War tends to take a toll on citizens who both participate in the fight and remain home. Literature such as The Sniper and A Separate Peace proves that if you are directly on the battlefield or even at a simple all boys school, war and its curse alters everyone's life one way or another and no matter who you are you can and will be impacted by it. The two authors of the two works want to show some of the anxiety and guilt war tends to cause that ruins lives.
A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is about a kid named Gene who attends an all boys boarding school during WW2. Being a student in such a historic war is a disoriented ball of anxiety. For example: “He ought to be a senior now, if you see what I mean, so that he would have been graduated …show more content…
Not only is highschool texts and homework stressful enough already, but just the thought being drafted into such an unforgiving war brings on an unimaginable amount of anxiety. Anxiety holds a lot of power over students, so being that is only one of wars many curse’s is intense. Even though the battlefield is a place of death and basic dehumanization, imagine similar things taken straight from an extreme battlefield taken straight into a normal high school. “As I was moving the bone, some marrow must have escaped into his bloodstream and stopped his heart… an operating room is a place where risks are just more formal than in other places. An operating room and a war.”. The character that dies in this quote is named Finn (or Finny). The author implies here that if the doctor hadn’t had a lack of medical equipment due to the war, then Finn’s fate may have changed. This lack of correct equipment can not …show more content…
This piece, too compliments the argument that war is a curse by presenting struggles on the battlefield presented by pure guilt. Battle includes morally questionable and guilt inflicting actions such as the actual slaughter of another human being. “The sniper looked at his enemy falling and he shuddered. The lust of battle died in him. He became bitten by remorse.” (O’Flaherty 10). The sniper immediately felt guilt and disappointment with himself as soon as he defeated his target. This represents one of wars many curse’s simply because of the intensity of the weight of someone else’s blood on your hands. Although killing someone you don’t know is heavy enough, O’Flaherty does an excellent job of representing the accidental slaughter of someone you know and love. “The machine gun stopped. The sniper turned over the dead body and looked at his brothers face.”. The man accidentally killed his own brother because both of them were on opposing battlefields together. Guilt is extremely impactful in one's life and can lead some to depression and anxiety, it is very doubtful that this man could ever forgive himself for defeating his own brother. The author is trying to portray that the war is at fault for his brothers death, some may say that it is just a simple accident. On the contrary, this “simple accident” would not have happened if it wasn’t for one curse...the war.
These two examples of literature have come to show
A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, is about a kid named Gene who attends an all boys boarding school during WW2. Being a student in such a historic war is a disoriented ball of anxiety. For example: “He ought to be a senior now, if you see what I mean, so that he would have been graduated …show more content…
Not only is highschool texts and homework stressful enough already, but just the thought being drafted into such an unforgiving war brings on an unimaginable amount of anxiety. Anxiety holds a lot of power over students, so being that is only one of wars many curse’s is intense. Even though the battlefield is a place of death and basic dehumanization, imagine similar things taken straight from an extreme battlefield taken straight into a normal high school. “As I was moving the bone, some marrow must have escaped into his bloodstream and stopped his heart… an operating room is a place where risks are just more formal than in other places. An operating room and a war.”. The character that dies in this quote is named Finn (or Finny). The author implies here that if the doctor hadn’t had a lack of medical equipment due to the war, then Finn’s fate may have changed. This lack of correct equipment can not …show more content…
This piece, too compliments the argument that war is a curse by presenting struggles on the battlefield presented by pure guilt. Battle includes morally questionable and guilt inflicting actions such as the actual slaughter of another human being. “The sniper looked at his enemy falling and he shuddered. The lust of battle died in him. He became bitten by remorse.” (O’Flaherty 10). The sniper immediately felt guilt and disappointment with himself as soon as he defeated his target. This represents one of wars many curse’s simply because of the intensity of the weight of someone else’s blood on your hands. Although killing someone you don’t know is heavy enough, O’Flaherty does an excellent job of representing the accidental slaughter of someone you know and love. “The machine gun stopped. The sniper turned over the dead body and looked at his brothers face.”. The man accidentally killed his own brother because both of them were on opposing battlefields together. Guilt is extremely impactful in one's life and can lead some to depression and anxiety, it is very doubtful that this man could ever forgive himself for defeating his own brother. The author is trying to portray that the war is at fault for his brothers death, some may say that it is just a simple accident. On the contrary, this “simple accident” would not have happened if it wasn’t for one curse...the war.
These two examples of literature have come to show