He went on jerking with flames on his chest until another soldier shot him again. Then he stopped jerking. ”(208). Tim would expect Sam to die by the British, a heroism, brave, courage filled death on the battlefield, but the irony is that in reality he dies a dishonorable death by his own side just like his father. Tim was very upset since Sam, who was innocent, was accused of stealing his own cattle; the generals did not believe Tim’s many proclaims of the truth, war just isn’t fair.
Furthermore, he stated that those who would find killing a human difficult or wrong are the same who would find killing a deer difficult or wrong. However, the deaths of fellow soldiers also weigh on the psyche of the writers. Even though some speak of the death of a friend rather nonchalantly, there are many that appeared to have been greatly affected by their friend’s death and dedicate a large piece of their letter to the death. On the whole, the letters offer a wide-ranging view into the soldier’s minds and how the war affected them as individuals.
The poem deals with these themes related to war. At the time when the poem was written, it was the deadliest year for U.S. troops fighting a war in Afghanistan. There was 496 casualties, and the U.S military personnel were killed at a rate of about one every 18 hours, (CNS). For this reason, the author creates a parallel between a teenage murderer and America sending troops off to war. First, Hoagland mentions, “You can’t keep beating yourself up, Billy,’ I heard the therapist say on television to the teenage murderer, ‘about all those people you killed - You just have to be the best person you can be, one day at a time,” because he wants to point out the ridiculousness of the idea that the power of forgiveness is stronger than the power of consequence.
This description paints the scenes of the poem as they happen, the powerful connotations of the words battling against each other, and to the grievance of the reader, the negative feelings prevail. This battle illuminates the brutality and fear experienced by soldiers, in WWII, during their final moments on Earth - their fear, sadness, and horrified disgust all hidden between the lines of these two sentences. Foreshadowed by the soldier's machine like tone, the speaker alludes to the fact that he will fight for his life, and
In the short story 'A Kind of Murder' Hugh Pentecost shows there is more than one way to die. The story follows Mr. Warren, a poor man who has been sent to teach at a military academy, as he undergoes a most likely traumatizing social homicide. Mr. Warren walks into the quad carrying very little confidence. His hearing disability leads to problems with the children he teaches. Although he is faced with challenging students and cruel teachers, Mr. Warren stays kind.
The author has the bias that nothing good can come from war. He remembers the death that surrounded him, from the first body he saw of an old man to the men he served with who he would call a
In “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty, the theme of the tragedy and cruelty of war the dehumanization, the way it breaks families and friends, and the fact that it alters and rids one from the person they were before is conveyed through irony, and the sniper's feelings and actions. For example, the author writes “A man’s.appeared. The sniper raised his rifle and fired. The woman darted towards the side street. The sniper fired again.”
The soldier himself is frightened on why he could not save him which haunts him in his dreams as he says “In all my dreams/ before my helpless sight” is how every time he dreams he sees the soldier and he cannot control it causing him to think of it every night frightening him everyday. Soon he will feel that the dead person wants revenge for his death as the soldier states “he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning”, The dead soldier always comes into the narrator's dream wanting revenge as he chokes him as how he was being choked by the gas clouds and then drowning as how the dead soldier drowned in the green sea of chlorine gas. The horrors of war is what scares the soldier even after the war. At first soldiers imagine themselves as heroes creating them eager and excited they are until they finally get to the front and see no man's land. No man's land is usually bumpy with shell holes and dead trees that are either broken or burnt.
Through this passage, Hardy displays his ideas on how soldiers in war are stripped of their compassion, and are often placed in moral situations in which they do not know the difference between “right” and “wrong”. This same idea is also portrayed in Remarque’s novel, in which Baümer thinks, “ A terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me. I cannot find my way back, I am shut out though I entreat earnestly and put forth all my strength,” (Remarque, 172). This passage depicts nearly identical ideas to those themes found in Hardy’s poem, however instead of feeling guilty by personally killing others, Baumer has a sense of alienation build inside him as he faces the consequences of war. These feelings of “foreignness” and the sensation of being “shut out” are feelings often gained
His use of satirical irony, by portraying Billy as a gawky sorry-excuse-of-a soldier, also paints the picture that he is not so enthralled by the idea of making war seem glamorous and that sometimes there are no war hero’s, but rather each and every party involved is guilty of losing something. Subsequently juxtaposing this is his subtleness with death and him muttering the same simplistic, otherwise meaningless phrase “so it goes,” after each departing. This is combative with his theory against war and therefore helps solidify his stance on the issue as seemingly indifferent, and illustrates that death to him is a part of daily routine and bears no significance. This then allows the audience to feel as if they are independently and uniquely forming their own impression and truth about the realities of war, as given the information from an unbiased source. The unique viewpoint taken by the author allows for him to slyly impregnate your opinions with his perception, it gives the illusion of free choice, and as a result conforms the audience to his stance.
O’Brien discusses being unable to understand why he must fight, and why the innocent must die. Even as O’Brien tells the story of killing another soldier, he mentions feeling regret and hesitation. O’Brien threw a grenade at a soldier and for a moment wished he could warn him. Readers may also view the central question as a mystery. With the details provided by O’Brien, the reader may feel sympathetic towards the soldiers.
“The Happy Warrior,” displays diction and irony to highlight the realistic attitude on war by Sir Herbert Read. Throughout his poem, Sir Herbert Read uses a gruesome word choice to get across the message about the horrors of war. Early in the poem, “painful sobs” (1), came over the fighting soldier.
In his poetry, Thomas Hardy's women are one-dimensional: objects of desire and lust. To what extent is this accurate? Thomas Hardy is known to be a writer of strong female characters, powerful and independent women litter his novels. However, for his poetry, this is not the case, especially in the collection of love poems that tell the story of his first wife, Emma. Hardy and his wife Emma began to grow apart as their marriage progressed, due to her losing the beauty of her youth.
During the late Victorian period of literature, Thomas Hardy gained success with his controversial writing (Tess of the d’Urbervilles 278). Hardy’s novels seemed a bit darker than other writers of the happy industrial period because of his certain beliefs; for this reason, his later novels created the eye-catching shadow in an era of light. His beliefs led him to follow the style of pessimistic writing (Diniejko 1). Because of his depressing view, he became a vocal critic of the changing English land and economy as well as its traditional values through his novels (Moss, Joyce, and George Wilson 1). Thomas Hardy’s philosophy of nature and life created his pessimistic thoughts and views towards modern and traditional England as reflected in his works.
Surprisingly, he seems undisturbed. Here, the poet uses, "now in my dial,"to point out the idea that the shooter is in fact a sniper, and this soldier seems to be recounting his actions. He may have been unshaken at the time of the shooting, but now he
