Ordinary Men Summary When most people think and learn about the holocaust they are only taught from the Jewish peoples point of view. They learn about the mass murder committed by Hitler and the Nazis. A group that is usually overlooked is the German people that were forced to take part of Hitler’s “ethnic cleansing.” The book Ordinary Men by Christopher R. Browning goes into detail about the men that were forced into killing innocent people and coerced Jewish people into concentration camps. In this insightful book Browning reveals the background, emotions, and thoughts of a group of men called the Reserve Police Battalion 101.
Christopher R. Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and The Final Solution in Poland is seen as one of the most influential book in Holocaust studies. The book traces the Reserve Police Battalion (hereafter RPB-101), a single German unit, throughout their military duty. These soldiers were instructed to kill innocent Jewish men, woman and children in Poland. Most of the men in the RPB-101 were originally deemed not suitable of conscription. When massacres in history occur, it is in the nature of human beings to think of the culprits as being different from normal people; savages or villains that kill for pleasure or have no remorse.
In the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton the narrator tells the readers how he met the main character,Frome, in Massachusetts. Edith Wharton takes the reader twenty-four years into the past and there we see that Frome is a young man,who chased after an education in science, but when his father dies he is forced to return back to the farm. After that his mother becomes ill and his cousin Zeena comes to take care of her,but when his mother dies, Frome marries Zeena out of loneliness. As time passes by Zeena becomes more sick, due to this their marriage is without love and Frome feels very lonely and has no one to talk to. Then Mattie silver,Zeena’s cousin,comes to take care of her,and Frome falls in love with her and can not imagine life without
The main theme in “The Painted Door” by Sinclair Ross suggests that women, who are completely dependant on a male leader and living in isolation and loneliness, confined to a traditional gender role, will constantly be challenged by a feeling of incompleteness and dissatisfaction in life. Women, who are unable to stand on their own without a male force leading their decisions and direction, become increasingly weak, such that they feel lost and incomplete when left to their own devices. The protagonist in the short story, Ann, is terrified of being left alone with a storm approaching, knowing that there is a stable of animals outside and forced by the risks that severe weather may cause. She is completely lost without her husband to guide her, seen at how often she changes her mind about what tasks she can do, to keep her occupied, until her husband’s return. Sinclair Ross demonstrates this dependency, when Ann tries to keep John from visiting his father: “You said yourself we could expect a storm.
Furthermore, when Eliezer finds out that the Nazi’s must have taken his father away and carried him to the crematory because his illnesses got the best of him due to his old age, he describes the situation afterwards: "There were no prayers at his grave. No candles were lit to his memory. His last word was my name. A summons, to which I did not respond." (106).
Alienation In The Catcher In The Rye In J.D Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye, loneliness is the main topic of the book. The main character Holden Caulfield is an outsider from the beginning, which makes it easier for him to feel lonely. In the book he talks about the things leading up to him getting expelled from Pencey Prep, a private school, and the events that occur after. Holden Caulfield desperately wants human companionship but since he isn’t mature enough and he dislikes human interaction, he ends up being alone.
Stephanie Herrick Ordinary Men Analysis HST 369 February 22, 2017 Many men avoided WWII by joining the Order Police. These ‘policemen’ were sent to Poland, or the Soviet side of Poland to maintain order. There were thousands of men who were not wanting to enlist into the military to be on the front lines, thus deciding to join the police. The policemen had two ‘decrees’ to keep up with, it was described in the book Ordinary Men written by Christopher Browning, the commissar order; which involved for on-the-spot execution of any communist suspect of being an anti-German.
This is what happens in the story “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury. This story takes place in a city in the world of 2053 A.D.. Mr. Leonard is the only person who even leaves his house at night, even know there is no crime. Mr. Leonard experiences the real world while everyone else is glued to the television. One thing that this story does a really good job at is, building the setting or the city through vivid detail.
The Fog Horn is a story about loneliness between two characters, McDunn and a monster. Ray Bradbury is trying to show us the mysteries of the seas. McDunn, who lives in the lighthouse, hears things but does not know what they are. McDunn thinks that there is someone out there but he is not sure if it is a human or it is a creature.
“You remember what you want to forget and you forget what you want to remember,” (McCarthy 12). With most aspects of life, the horrendous moments are the times that no one can erase. This applied to The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Towards the end of the novel when the son loses his father proves to be the most indelible moment with the assistance of the feelings experienced during that part. The son encounters a variety of emotions including loneliness, loss and hope.
Like H. Edward Ransford author of Isolation, Powerlessness, and Violence: A study of Attitudes and Participation in the Watts Riots said “the hypothesis that isolation individuals are more prone to extremism is tested”, this is what the narrator was going to have to do (Ransford 581). Go to the extreme so that he is no longer mistreated and for once treated like a human that has all the rights like any other. The narrator is now convince that he is truly an invisible man, he feels isolated because no understands him leaving him alone with no friends, family or even colleagues. After through all of the terrible things that has happen he finally realizes that he has brought isolation to himself. He even states “I’m an invisible man and it placed me in a hole-or showed me the hole I was in, if you will-and I reluctantly accepted the fact” (Ellison 573-574).
Both Frankenstein and fiend always feel lonely and miserable in the novel. During his time at school, Frankenstein was really shy and did not have passions on making friends. After graduating from university at Ingolstadt, he can only share personal problems with one friend Clerval. While he is fascinated by the creation of life, he spends all his time studying the theory and practice of natural philosophy. In order to satisfy his thirst for knowledge, he totally isolates himself from the society by neglecting his precious family, lover and friends who he does not see for a long time.
In James Baldwin’s essay, Stranger in the Village, he depicts a distant village that has become isolated from outsiders, however, strangers are welcome into the village. Having little distractions, Baldwin finds an ease at mind for focusing on his writing. However, being isolated does have fallbacks. For instance, upon visiting the village, the residents were so unfamiliar with African Americans, which caused many people to stop and view him. Some would put their “hand on my hand, astonished that the color did not rub off” (65).
“The loneliness of the long-distance runner” is a story about a boy named Smith who is caught robbing a bakery and he has been sent to a borstal. They choose him to represent the town in the running competition because of his talent and he is physically capable of winning it for the town to boost town’s reputation. In the first passage, Smith talks about his training and how running long distance represent life. And in the first passage when he has a conversation with the governor he has this thought about “us” “them” and “I”.
Throughout the 19th century, a great deal of men emerged themselves in the sudy of nature and the discovery of unknown land. Focusing on transformation in scientific idea across a variety of subjects, those scientists raised the period of great advance in science, known as the Scientific Revolution. Even if much of scientific products expanded the knowledge and encouraged of different thinking, but some of scientific products were too power to destroy the nature resulting in posing a threat the community. In the novel Frankenstein Mary Shelley demonstrated that the creature transformed himself from longing for love to seeking revenge on humanity as whole. Humanity, knowledge and loneliness all lead to his corruption and tragedy through his emotional distortion.
