The image that the reader creates to imagine the conditions of the men with “hanging...flesh...” give perspective to someone who may have never been exposed to the sights seen in war. Bierce accomplishes his purpose in showing how the images seen and recognized in civilian life show a far more glamorous portrayal of war compared to the reality that is vastly different from what is commonly known about war. The juxtaposition of ideas show how certain groups of people perceive war based on their experiences. Bierce’s use of juxtaposition throughout the story shows the development of two ideas of war, and how the two ideas grow to be different in many
In John Knowles, fictional novel, A Separate Peace, he uses internal conflict to ensure the reader’s understanding of a true friendship. Gene brings Finny’s suitcase to the infirmary, and the boys finally talk about the accident. Finny is an emotional mess and begins to cry. He asks Gene, “It was just some blind impulse you had in the tree there, you didn’t know what you were doing. Was that it” (191)? Finny is so hurt because he cannot believe that Gene would deliberately hurt him. Finny tells Gene that he understands that Gene acted without really thinking, and Finny forgives Gene. This shows the reader the true personality of Finny. He is kind, carefree, reckless, real, and loves unconditionally. He cannot accept that anyone close to
In My Brother Sam Is Dead, although both sides of war are shown, author's Collier and Collier ultimately argue that war is futile. My Brother Sam is Dead is based on details that the Collier brothers wrote. The novel takes place in Redding Ridge, Connecticut. Sam and father have different views on the war. Sam, the older of two sons, is in the Continental Army. Yet father is a loyalist. Tim the narrator doesn't really know who to side with cause they both sound right, but at the end the doesn’t agree with any cause he realized that war is wrong. War causes too many problems as explained by the Collier brothers.
In the book Fallen Angels Walter Dean Myers tells the story of soldiers who struggles with a problem involving what is right and wrong in war. Fallen Angels set in Vietnam during the Vietnam war, the story introduces the main character Perry, who faces obstacles, including death and killing. The author’s use of literary devices, specifically imagery, irony, and metaphors convey the theme warfare often forces soldiers to reconsider their traditional notions of right and wrong.
In his novel, A Separate Peace, Knowles uses the story of Gene Forrester to examine a dark aspect of human nature. Gene Forrester, the novel’s protagonist, fights an inner battle of jealousy and hatred towards his best friend, Phineas. Phineas, an athlete, charismatic charmer, and fearless boy is someone that Gene wishes he could be. Gene creates an enemy out of Phineas in his mind because of the “competition” that is their friendship. The Roman author Tacitus wrote, “It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured.” Knowles asserts that the opposite is true. People hate those who injure them because of the false creation of inner-demons led by a jealous and envious nature.
"The first casualty of war is innocence.” Said by screenwriter Oliver Stone. A Separate Peace by John Knowles is about a set of boys at a boarding school in New England. The reader can clearly see the theme war is unforgiving though war affects friendships, changes lives, and war kills a lot of people.
David McLean’s short story “Marine Corps Issue” includes a beautifully vivid scene of Sergeant Bowen, the narrator Johnny’s father, “sitting on the edge of our elevated garden, black ashes from a distant fire falling lightly like snow around him” (620). While this scene is powerful by itself, it can be appreciated even more by understanding the symbolism and allusions embedded in it, as well as the psychological state of the father as he sits “on the edge of the garden with his head down and his eyes closed as if in prayer” (634). This is why McLean’s readers should use literary criticism: it enhances their appreciation for the story’s impact.
Lice. There is an abundance of lice in your head, and there are more eggs than lice. You get used to it. You’re starving, beaten, and dying of disease. These are just a few things you have to deal with. Milkweed, a historical- fiction book written by Jerry Spinelli, is about an orphan boy named Misha who lost his identity in Nazi occupied Warsaw, Poland during War World II. Throughout the book, Misha has to overcome obstacles, which demonstrates the theme the will of survival.
The nature of war has always been a cruel and inhumane part of our world and its history. Many themes, such as desperation and trickery, play a large role in the development of the short story, “All The King’s Horses” by Kurt Vonnegut. However, what is most particularly interesting is how Vonnegut portrays war the story and is represented the most throughout the novel is the theme of how destructive war is and how impactful it can be on many lives.
The Secret Lives of Sgt. John Wilson was written by Lois Simmie. This story is an engaging full-length non-fiction novel that describes true events, which happened in several areas in Saskatchewan, Canada. John Wilson left his wife and son with one on the way, to find opportunity overseas. He then begins serving for the Royal North West Mounted Police where he finds himself falling madly in love with a young lady named Jessie. In the crucial events that led up to John Wilson’s wife 's death can only prove that love concurs all. This tragic story of love and murder can definitely pull the reader into what truly happened in the early nineteen hundreds.
“Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” President John Fitzgerald Kennedy said to the United Nations General Assembly, on September 25th, 1961. This quote is saying that the killing of soldiers in war will soon destroy all. This relates to both stories because both soldiers regretted killing someone. In O’Flaherty’s “The Sniper” and Hardy’s “The Man He Killed” both works use plot, irony, and theme to portray the idea that war causes you to kill those you care or may have cared about.
Every person can be a veteran of war at times, even if it is in personal battles rather than literal war. This is the case for the Gene as well as Finny in John Knowles 's A Separate Peace. The significance of the contrast of internal conflict with external conflict highlights Gene 's multiple conflicts with himself as well as Finny, building internal and external conflict through both characters. Ultimately, Gene becomes a veteran in the literal and figurative sense of war, regardless of uniform. Gene 's victory in this war with himself portrays how war can prevail in and out of uniform.
What is violence? Violence is, as described by Google,”behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. Strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force. And the unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force.” Both 1984 by George Orwell, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley have violence threaded throughout each novel. 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley are books written about how these two men saw their world changing and morphing into something they did not like, something dreadful, something alarming. Both of these books illustrate the way they saw their world’s future.
The War Prayer was written by Mark Twain in the nineteenth century Imperialism. Twain uses satire to exploit the stupidity of war. In his prose, Twain explains the ghastliness of war and how people are praying to God for safety of their troops but they do not care if the opposing sides troops die. Twain uses satire in The War Prayer to make fun of the people praying for their side to win the war and the glorification of war.
Throughout human history, war has been a common solution to settle conflict or disagreements between people. War has and will always be apart of this world, because no matter how much death it causes humans will never change. Some people have come to see the idiocy in war and have even written about it in poems, short stories, etc. One of these people, Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, has mocked this absurd and pointless practice. Twain’s essay The War Prayer satirizes the customs of praying for safety and victory in war and for equating war with patriotism.