent by means of a passive dialogue.
(Paragraph 13-15). Actively resisting avoids shame, guilt, and the humiliation of being helpless and sitting and watching your people die. On the flip side, others may argue that music, art, paintings, etc. was enough to protest. The flaw to that argument is that those would only be discovered after the war and only if the allies had won, by however actively arming yourself, killing Nazi’s and, sabotoging supplies the impact would be immediately felt, presenting a better chance of winning. When slavery was still a big problem, many of the slaves still ran away which was still resisting.
War is exacted as revenge for revenge that was exacted over a war that was started out of hate, and just like that a continuous cycle of war begins. “…the king (Ongentheow) collapsed/…sheared of life” (2980, 2981) Ongentheow is killed in revenge for the slaying of Haethcyn, kinsmen to Hygelac, just a continuation of the cycle. Although not directly stated in the poem, peace is eventually found between the Swedes and the Geats as alluded to by Wiglaf. “‘Nor do I expect peace or pact –keeping of any sort from the Swedes.’”
In A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the theme of Innocence is explored through war, the seasons, and Finny’s falls. War makes a person leave youth and enter adulthood. When Leper joins the army because of advertising, he is still a child. The army was very different then what he thought it would be since he left youth before he was ready for adulthood. Before, Leper was a “tourist”, free and enjoys life, however, the army is a reality check and brings adulthood too fast and he cant fight his fear, “Leper, emerge from a protective cloud of vagueness only to meet it, the horror, face to face, just as he had always feared, and so give up the struggle absolutely. ”
From an American perspective, Osama bin Laden is a radical Islamist monster responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. This may be true, but from a jihad perspective, Osama bin Laden can be seen as a hero who was martyred while fighting for his faith. People fear things they do not understand, ignorance and bliss and everyone would like to believe that their personal path and beliefs are inherently “good” or “right”. Islam, communism, they are just ideas, and as “un-American” as they may be this does not constitute evil. Killing innocent people is evil, and the US is just as guilty as anyone for this, the only difference is how people feel they can justify the actions.
Death within the Confines of Slaughter House Five Slaughter House Five represents a novel full of anti-war anecdotes. The novel also includes the effects of postmodernism, the way the world starts to question reality, time, and the social construct to which our society was built upon. Death is a reoccurring theme that this novel revolves around and maintains interest for all accounts of the novel. The readers follow the story written by Kurt Vonnegut and how he implements aspects of death throughout his novel such as blue and ivory feet, “So it goes”, Italicized war details, the bombing of Dresden, and how death effects Billy. Blue and ivory feet is a prominent motif in the novel, it represents death and lifeless dead bodies that increasingly
World War II was the deadliest war of all time. Many soldiers who did not die had been captured by their enemies. After World War I, there was an addition to the Geneva Convention, a document created to protect prisoners during war. The document proved crucial and saved countless soldiers from almost certain death. Unfortunately, not all countries participating in the war had signed it.
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five serves to be a metaphorically rich memoir hidden behind the fictional story of Billy Pilgrim who is “stuck in time”. This unhinging of time contributes to the ways Billy copes with the unimaginable mass destruction and belligerence he witnesses in Dresden during World War II. Vonnegut’s use of satire and obvious anti-war sentiment furnishes the hostility towards the dismal Vietnam War, causing audiences to question the militarism of the United States at this time and for many to agree with his pacifist views. The ultimate unjust bombing of Dresden in 1945 is repeated throughout history with the Allied bombing raids on Tokyo and Hiroshima and later, the attacks on civilians in Vietnam.
The historical, science fiction novel Slaughterhouse-Five written by Kurt Vonnegut follows a man named Billy Pilgrim, who has become “unstuck in time” spending one moment in a year and then blinking only to find himself in another (Vonnegut, 29). However, the book consistently centers on Billy’s life in World War Two, as he witnesses one of the most considerable massacres in the history of Europe: “the fire-bombing of Dresden”, which killed nearly 135,000 people (Vonnegut, 128). Even though the story appears to lack a beginning, middle, and end, it does not. Billy’s life itself does not follow a consistent timeline within the novel; however his life during World War Two does happen chronologically, even though it is broken up by different time