Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North explores the depths of human emotion and how far some people will go during times of war. The novel shows that there are many sides to the one story and also how people change with life experiences. Major Tenji Nakamura is a perfect example of this as he is a ruthless officer in charge of the POW camp. But he shows that he is only doing any of this for the honour it will bring him and his empire. On the other side of the coin, there is Dorrigo Evans, who is an Australian surgeon in the POW camp who is only trying to save the men under his care from starvation, cholera, and beatings. The differences between both Evans and Nakamura are quite telling, yet they still manage to mnake it to the …show more content…
same place, although they are on different sides. Yet through all this some people will end up changing. Major Tenji Nakamura, the ruthless officer in charge of the POW camp, is shown to be a man who is only doing what he thinks is a great service to his empire. We get to look into his mind and how he thinks and why he does these things. His perspective is a good way to see that even if he was a Japanese Officer, he was still a man just doing what he thought was right. If I had grown up as Nakamura had, would I be able to say no to serving my country? Would I be able to say that what we are doing is wrong and act against it? A lot of the things he did were distasteful to him but he did them because his honour would not allow him do anything else. His loyalty to his country and respect he had for his empire was what really let him see past all the horrifying things he had done. I would like to think that I would be more compassionate about this sort of thing but would I, if I had seen the things he had, or done the things he had? We all are shaped by our experiences and I think that Nakamura is just saying that there’s really no point in caring for the dead as they are gone and there is really nothing anyone can do about that. Nakamura’s rationale for being as hard as he is and following all the orders he has been given can be summed up into this simple quotation. It is not through need or want to harm anyone really, but the honour of serving his Emperor. As the Japanese see the Emperor as being divine and above all of humanity. The readers first meeting with Dorrigo Evans is as a 77 year old man years after the war, when he is The reader is then taken on a quick journey throughout Evans’ childhood and growing up years, and then a bit about his love for his Uncles young wife, Amy, who he is immediately drawn to.
He is then shipped off to war and surrenders to the Japanese and is sent to one of the POW camps in the middle of the jungle to build “The Line”
It isn’t until the reader is introduced to the Dorrigo Evans of the POW camp that we get any sense of his person.
One telling scene is when Major Nakamura has taken over for the day with building the railway and they are trying to agree on a number of workers for the day. Evans continuously tries to lower the number but Nakamura keeps raising the number. With a lot of fear but pure courage, Evans continues to ask for a lower number of people, saying that they are too sick to work and that continuous labour will kill them. His compassion for the men under his care is astounding and I cannot say I could do the same, I would be too scared to stand up to an officer of a POW camp as Evans did. Both Evans and Nakamura’s reasoning behind joining the war effort are quite different, yet they still manage to get to the same spot in
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time. Different upbringings in different societies can shape the way someone thinks about life and how they will go about many things. Nakamuras upbringing would have taught him to respect authorities, to value the honour of the Empire above all else and to live and serve his country. Evans’ upbringing would have taught him to respect and to love his country. It isn’t until the last part of the book that we at all see a change in this sort of thinking, mainly on Nakamuras part. This alone shows the sort of changes that Nakamura had undergone after the war. You still see the hard man that he was, but you get the sense that some of his thinking has changed. Life experiences dictate what you do and where you go and going through a war and coming out still breathing is what shaped Nakamura. Evans on the other hand never got to see his lady love for another fifteen years after the war. He ended up marrying someone he didn’t love and not having the greatest life after the war. He always thought that what he did during the war was right, but he was still scarred and had nightmares of his time. These two emotionally scarred individuals, who have been through hell and back, show that war can change people and can show that no matter what your story, no matter where you come from and who you are, your experiences in life are truly what shape you. War can change people.
That’s a fact. This novel truly shows that. It shows how even if you are hard, ruthless Japanese officer like Nakamura who believes in the honour of his country, you can still have your views changed. He talked about how everything could have been a “mask” for the most terrible evil and he very well could have been right. People change after war and Jonathan Teplitzky’s The Railway Man is a film that shows this as well. The viewer will see the protagonist, Lomax, trying to get retribution for the crimes committed against him yet when he finally tracks him down he is to discover that his torturer had a normal job working as a railway man. It is from there that he decides that retribution isn’t the way to go. This is what Flanagan has done with his characters. By making them so absolute in the beginning and then tearing that down by the end and showing them to be more vulnerable to change, like everyone else, he humanises them and that is the true art behind Flanagan’s work. I can say that experiences in life have changed me. I, in my short life, have experienced some pain and some loss, not to the extent of any of these characters, but still a little. Loss can make people grow up and look at themselves, and face their own mortality. As Morrie Schwartz said “…death is the great equaliser…”, which basically means that when we die, everybody becomes equal so just take life as it comes and live life to its
fullest. Flanagans novel will argue that there are two sides to one story and that war can change people along the way. Flanagan explores what it takes for people to change in trying situations and what they will be like on the other side. Nakamuras journey from hardened, ruthless officer in charge of a POW camp to his realisation that maybe what they were doing was ‘evil’. Evans shows that, though we perceive him to be the ‘good guy’, he was never the perfect person. Helping with the affair of his uncle’s young wife, Amy, who he was in love with. The different life experiences that shape each and every one of the characters in this novel and the way in which Flanagan portrays them is truly an art form. The novel shows the reader the many sides to one story and how people can come through it in the end. It shows that people can change in very different ways and that the way they are brought up and their experiences are what truly define a person.
The war had a lot of emotional toll on people it destroyed their personal identity, their moral/humanity, the passion to live was lost and the PDS they will suffer post war, resulting in the soldiers to understand what war is really about and what is covered up. There are scenes that support the thesis about the war like "As for the rest, they are now just names without faces or faces without names." Chapter 2, p. 27 which show how the soldiers have emotional detached themselves from life. Also, when the novel says “I saw their living mouths moving in conversation and their dead mouths grinning the taut-drawn grins of corpses. Their living eyes I saw, and their dead eyes still-staring. Had it not been for the fear that I was going crazy, I would have found it an interesting experience, a trip such as no drug could possibly produce. Asleep and dreaming, I saw dead men living; awake, I saw living men dead.” Which to me again shows how the soldiers are change throughout the war losing the moral and humanity. Lastly what he says “ I’m not scared of death anymore and don 't care whether I live of die” is the point where I notice Phillips change in
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.
Timothy Findley Creates a fictional world through his novels, where readers can relate to the situations and characters. The protagonists that Findley creates are often similar and connected to the hardships that they eventually encounter and defeat or that which they are defeated by. Findley takes his readers back in time to the First World War, displaying his knowledge of history and research, where the hardships of a young soldier’s battles internally and externally are brought to the reader’s attention in his historical-fiction novel The Wars. Findley writes about the reality and absurdity of the First World War, and takes the reader’s on a journey through the active reading process to find what is “sane” and “Insane” throughout the duration of the novel. Following the journey of the protagonist, Robert Ross as he enlists in the Canadian Army after the death of his sister Rowena, and undoubtedly is the turning point of the text and ideally where Findley initiates the active reading process, and where the contents placed in the story by Findley, are analyzed and opinionated based on the reader’s perception and subjectivity of truth. Essayist Anne Reynolds writes “ Findley manages, through technical prowess, to combine Hemingway-like choices of clear moment searing horror and truth at the battlefront with scenes depicting the effects of war on the families and lovers of the soldiers.” (Reynolds, 4) According to Reynolds Findley has been able to display the absurdity and affect that not only the First World War has caused but the ludicrousness war in general has caused the families of soldiers, and society as a whole. Using the literary theory of deconstruction many aspects and scenarios in The Wars can be analyzed, as Fin...
Imagine being in an ongoing battle where friends and others are dying. All that is heard are bullets being shot, it smells like gas is near, and hearts race as the times go by. This is similar to what war is like. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator, Paul Baumer, and his friends encounter the ideals of suffering, death, pain, and despair. There is a huge change in these men; at the beginning of feel the same way about it. During the war the men experience many feelings, especially the loss of loved ones. These feelings are shown through their first experience at training camp, during the actual battles, and in the hospital. Training camp was the first actuality of what war was going to be like for the men. They thought that it would be fun, and they could take pride in defending their country. Their teacher, Kantorek, told them that they should all enroll in the war. Because of this, almost all of the men in the class enrolled. It was in training camp that they met their cruel corporal, Himelstoss.&nbs most by him. They have to lie down in the mud and practice shooting and jumping up. Also, these three men must remake Himelstoss’ bed fourteen times, until it is perfect. Himelstoss puts the young men through so much horror that they yearn for their revenge. Himelstoss is humiliated when he goes to tell on Tjaden, and Tjaden only receives an easy punishment. Training camp is as death and destruction. Training camp is just a glimpse of what war really is. The men do not gain full knowledge of war until they go to the front line. The front line is the most brutal part of the war. The front line is the place in which the battles are fought. Battles can only be described in one word- chaos. Men are running around trying to protect themselves while shooting is in the trench with an unknown man from the other side. This battle begins with shells bursting as they hit the ground and machine guns that rattle as they are being fired. In order to ensure his survival, Paul must kill the other man. First, Paul stabs the man, but he struggles for his life. He dies shortly after, and Paul discovers who he has killed. The man is Gerald Duval, a printer.&n Having to deal with killing others is one of the horrors of war. The men who are killed and the people who kill them could have been friends, if only they were on the same side. The other important battle leaves both Paul and Kropp with injuries.
Throughout the battle, you see numerous Army Values and Warrior Ethos being used. “I will never leave a fallen comrade”, was the etho used the most, to reach the separated platoon. The battle also shows that not all tactical orders are effective, but as a leader you must never second guess yourself.
Robert Ross’ is introduced to characters with varying outlooks on the world, based on their own social and economic backgrounds. The soldiers around Robert Ross differ greatly,...
prison camp by the Japanese. Only a year later were they safe in American arms
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” – Mark Twain. You only live once, and life is disastrously short. It 's anything but difficult to take a gander at individuals who are cheerful and accept they don 't comprehend your torment. The more established you get, the more you understand that joy takes work. Individuals who grin out in the open have been through just as much as individuals who cry, glare, shout, and so forth. They simply have the fearlessness and quality to grin through it. The loss and survival of many Germans and Jews during world war two affects people tremendously. These tragedies are part of Markus Zusak
The novel All Quiet On The Western Front contains many incidents where the readers can hold characters responsible for their actions, however his novel in particular relates to the clash of values. Though fictional this novel by Erich Maria Remarque, presents vast detail through the conflicts at the Western Front. Corporal Himmelstoss a character in the novel is portrayed as a stereotypical military man, whose actions, when all's said and done, speaks for itself as the reader really does not question his iniquitous behaviour. However, apart from just the reader holding such characters morally accountable for their actions the novel concerns the rejection of traditional values, Paul’s disillusionment, and life opposed to death. Through such clashing of values, Remarque creates a confronting novel where the plot is for the most part articulated around values in conflict.
John Keegan, the author of “The Face of Battle” is allowing the reader to view different perspective of history, from the eyes of the soldier. Although by his own account, Keegan acknowledges, “I have never been in a battle. And I grow increasingly convinced that I have very little idea of what a battle can be like.” Keegan scorns historians for pointing the finger of failure after an evolution occurs and not examining the soldier’s point of view while the battle is transpiring.
Many of Remarque’s ideas expressed in All Quiet on the Western Front were not completely new. Remarque emphasized things that portrayed the magnitude of issues soldiers face, and how the physical body and senses affects their emotional well-being. The ideas in All Quiet in the Western Front of not knowing the difference between sleep and death, seeing gruesome sights of people, and frustration towards people who cannot sympathize with soldiers, are also shown in Siegfried Sassoon’s “The Dug-Out”, Giuseppe Ungaretti’s “Vigil”, and Sassoon's’ “Suicide in the Trenches”.
The two classic war novels ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque and ‘Catch 22’ by Joseph Heller both provide a graphic insight into the life of soldiers serving their country in the historic world wars. One distinct theme of interest found in both books, is the way in which war has physically and mentally re-shaped the characters. Remarque creates the character Paul Baümer, a young soldier who exposes anxiety and PTSD (commonly known as Shellshock) through his accounts of WW1’s German army. ‘Catch 22’ however, is written in the third person and omnisciently explores insanity and bureaucracy in an American Bombardier Squadron through its utter lack of logic. The two novels use their structure, characters, symbolism and setting to make a spectacle of the way war re-shapes the soldiers.
From sunrise to sunset, day after day, war demolishes men, cities, and hope. War has an effect on soldiers like nothing else, and sticks with them for life. The damage to a generation of men on both sides of the war was inestimable. Both the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and the poem “I Have a Rendezvous with Death,” by Alan Seeger, demonstrate the theme of a lost generation of men, mentally and physically, in war through diction, repetition, and personification.
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.
Tony Palmer, the author of “Break of Day”, tells a story that takes place in and out of war. The story follows a man named Murray Barrett who lives in the times of ww2. He ends up finding himself in the middle of it, down at Port Moresby. During the midst of war, Murray ends up coming across an injured Sid Archer, a childhood enemy and the man who stole Will’s (Murray’s older brother) childhood lover. Murray helps Sid instead of abandoning him, despite their childhood drama. In this book, Palmer really focuses on the themes of family, death, and bravery. He presents to us how complicated families can get, how people deal with death differently from others, and how there are many forms of bravery.