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Born on the fourth of july ron kovic analysis
Born on the fourth of july ron kovic analysis
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“[Ewell] had lost a leg at Manassas and had just recently returned to the army, and he was standing awkwardly balancing himself against the unfamiliar leg… swaying nervously, clutching a fencepost,” (Shaara, 224). He is missing part of his leg, and explains that a minie ball hit his leg “just below the jointed knee” (Shaara, 225); back in the day minie balls were used and could shatter bone, so doctors would render the wound untreatable and amputate the limb it hit. Amputations were very common and done with anesthesia, which was recently made at the time; sometimes they didn’t use it when amputations occurred. When James Longstreet, a lieutenant general, is riding off back to the camp after the first day of the battle, he sees a wagon with many limbs in it. “[Longstreet] passed by a hospital wagon, saw mounded limbs glowing whitely in the dark, a pile of legs, another of arms.
“Why you no look in my eye?” the corporal shouted. Louie steadied himself. He held his face taut as he raised his eyes to the corporal’s face. Again came the whirling arm, the jarring blow into his skull, his stumbling legs trying to hold him upright.
Unbroken: A World of untold hatred “We owe our World War II veterans - and all our veterans - a debt we can never fully repay.” Doc Hastings. The day that Green hornet went down over the Atlantic, was the day that Louis Zamperini’s life was changed forever. Zamperini began his life with stealing and being a rascal from his neighbors. His brother Pete was everything that Louis wanted to be.
He entered the war because he thought he could be a hero, due to the large amounts of propaganda, and the fact that he thought it was going to be a quick war. He was wrong. Philip Caputo illustrates the unique experience of war. The author shows what the soldiers go through physically and mentally by evolving them as a person, while shaping their morals and values of life. Caputo joined the Marines in 1960, because he was tired of the dullness that Westchester Illinois brought to him.
They, a part of the reserve corps, are called up after both companies face some difficulty, and Michael’s platoon defends their territory. David is crucified when he chases the Germans to their trenches when they retreat, and Michael runs over to try to keep his promises of bringing David back alive. He is injured but succeeds. He later dies, but David survives but has to get his leg amputated, thousands die, but in the end, no ground was gained.
During the war, many things happen to O’Brien including almost dying of shock after getting shot in the butt. The medic at the time was a boy named
Things like this happened regularly and some doctors used this time in the war as a time to experiment on the patients and try knew forms of surgery. One type was making arcs in people's feet, the surgeon took every opportunity, this often hurt the patients even more and made it so they could never walk again without assistance. Out in the trenches Paul witnessed someone's jaw getting popped out of place from being hit and his friend punching it to pop it back in. Events like this happened often because medical care was not always around. Paul witnessed his friend Kat die and tried to save him but he did not make it.
This chapter “The Ghost Soldiers”, showed us how Tim O’Brien and the other soldiers were dealing with the war both physically and psychologically. It also shows us how the Tim O'Brien behaved and felt when he was shot, wounded and had a bacteria infection on his butt and how the war changed the way he thought, and viewed the other soldiers around him. This chapter also contain a lot of psychological lens. From the way Tim O’Brien felt when he was shot and separated from his unit to a new unit to when he wanted revenge on Bobby Jorgenson for almost “killing” him.
He goes on to produce this story of the boy’s life had he not killed him. He would have gone to University for mathematics, and he would avoid politics. He probably met a girl before the war and they exchanged gold rings, and she liked that he was thin and frail. The author uses repetition in this short story by repeating the details of the wounds. He mentions “his jaw in his throat” and the “star shaped hole in his eye” several times.
In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” the character, O’Brien, is shot during combat. The medic on duty, being a rooky, is unsure of how to help O’Brien. He is later hospitalized and unable to fight anymore. When he finally returns to combat duty, he feels out of place and no longer at home with the other soldiers. He becomes obsessed with exacting his revenge on the medic.
Anton becoming an anaesthesiologist illustrates his desire for control and understanding (80). His thoughts of pain and how even when they are not remembered they are still felt (80) are analogous to his own personal struggles. Even though he attempts to distort his perception of reality and the effect the War had on his mental state, the pain which endured as a child will always stay a part of him. Anton represses any memory of the War, exemplifying his difficulty of accepting reality. While he can try to forget, Anton can never become who is was before the night of his family’s death.
People who were once enemies are now friends. Jensen and Strunk create a pact that if either one should get “a wheelchair wound” , the other will do whatever he can to find a way to end the pain. After this, Strunk encounters a fatal injury. Even after he begs not to be killed by Jensen, his injury ends up killing him anyway. Jensen is relieved that he will not have to end his pain.
Although he has no way of knowing anything about the man’s life, O’Brien attempts to humanize the soldier by creating a story for him, and memorializing it in order to place meaning on the man’s life. It is interesting to note that parts of O’Brien’s description of the soldier’s life reflect his own feelings. For example, while speaking about the man’s recruitment to the army, O’Brien tells, “…secretly… [the war] frightened him. He was not a fighter.”
No one returns from war the same person who went. War opens an unbridgeable gap between soldiers and civilians. There’s no truth in war—just each soldier’s experience. “You can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil” (from “How to Tell a True War Story,” in O’Brien’s story collection “The Things They Carried”). Irony in modern American war literature takes many forms, and all risk the overfamiliarity that transforms style into cliché.
In Frederick Douglass’s The Meaning of Fourth of July for the Negro, he exposes the hypocrisy and iniquity that is infused into considerably one of the most prolific American moments in history known as The Fourth of July. Douglass, who was a former slave that eventually reached freedom, was invited to speak about what Fourth of July meant for the black population within America. Although Douglass provided much gratitude to the Founding Fathers for their courage and ability to oppose oppressive systems, he criticizes the American country for its involvement within slavery. Slavery served as the foundation that constructed America, allowing for it fuel the economy and develop into a cultural and political norm within society.