ipl-logo

The Ordinary World John Findley Analysis

546 Words3 Pages

Being enlisted in the war, Robert is compelled to see many things he was once blind to. After leaving “the ordinary world” he must toughen up to reality and embark on his journey to find purpose. According to Joseph Campbell, the “readers are experiencing the journey through the eyes of the hero; a hero’s primary purpose along his journey is to be separated from the ordinary world” and unravel many truths (Campbell, n.p.). Similarly, Robert is exposed to adult-like behaviour that frightens and forces him to mature faster. Findley introduces passages demonstrating war by using the literary device of irony to reveal his perception of the nature of the war by acknowledging war as something “logical”. As Robert progresses through his journey, he …show more content…

However, ultimately this act of kindness led to his death. When Robert fires at the German soldier, the idea of killing someone who has done nothing wrong beings to haunt him. Thus, the idealistic truth of war deceives his purpose in life, due to overcoming the harsh reality. At this point of his journey, his only purpose in war is to survive and return safely back to “the ordinary world”. In comparison to the journey of the hero, Robert “exhibits characteristics germane to the hero's journey, a quest for knowledge integral to a process of healing” (Rowlandson, 17). In correlation to the many truths, Robert must encounter throughout his journey, he comes across with the idea that in war, captains are the people who make the decisions and in the end soldiers are the ones left to die. “Every man is issued a mask! Robert shouted out loud. (It was like being told that none of the men had been issued boots)” (Findley, 123). During the time of the gas attack, Robert is notably questioning his surroundings at war. He begins to wonder why the soldiers do not have the specific protective equipment needed to fight their

Show More
Related
1889 Words | 8 Pages

With each of the characters facing their own fate, Flanagan shows how some men could not cope and chose to prematurely end their lives as “they died off quickly, strangely, in car smashes and suicides and creeping diseases”. The return of soldiers after the Second World War is not a well-documented topic, and one that Flanagan has provided a thorough account of through the diverse ways each individual coped with their new civilian life. Through his attempt to understand and explain the behavior of the soldiers on their return, Flanagan has altered the overall perception by the public from the view of them being racist, ignorant and frequently drunken to misunderstood and suffering men. After enduring the horrendous suffering in the POW camps, some soldiers returned to more heartache as they discover that their loved ones have found other men, or they begin to feel trapped in the routines of suburban life, or they cannot cope unless they hide inside themselves and just say nothing; all of which was worsened by the army encouraging them to not talk about their experience because it was “hardly a hero’s tale in the first place”, being a prisoner of war “wasn’t Kokoda or a Lancaster over the Ruth Valley”. Flanagan successfully depicts the way in which the POWs had undergone suffering unimaginable to society at the time, but also

Read More
630 Words | 3 Pages

All Quiet on the Western Front is widely considered to be the greatest war novel of all time for a variety of reasons, but perhaps one of the greatest is that raw and honest depiction of the psychological defense mechanisms soldiers used to deal with wartime trauma. From shameless humor and the blockage of emotions to playing games and scavenging for food, Paul and his company were often close to blocking out the savagery of war around them. Through a variety of different activities, soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front could come close to completely blocking out the war around them, but were unable to truly escape the horrid world they lived in. One of the most prominent psychological defense mechanisms used in the book can be found in Paul’s relations to his fellow soldiers. Distracting themselves with games and food took much weight off of their war-hardened shoulders.

Read More
1832 Words | 8 Pages

¬¬¬¬¬The Wars Essay The concept of resilience is often described as being able to recover from difficult experiences or pasts, where one’s resilience could be impacted by drastic changes that occur in their lives. It is something that guides one’s decisions and often defines their morals and what individuals perceive to be right or wrong; depending on the situation they are encountering. Resilience is highly dependent on the thought of empathy, where the resilience of people who have experienced empathy will be different from others who haven’t. How individuals deal with these differences determines one’s level of empathy and also impacts their resilience.

Read More
761 Words | 4 Pages

War and its affinities have various emotional effects on different individuals, whether facing adversity within the war or when experiencing the psychological aftermath. Some people cave under the pressure when put in a situation where there is minimal hope or optimism. Two characters that experience

Read More
3223 Words | 13 Pages

Robert Ross portrays symptoms of PTSD through his anger and violence. Findley writes through the eyes of twelve year old Juliet, “His temper, you know, was terrible. Once when he thought he was alone and unobserved I saw him firing his gun in the woods at a young tree. Other times he would throw things down and break them on the ground, he had a great deal of violence inside and sometimes it emerged this way with a gesture and other times it showed in his expression when you found him sitting alone on the terrace or staring out a window” (Findley 152). This quote shows how war is having a great toll on him; the fragile state Robert is in can be explained by his exposure to violence.

Read More
1064 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the ages, wars have wreaked havoc and caused great destruction that lead to the loss of millions of lives. However, wars also have an immensely destructive effect on the individual soldier. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, one is able to see exactly to what extent soldiers suffered during World War 1 as well as the effect that war had on them. In this essay I will explain the effect that war has on young soldiers by referring to the loss of innocence of young soldiers, the disillusionment of the soldiers and the debasement of soldiers to animalistic men. Many soldiers entered World War 1 as innocent young boys, but as they experienced the full effect of the war they consequently lost their innocence.

Read More
726 Words | 3 Pages

Robert fights with himself to survive and realizes that he must push forward, away from his past and drinking. But by doing this, Robert begins to lose his humanity and faces the harsh realities of his world. Matheson's writing challenges the reader to think about what and how they would change if they were in the same situation as

Read More
448 Words | 2 Pages

From the beginning of the novel the narrator shows ignorance and prejudice towards Robert, he is fighting with his own of jealousy and insecurity. Being unhappy with his own life, the narrator sees Robert as a possible threat to his usual evening with pot and TV, without realizing that in order to be satisfied he should step out of his habitual

Read More
930 Words | 4 Pages

Millions of people have gone through life-altering experiences in their time in World War I. In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Bäumer, a 19-year-old German soldier, narrates his personal memoirs of this war. He describes the mental change and suffering he goes through as he is forced to mature from a young boy to a soldier in order to survive, leaving him permanently scarred from the throes of war. By employing juxtaposition to contrast Paul’s mindset, before and after the war, Remarque demonstrates how the mental health of the World War I soldiers is damaged because of the abrupt loss of their youth, leaving them in a state of survival and mental instability.

Read More
688 Words | 3 Pages

He fought a war in Vietnam that he knew nothing about, all he knew was that, “Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons” (38). He realized that he put his life on the line for a war that is surrounded in controversy and questions. Through reading The Things They Carried, it was easy to feel connected to the characters; to feel their sorrow, confusion, and pain. O’Briens ability to make his readers feel as though they are actually there in the war zones with him is a unique ability that not every author possess.

Read More
999 Words | 4 Pages

The True Weight of War “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien, brings to light the psychological impact of what soldiers go through during times of war. We learn that the effects of traumatic events weigh heavier on the minds of men than all of the provisions and equipment they shouldered. Wartime truly tests the human body and and mind, to the point where some men return home completely destroyed. Some soldiers have been driven to the point of mentally altering reality in order to survive day to day. An indefinite number of men became numb to the deaths of their comrades, and yet secretly desired to die and bring a conclusion to their misery.

Read More
433 Words | 2 Pages

For starters, Robert compares himself to how everyone might be feeling by bringing up the fact that he lost a member of his family to a murderer too. This gave people the impression that they were not alone and that Robert had similar emotions to them. A final way Robert makes the reader care is by telling them to do certain things like pray for Martin’s family and the country. Some rhetorical devices used by Robert in his speech were repetition, antithesis, and epistrophe. Repetition is used in the words “we” and “love.”

Read More
1507 Words | 7 Pages

The boundless pursuit of self-realization in The Wars and Regeneration The establishment of one’s identity is dependent on both interpersonal and intrapersonal influences. Timothy Findley’s The Wars and Pat Barker’s Regeneration are two World War I novels that focalize on the theme of self-identity. Robert Ross, the protagonist in The Wars, is a young soldier who witnesses the incapacitating impacts of the war on his country and humanity. William Rivers, the protagonist in Regeneration, is a psychiatrist at Craiglockhart War Hospital who treats soldiers for their war-induced mental disorders.

Read More
945 Words | 4 Pages

He places the lives of his men in danger because he values rank more than his men, and when it becomes apparent that his men can not win he declares, “If those little sweethearts won’t face German bullets, they’ll face French ones”(2). At the loss of the battle, General Mireau places the loss of the battle on his soldiers, calling them cowards. To save his own hide, he allows three innocent men to be tried, convicted, and shot for the sake of his perceived glory. Of all the characters, that which displays the most cowardice in their path to glory, is Lieutenant Roget. Not only does he run from the enemy, but when it comes time to choose which of his men are to die for General Miraue, Lieutenant Roget selects the one man that could call out his own cowardice, Corporal Paris.

Read More
1413 Words | 6 Pages

R.C Sheriff successfully describes the appalling effects of war on different soldiers “Journey’s End”, written by R. C. Sheriff in the early twentieth century, is considered as one of the most prominent dramatic war pieces in English Literature. Sheriff mainly portrays in his play, as it was written based on his experiences in World War 1, the melancholy of war and death. The writer aims in “Journey’s End” to provide a moral message of the nonsense and futility of war; this moral message is reflected efficiently in the characters’ feelings and behavior in the trenches with all the stress and the explosions. Consequently, Sheriff successfully manages to describe the appalling effects of war on different soldiers.

Read More

More about The Ordinary World John Findley Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document