“Ignorance is bliss”. The line from Thomas Gray’s poem, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, published in 1747, has lasted throughout the ages due to its omnipresent applicableness. This is especially seen in the public’s view on war before World War II. Before pictures and news reports from the World Wars were publicized, the United States home front did not see a problem with going to war. All they had heard from the war was propagandize success. However, some people, like poets Carl Sandburg and Nan Braymer, knew the true brutality of war. In Buttons and Five Day Requiem for Vietnam, Sandburg and Braymer both use aggressive diction and imagery to portray different themes; Buttons creates a theme that people are often ignorant to things that are unpleasant, and Five Day Requiem for Vietnam creates a theme that loss of control can lead to anger.
The aggressive diction in Buttons reflects the attitude towards war during World War I. In this time, pictures and information about the brutality of war were just getting out to the public, but most did not pay attention. Sandburg says the buttons, which represented the soldiers, were “shoved” around the map, showing that people were ignorant to the trials of war. If the people at home knew what the soldiers were going through for them, they would be more considerate to the buttons. Even the way the map was “slammed” up onto the board outside the newspaper stand was not showing it the recognition and respect it deserves. Because the people did not understand the unpleasant happenings of World War I, they did not show proper respect to the map and the buttons.
Likewise, Braymer uses aggressive diction in Five Day Requiem for Vietnam to express the anger that the fighting soldie...
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... devices of imagery and aggressive diction, Sandburg and Braymer both create different themes. Sandburg uses the devices to convey that people are often ignorant to that which is unpleasant to hear, and Braymer conveys the theme that loss of control can lead to anger. Even though the poems were written about World War I and Vietnam, the themes created are still seen in human nature today. There is always a problem that people choose to ignore instead of working to improve, and there will always be people lashing out due to manipulation. This reveals how, even with societal developments, human nature will never really change.
Works Cited
"Carl Sandburg Poems - Buttons." Carl Sandburg Poems - Buttons. Andyy Barr Productions, 1998. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.
"Voices Education Project." Nan Braymer: Five Day Requiem for Vietnam. Marilyn Turkovich, n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.
War is cruel. The Vietnam War, which lasted for 21 years from 1954 to 1975, was a horrific and tragic event in human history. The Second World War was as frightening and tragic even though it lasted for only 6 years from 1939 to 1945 comparing with the longer-lasting war in Vietnam. During both wars, thousands of millions of soldiers and civilians had been killed. Especially during the Second World War, numerous innocent people were sent into concentration camps, or some places as internment camps for no specific reasons told. Some of these people came out sound after the war, but others were never heard of again. After both wars, people that were alive experienced not only the physical damages, but also the psychic trauma by seeing the deaths and injuries of family members, friends or even just strangers. In the short story “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” by Bao Ninh about the Vietnam War, and the documentary film Barbed Wire and Mandolins directed by Nicola Zavaglia with a background of the Second World War, they both explore and convey the trauma of war. However, the short story “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” is more effective in conveying the trauma of war than the film Barbed Wire and Mandolins because of its well-developed plot with well-illustrated details, and its ability to raise emotional responses from its readers.
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.
In this chapter, O’Brien contrasts the lost innocence of a young Vietnamese girl who dances in grief for her slaughtered family with that of scarred, traumatized soldiers, using unique rhetorical devices
The powerful poem ‘Weapons Training’ showcases a sergeant, through malicious words, guiding his troops. However it is through ‘Homecoming’, where Dawe exposes the brutal hopelessness brought forth by the futility of war. Therefore it can be seen that war has an emotional toll on both families and the soldiers. Both poems have a recurring message that all war does is bring loss, death and mourning, showcasing Dawes strong opinions about a futile
The Young People of Today, a series of opinion polls conducted among young educated Frenchmen by Henri Massis and Alfred de Tarde find romantic sentiments for war much like von Treitschke. The two authors interviewed a professor who tried to explain that there were in fact unjust wars, however, according to the professor, “the class obviously did not follow me; they rejected that distinction” (Massis and de Tarde 224). Massis and de Tarde go on to write about the many young men who left their high studies to pursue lives as soldiers because for them “it is not enough, for them to learn history: they are making it” (Massis and de Tarde 224).
“…It seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart.”
...ust deal with similar pains. Through the authors of these stories, we gain a better sense of what soldiers go through and the connection war has on the psyche of these men. While it is true, and known, that the Vietnam War was bloody and many soldiers died in vain, it is often forgotten what occurred to those who returned home. We overlook what became of those men and of the pain they, and their families, were left coping with. Some were left with physical scars, a constant reminder of a horrible time in their lives, while some were left with emotional, and mental, scarring. The universal fact found in all soldiers is the dramatic transformation they all undergo. No longer do any of these men have a chance to create their own identity, or continue with the aspirations they once held as young men. They become, and will forever be, soldiers of the Vietnam War.
Various sources of information that were shown throughout the period of this class used different rhetoric strategies that showcased gender, class, ethnicity, and identity in Vietnam. Each source depicted the aforementioned differently, thus also making readers privy to each source's strengths and weaknesses when covering a certain aspect of Vietnam.
In Hedges' first chapter of the book titled, "The Myth of War," he talks about how the press often shows and romanticizes certain aspects of war. In war there is a mythic reality and a sensory reality. In sensory reality, we see events for what they are. In mythic reality, we see defeats as "signposts on the road to ultimate victory" (21), Chris Hedges brings up an intriguing point that the war we are most used to seeing and hearing about (mythic war )is a war completely different than the war the soldiers and journalists experience ( sensory war), a war that hides nothing. He states, "The myth of war is essential to justify the horrible sacrifices required in war, the destruction and death of innocents. It can be formed only by denying the reality of war, by turning the lies, the manipulation, the inhumanness of war into the heroic ideal" (26). Chris Hedges tries to get the point across that in war nothing is as it seems. Through his own experiences we are a...
Wars affect everyone in some way, especially soldiers who fight in them, like those in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. O 'Brien concentrates a lot on the psychological trauma that solders, like himself, confronted before, during, and after the Vietnam War. He also focuses on how they coped with the brutality of war. Some were traumatized to the point where they converted back to primitive instinct. Others were traumatized past the breaking point to where they contemplated suicide and did not fit in. Finally, some soldiers coped through art and ritual.
Some events he depicts with repugnant imagery and others with beautiful and peaceful imagery. This contrast serves to show and tell different perceptions of war. Gruesome imagery is especially present when Rat Kiley releases his anger and grief by harming a baby water buffalo. Rat “shot it twice in the flanks...He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away” (75). Although gruesome imagery used in the above example is a more accurate description of war rather than pleasant imagery, the use of pleasant imagery may appeal to a broader or different audience. O'Brien wants to capture the audience so that his stories are read and understood. For example, when Lemon died, O'Brien writes that “it was almost beautiful.” The reader might be more receptive to the imagery about “the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms” (67), than the true reality of the events. Another example of O'Brien's use of imagery is how he describes the war. He says, “you admire the fluid symmetries of troops on the move, the harmonies of sound and shape and proportion, the great sheets of metal-fire streaming down from a gunship, the illumination rounds, the white phosphorus, the purply orange glow of napalm, the rocket’s red glare” (77).
The two poems about World War 1, ‘The Soldier’ by Rupert Brooke, and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ by Wilfred Owen, each present their views in different ways. World War one started in 1914 and ended after four years. There are two main responses from soldiers. The two approaches have been written each in these poems. Both have similarities and differences. They are conveyed in different ways that affect the reader more at some points and less than others.
This type of writing interests me because it was used as a tool to open people’s eyes to the brutality of war. In a way it protested and spoke up against this injustice and most importantly gave a voice to the people who became the biggest victims of war – the soldiers themselves.
Wilfred Owen can be considered as one of the finest war poets of all times. His war poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, use a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathise with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. The sonnet form, para-rhymes, ironic titles, voice, and various imagery used by Owen grasp the prominent central idea of the complete futility of war as well as explore underlying themes such as the massive waste of young lives, the horrors of war, the hopelessness of war and the loss of religion. These can be seen in the three poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and ‘The Last Laugh’, in which this essay will look into.
Personally, I realized how Sandburg’s poems still possess a decent amount of significance to the world today. I found each of his poems to be powerful because their theme remained relevant and relatable. Cities are being torn down as well as rebuilt into greater ones worldwide. We have the power to create new life and build empires just as we kill and destroy our surroundings.