Endurance comes under two categories; psychological and physical. Throughout the novel, the soldiers are forced to go through situations that place them out of their comfort zone. Faulks uses the character of Stephen as the protagonist of the novel to effectively express the horrendous devastation of the war, which put the soldier’s endurance to test. Furthermore, Faulks contrasts the themes of love and war throughout the novel and displays the impacts of the war through exploring the psychological and physical effects that it had on the soldiers and their tolerance to it.
The descriptions used by Faulks convey the horrible experience the soldiers had undergone on enlisting to fight for their country. This is demonstrated when Stephen witnesses
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This relates to Birdsong being originally entitled "Flesh and Blood", which are two of the recurring themes in the novel. This reduction of people to flesh is also shown when Stephen and Weir go to the brothel. "He turned the knife so that the blade was in his palm" This highlights the psychological effect war had on the soldiers, so much so the act of killing was now the norm to him and he felt no way about killing someone on command. Similarly, the prostitute becomes "a piece of limp flesh", reinforcing the point of the body being reduced to its physical elements rather than being described in relation to the person. This further shows us how Faulks has war being an exploration of the body and human …show more content…
Practicing these rituals would occupy the soldier's spare time and give them something to believe in, this would also help the soldiers find it a little bit easier to endure the horrors of war. This is similar to the motivation through the love of their families that drives the men to continue. When Jack finds out his son has died, he has more determination to stay alive which causes him to believe he is “immune to death”. This same motivation is evident when the soldiers receive packages and letters from home. Normally, the soldiers would feel very detached from the home front due to their minds being on surviving which meant they “hardly ever thought of home”, so on receiving the packages, the soldiers felt loved, which also helped in giving them an incentive to return back
One of the main points in The Things They Carry, by Tim O’Brien, is that war changes people. This is evident in the behavior of Norman Bowker, Bob “Rat” Kiley, and the character Tim O’Brien. They each started out as kind young men but near the end had become very distraught. These men each shared many experiences but these experiences affected each one differently.
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.
War can destroy a young man mentally and physically. One might say that nothing good comes out of war, but in Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, there is one positive characteristic: comradeship. Paul and his friends give Himmelstoss a beating in which he deserves due to his training tactics. This starts the brotherhood of this tiny group. As explosions and gunfire sound off a young recruit in his first battle is gun-shy and seeks reassurance in Paul's chest and arms, and Paul gently tells him that he will get used to it. The relationship between Paul and Kat is only found during war, in which nothing can break them apart. The comradeship between soldiers at war is what keeps them alive, that being the only good quality to come out of war.
For much of ‘Birdsong’ Stephen is the centre of consciousness and so we witness the impact of the War on his life at a personal level. Faulks’ decision to introduce the character of Stephen before World War One allows us to build a connection with him and it makes the effects of the War more apparent when they occur. The form of a novel allows Faulks to explore these effects over an extended time period. We re-meet Stephen through the eyes of Jack which allows us to understand how Stephen is perceived by the men in the War. Jack describes Stephen as being ‘any age from twenty-five to forty’ which highlights the way in which the War has aged Stephen physically over time and contrasts with the handsome, young man we met earlier. Stephen’s physical suffering is further expressed when he considers that his body is not running on ‘natural energy given by food’ but rather by ‘some nervous chemicals supplied by unknown glands’ which contrasts the natural order of life with the conditions in War. The uncertainty in the statement also indicates that no men have been pushed to these limits before, thus how their bodies functions cannot be naturally or medically understood. These effects are also seen in terms of his mental state, as we quickly forget the passionate young man in place of someone who is disconnected from ordinary life. Stephen’s character has turned cold in terms of his e...
A society, a place, an attitude, an expectation---all of these contribute to a character’s response to threatening forces. Tim’s insecurity ignites in the Cold War, where the world tatters into two extreme ideologies, and “certain blood [is] shed for uncertain reasons”. Tim remains “politically naïve” until one day a draft notice flies into his pocket. He is conscripted to “fight a war he [hates]”---the Vietnam War. Confusion, rage, exasperation freeze his mind: Why me? I am not a hero! I am too good! I hate wars! But all of them melt into a “silent howl” inside his head. Tim’s summer job in a meatpacking plant allows him to envision himself as a soldier. “Standing for eight hours a day under a lukewarm blood shower”, holding a massive water gun, he “[removes] blood clots from the necks of the dead pigs”. The carcasses and the gore evoke the disturbing images of brutal and merciless battles in his mind. His body shivers and sweats run down in his face, as if he is torturing the political enemies, and their blood is splattering everywhere for absurd reasons. When he goes home, Tim is irritated by the obnoxious smell that “...
Another unique aspect to this book is the constant change in point of view. This change in point of view emphasizes the disorder associated with war. At some points during the book, it is a first person point of view, and at other times it changes to an outside third person point of view. In the first chapter of the book, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien writes, “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity (2).
The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger once said “Perjor est bello timor ipse belli”, which translates to: “the dread of war is worse than war itself”. With this quote, Seneca identifies that war has both its physical and mental tolls on its participants. The psychological and emotional scars of war do much more damage to a soldier than the actual physical battles. Tim O’ Brien repeats this idea many years later in his novel “The Things They Carried”, by describing how emotional burdens outweigh the physical loads that those in war must endure. What keeps them alive is the hope that they may one day return home to their loved ones.
War slowly begins to strip away the ideals these boy-men once cherished. Their respect for authority is torn away by their disillusionment with their schoolteacher, Kantorek who pushed them to join. This is followed by their brief encounter with Corporal Himmelstoss at boot camp. The contemptible tactics that their superior officer Himmelstoss perpetrates in the name of discipline finally shatters their respect for authority. As the boys, fresh from boot camp, march toward the front for the first time, each one looks over his shoulder at the departing transport truck. They realize that they have now cast aside their lives as schoolboys and they feel the numbing reality of their uncertain futures.
O’Brien’s unique verisimilitude writing style fills the novel with deep meaning and emotion. Analyzing the novel through a psychological lens only adds to its allure. Understanding why characters act the way they do helps bring this novel to life. The reader begins to empathize with the characters. Every day, the soldiers’ lives hang in the balance. How these soldiers react to life-threatening situations will inspire the reader. Life has an expiration date. Reading about people who are held captive by their minds and who die in the name of war, will inspire the reader to live everyday as if they are currently in the
After an event of large magnitude, it still began to take its toll on the protagonist as they often “carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die” during the war (O’Brien 1187). The travesties that occurred with the brutality of war did not subside and began to affect those involved in a deeply emotional way. The multitude of disastrous happenings influenced the narrator to develop a psychological handicap to death by being “afraid of dying” although being “even more afraid to show it” (O’Brien 1187). The burden caused by the war creates fear inside the protagonist’s mind, yet if he were to display his sense of distress it would cause a deeper fear for those around him, thus making the thought of exposing the fear even more frightening. The emotional battle taking place in the psyche of the narrator is directly repressed by the war.
soldiers and the civilians alike, had it very rough. The conditions were harsh and the
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.
... could not help themselves, they were not going to be helped. If struggle were encountered, men had personalized ways to reconnect with the real world, and if a tragedy were encountered which affected the entire company, they also found a combined way to cope with this pressure. The priorities of men during the war shifted greatly toward emotional connections to people and events other than the war, and it was these connections that helped them survive and return home. Coping with the stress and burden of war is not an easy task for anyone, yet in The Things they Carried, O'Brien depicts men dealing and coping as much as they can, using only their primeval resources. They learn how to cope with the barest necessities in life, and they learn how to make use of the smallest opportunities to obtain the most relief and joy from every moment in life.
The structure of Faulk’s Birdsong allows us to observe the impact of the War upon numerous individuals across the generations. Throughout the novel, even outside the 1914-1918 time-frame, Faulks continues to maintain a link between the past and the present through his use of a number of motifs and themes. The lasting impact of the War suggests that history should never be forgotten, which is the paramount message in Birdsong.