“The Refrain”, written by Omer Seyfettin is about a member of the Ottoman Turkish troop who is staying in a room in Bulgaria. He is extremely disappointed by his life and doesn’t know what to do. Meanwhile, he sees this Bulgarian girl from his room window and gets attracted to her. She sings a song in a language that he does not understand. She comes out every day on her terrace and sings the same song. She smiles at him every day and it seems as though she likes him too. However, he has no idea what she’s saying and believes that she’s saying she loves him through the song. He spends an entire month waking up and seeing her pretty face across from his window and singing along with her. The day he had to leave, he sent her a gift through one …show more content…
He was a very simple man who had lost all hope and was only waiting to die. He knew that someday, his city and his town would be taken over and he refused to get enslaved. This is probably why he restricted himself from everyone and everything and stayed alone at home all day. He didn’t have any more desires or expectations from life and thus had nothing more to ask for or live for. But, as things changed, he changed too. After weeks and months of victories and finding out that the British and French were not able to cross Gallipoli, people’s lives began changing, especially his. He started living his life again. He even got married and had a child in the next year. It was a baby girl and he was overjoyed to have her. In contrast to his sorrowful past, this girl brought radiance and hope with her. He transformed into a completely different person when he realized that his country was now awakening. This story, in my opinion links directly to modernity. It had a very strong presence of change, which I think is very important when it comes to modernity. Only when new things and policies are created and innovative techniques used, can modernity occur. As the nation began changing, so did its people. Identity played a major role in this and the other stories as well. A nation fighting for its identity and not giving up to
Many war stories today have happy, romantic, and cliche ending; many authors skip the sad, groosom, and realistic part of the story. W. D. Howell’s story, Editha and Ambrose Bierce’s story, An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge both undercut the romantic plots and unrealistic conclusions brought on by many stories today. Both stories start out leading the reader to believe it is just another tpyical love-war senario, but what makes them different is the one-hundred and eighty degrees plot twist at the end of each story. In the typical love-war story the soldier would go off to war, fighting for his country, to later return safely to his family typically unscaved.
While he was separated from society, the threat of
The novel All Quiet On the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, the poem, “In Flanders Field,” by John McCrae and the film, Gallipoli, Demonstrates how war makes men feel unimportant and, forces soldiers to make hard decisions that no one should half to make. In war people were forced to fight for their lives. Men were forced to kill one another to get their opinion across to the opposing sides. When men went home to their families they were too scared to say what had happened to them in the war. Many people had a glorified thought about how war is, Soldiers didn't tell them what had truly happened to them.
He arrives back at his town, unused to the total absence of shells. He wonders how the populations can live such civil lives when there are such horrors occurring at the front. Sitting in his room, he attempts to recapture his innocence of youth preceding the war. But he is now of a lost generation, he has been estranged from his previous life and war is now the only thing he can believe in. It has ruined him in an irreversible way and has displayed a side of life which causes a childhood to vanish alongside any ambitions subsequent to the war in a civil life. They entered the war as mere children, yet they rapidly become adults. The only ideas as an adult they know are those of war. They have not experienced adulthood before so they cannot imagine what it will be lie when they return. His incompatibility is shown immediately after he arrives at the station of his home town. ”On the platform I look round; I know no one among all the people hurrying to and fro. A red-cross sister offers me something to drink. I turn away, she smiles at me too foolishly, so obsessed with her own importance: "Just look, I am giving a soldier coffee!"—She calls me "Comrade," but I will have none of it.” He is now aware of what she is
... middle of paper ... ... He did not turn into an animal, who only thinks of survival, but he shared his food with the people he loved. Therefore, one can conclude that one can see the theme of inhumanity through survival.
While soldiers are often perceived as glorious heroes in romantic literature, this is not always true as the trauma of fighting in war has many detrimental side effects. In Erich Maria Remarque 's All Quiet On The Western Front, the story of a young German soldier is told as he adapts to the harsh life of a World War I soldier. Fighting along the Western Front, nineteen year old Paul Baumer and his comrades begin to experience some of the hardest things that war has to offer. Paul’s old self gradually begins to deteriorate as he is awakened to the harsh reality of World War 1, depriving him from his childhood, numbing all normal human emotions and distancing future, reducing the quality of his life.
Autobiographies, diaries, letters, official records, photographs and poems are examples of primary sources from World War One. The two primary sources analyzed in this essay are the poems, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen and “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae. Primary sources are often personal, written from the limited perspective of a single individual. It is very difficult for the author to capture their own personal experience, while incorporating the involvement and effects of other events happening at the same time. Each piece of writing studied describes the author’s perception of the war. Both of the poems intend to show to grave reality of war, which often was not realized until the soldiers reach the frontlines. The poems were both written at battle within two years of each other. However, the stark difference between the two poems is astonishing. “Anthem for Doomed Youth” gives a much different impression than “In Flanders Field” despite the fact that both authors were in the same war and similar circumstances. The first two lines in “In Flanders Fields” “…the poppies blow, Between the crosses, row on row.” are an image o...
By being forced to break off with his identity of being a stranger, he got a chance to live out what he always wanted, recognition. His experience of exile led him to be in alienating situations, where he verbally had to prove himself right. His exile was also enriching because it gave him the recognition he wanted. The “stranger” was able to unmask his
Even though he was just a servant for some reason he always seems to act like he was superior to him. This behavior from the servant makes the underground man hate him so much and make him develop this way of always feeling less than other people.
He states that he is “no one” and since he is no one, his works are also nothing to the world, nor anyone. Since he mentioned it in the begging, I had a feeling that the character would be isolated or damaged in a way that would ultimately affect his influence. I also believe he is not sadden at the fact that he just killed someone, because at the end of the day he is still a nobody and that is why he sadden even after the incident. In the beginning, the narrator states “we leave home because of governments overthrown” (678), and as a result of the man leaving home, he is left without an
The harmony of the group is perfectly shown in this song. When a person hears it for the first time it sounds like one person sings it. The song opens with hope, “Helplessly Hoping”, that even in despair, there is hope. The word choice in the song is evocative and elegant, but it can have different meanings. The words are full of mystery, and the alliteration can make one’s spirit uplifting. The song is a non-verbal dialogue between a guy who loves a girl, waiting for her, and wonders about her love for him. The guy is being her harlequin, who hovers close to her, so she could notice him. The guy sees the girl’s good qualities, and true and kind spirit she has. Spirit is considered something that flows in the air, so that is why he wished he could fly and grasp her.
and analyze why he acted as he did. In the end, he fought his intense pride so
By not partaking in social customs or following cultural norms, he expresses revolt.... ... middle of paper ... ... And if we could exemplify the absurd characteristics: revolt, freedom, and pleasure in our lives, we could live life more fully: By revolting against tomorrow, we can come to terms with the present moment.
...is story, Hemingway brings the readers back the war and see what it caused to human as well as shows that how the war can change a man's life forever. We think that just people who have been exposed to the war can deeply understand the unfortunates, tolls, and devastates of the war. He also shared and deeply sympathized sorrows of who took part in the war; the soldiers because they were not only put aside the combat, the war also keeps them away from community; people hated them as known they are officers and often shouted " down with officers" as they passing. We have found any blue and mournful tone in this story but we feel something bitter, a bitter sarcasm. As the war passing, the soldiers would not themselves any more, they became another ones; hunting hawks, emotionless. They lost everything that a normal man can have in the life. the war rob all they have.
Generally culture and self-identities are the first and by far one of the most important aspects that people consider in their lives as they bring meaning to them. People seek to know who they are, where they are coming from and also where they are going. However Huntington said that the very same cultural identities are the primary source of conflict within civilisations. He further says that within people’s journeys of seeking their cultural identities they encounter new but often old identities. In other words they are then marching under new but old flags which then eventually lead to war with their new but old enemies (Huntington, 1996).