Typically confronting texts of this period not only reflect the preoccupations of the time but also a disturbing re-evaluation of its values and ideas.
To what extent have the writers of TWO prescribed texts that you have studied in class and two texts of your own choosing achieved this?
Post World War Two and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, emerged a paranoid and disillusioned society that fell back on failing materialistic and family values. The play ‘Waiting for Godot’ (1953) by Samuel Beckett, film ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ (2005) directed by George Clooney, short story ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’ (1948) by J.D. Salinger and poem “At the First Aid Station” (1951) by Toge Sankichi confront the reader with …show more content…
Beckett achieves a reflection of these disillusioned values that challenged a hopeful climate pre-WW2, and re-evaluated it to be a hopeless and meaningless one afterwards where the characters wait in a purgatorial existence. 1 min 10 sec
‘Good Night and Good Luck’ questions the value of long held respected individuals and bodies of power in our society, reevaluating the trust in the government that led to the paranoia they tried to produce. The bold decision made by the characters in Good Night and Good Luck to directly challenge these powers reflects in part a society scarred from the war brought unto them by their government, and exacerbates an already paranoid society. 1 min 10 …show more content…
The victims of the bombs being schoolchildren with families, Sankichi questions “Can even they know you now?” referring to the mutilation caused by the bomb obscuring the person beneath. This poem confronts with graphic imagery and challenges the western notion that the killers are those losing their humanity, by removing humanity instead from the victims, who become faceless and nameless. “Once you were a daughter of humanity” emphasises their death, and soul that has been stripped from them. This text develops a creature that has been born of the bomb, that “leaps and crawls”, and whilst it describes immediate impacts also touches on the malignancy of cancer that many survivors eventually died from, including Sankichi himself. This death of self, in addition to the physical death, is an idea that ties in with Japanese cultural conventions of shame, as they do not even care for these societal values, showing their removal from society and “how far removed you are now from mankind”. The direct address of the reader is typical of the confronting texts and poetry of the period, forcing the reader to assume the persona of the monstrous victim, disturbing imagery further emphasises these
To what extent have the writers of TWO prescribed texts that you have studied in class and two texts of your own choosing achieved this?
Post World War Two and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, emerged a paranoid and disillusioned society that fell back on failing materialistic and family values. The play ‘Waiting for Godot’ (1953) by Samuel Beckett, film ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ (2005) directed by George Clooney, short story ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’ (1948) by J.D. Salinger and poem “At the First Aid Station” (1951) by Toge Sankichi confront the reader with …show more content…
Beckett achieves a reflection of these disillusioned values that challenged a hopeful climate pre-WW2, and re-evaluated it to be a hopeless and meaningless one afterwards where the characters wait in a purgatorial existence. 1 min 10 sec
‘Good Night and Good Luck’ questions the value of long held respected individuals and bodies of power in our society, reevaluating the trust in the government that led to the paranoia they tried to produce. The bold decision made by the characters in Good Night and Good Luck to directly challenge these powers reflects in part a society scarred from the war brought unto them by their government, and exacerbates an already paranoid society. 1 min 10 …show more content…
The victims of the bombs being schoolchildren with families, Sankichi questions “Can even they know you now?” referring to the mutilation caused by the bomb obscuring the person beneath. This poem confronts with graphic imagery and challenges the western notion that the killers are those losing their humanity, by removing humanity instead from the victims, who become faceless and nameless. “Once you were a daughter of humanity” emphasises their death, and soul that has been stripped from them. This text develops a creature that has been born of the bomb, that “leaps and crawls”, and whilst it describes immediate impacts also touches on the malignancy of cancer that many survivors eventually died from, including Sankichi himself. This death of self, in addition to the physical death, is an idea that ties in with Japanese cultural conventions of shame, as they do not even care for these societal values, showing their removal from society and “how far removed you are now from mankind”. The direct address of the reader is typical of the confronting texts and poetry of the period, forcing the reader to assume the persona of the monstrous victim, disturbing imagery further emphasises these