Why does Edmund Blunden imbue his memoir Undertones of War with irony? To understand the intent and extent of his stylistic choices, one has to understand the context of the work. Written following his experiences as a soldier during the First World War, Undertones of War was written as a recollection of Edmund Blunden’s personal experiences as a soldier. As a memoir, Blunden projects his own feelings and opinions into his writing, detailing both the emotions he felt in the moment of his experience as a soldier and those he felt while reflecting on the war. Instead a triumphant tale of heroism, the memoir is almost cynical and very down-to-earth, contradicting the uplifting genre of war writing which often seeks to put its heroes on god-like…
Taking a look at the grandmother, it is important to note her namelessness, because this characteristic signifies a deeper symbolic meaning. The story begins, “The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida” (1). There are three unnamed characters in the story: the grandmother, the children’s mothers, and The Misfit. Throughout, the grandmother is referred to by her title in place of her name, which allows the reader to see the grandmother as an illustration of the typical person. Because of her namelessness, she comes to represent everyone, and her external and internal conflicts with vanity, control, and egotism represent the collective of humanity’s struggles.…
Often time, wars are believed and seen as a mean to defend the home nation from physical catastrophe of foreign land and soldiers are praised and honored for their sacrifice. Not often enough do the common people take the time to scrape the surface with sayings like “thank you for your time” to look at the understanding that even though a war “makes men” and unites them, Hynes says that it isolates and cuts them off from other people. We are also controlled into believing that we understand exactly how a soldier feels from what the media broadcast to us, and then we take that false understanding and channels it to a way that we think may help soldiers deal with their traumas or past. The truth that the media provide has been filtered out enough…
All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel about war. A Novel about suffering, loss, and the cold and sad realization that one young man came to about the realities of war. That young man is Paul Baumer. Paul is a very fluid and inconsistent character, he is constantly developing and changing his views on his circumstances. This is the cause of confusion for many, but also the reason that this is such a riveting and powerful book that has affected and will continue to affect all generations.…
War is an emotional roller coaster; soldiers feel pain as comrade’s fall right before their eyes. They rejoice with patriotism as the army advances to defeat a common enemy. In the memoir, Helmet for My Pillow: from Parris Island to the Pacific, Robert Leckie recounts his war experience from beginning to end. He uses long- winded syntax to evoke powerful emotions from readers, provide intense imagery, and provide description of people and events. Without a doubt, long-winded syntax evokes powerful emotions from the reader.…
The Things They Carried War is a wretched battlefield. It twists the minds of soldiers, scarring them with experiences that can last a lifetime. During war, there are some experiences that one cannot verbally formulate into words that truly capture what had happened. As the author of “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’brien writes with a style that brings his stories to life, as it allows the readers to be able to feel the situation as if them themselves were in it.…
He gives names and lives to the people whom a tabloid headline covering the event would simply look over. I find that, as a history student, the practice tends to focus more on what an individual did rather than who they are. On the other hand, Urrea’s approach is refreshing and allows the reader to connect to the characters on a deeper level. The novel serves not only an as in depth analysis of border issues, but also heart-wrenching details of real people who are affected by, live through, and may die by these issues. One of the most powerful and moving chapters, titled “Killed by the Light,” lies in the middle of the novel and explains the six blistering stages of hyperthermia in scattered, rhythmic sentences.…
Many young children dream of being princesses or superheroes when they grow up and the rest of the world permits them to live in this fantasy world while they can. Inevitably, though, one day, the children will realize that the world is not the fairytale they once imagined it to be. A piece of their innocence and bliss slips away. The idea of loss of innocence has been popular in literature for ages. One of the best known novels in the world, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, follows the story of a young girl as she discovers that her town is not the picturesque place she once thought it was, but is instead filled with people quick to judge, especially when it comes to race.…
Tim O'Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, eloquently (NR) demonstrates the theme of ‘beauty in horror’. The novel emphasizes this theme through the underlying foil between beauty and atrocities that are not uncommon in war stories. O'Brien focuses on the imagery of these events as well as the tone to illustrate the difficulties that soldiers are exposed to and how they have been conditioned to their situation to no longer see the horror in these horrific events rather start seeing them as beautiful events. The relevance of this theme is most prevalent in the short story, “How to Tell a True War Story.” This short story illustrates many different barbaric events that have been very beautifully illustrated.…
War has been a constant part of human history. Whether it was World War I or World War II, war has greatly affected all aspects of life. Soldiers, families, countries, and societies, have all suffered through these times. Ultimately, the effects of war are extremely detrimental. Timothy Findley’s masterpiece The Wars portrays the detrimental effects of war and how these effects are endured on a personal level, familial level, and a communal level.…
The poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen shows the effects that eh war has on people and protests it when the text states that the soldiers, “ limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;”( 6). This document demonstrates the brutality of war and the things that the soldiers have to go through. Imagery is used to display these things. However, imagery is not the only way that writers protest…
In this modern age, war and dying for one’s country is often glorified through many different types of media. On the contrary, in All Quiet on the Western Front, the exact opposite happens. In this book, Erich Maria Remarque reveals how war is actually just people living in fear with one thing in their mind: survival. This story follows a young soldier named Paul Baumer who decided to join the German army during the first world war. Because of the war, Paul learns that there is no possible way to positively describe the war.…
The Vietnam war is well known in the world for its brutality. And there are an abundance of stories to this day about the war. One of these stories is called The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, give his point of view of the war, as an American soldier. Similarly, another text about the war is called Salem, by Robert Butler, a Vietnamese soldier giving his point of view of the war. Both of these texts explore the ideas that killing someone isn’t easy, even in war, also that war impacts soldiers and people not only physical, but emotionally and psychologically, by both of their uses of juxtaposition and through the different characters.…
Mortality in War in The Things They Carried War often leads people to reevaluate their lives and beliefs. In Tim O’Brien’s They Things They Carried motifs, such as the repetition of storytelling, reveal how people can be given life through words, such as the little girl named Linda who died of cancer at a young age.…
In the little Dutch Village of Aamersvoort, a kid by the name of Piet Mondrian was born on March seventh, 1872. Piet was the second child of four, with two brothers and one sister. As an Artist himself, bringing home the money off of his amateur art, Piet's dad, Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan Sr., saw that his child had a natural talent for drawing and painting and could give him lessons. His Uncle, Fritz Mondrian, was also an a fantastic painter and was self trained. Since he was a respectable artist, he figured out how to bring home the money inside of the business art world.…