To understand the concept of The Portrayal of Soldiers in text, here are some connections found between poems, movies and songs about war. These will show common links between the texts and how the authors display their thoughts about soldiers in battle and how war changes people in a negative way, and how there is a lot of unknown about what the soldiers actually feel and see about war.
Rambo: First Blood by Ted Kotcheff and Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen both show the gruesome side of war to show that war is not as it seems and no one should have to witness or be a victim of suffering. This is shown in Rambo throughout the movie when there is any sort action because he is used to the violence from being at war. It is very strongly
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In the song Hero of War the soldiers are being misled into war by the generals making them think that it is all just fun and games, but in reality they are just being sent into a horrible time of their lives that they will probably never forget. This is shown at the very start of the song when the general says “son have you seen the world, well what would you say, if I said that you could? ”. This hooks the soldiers into thinking of a fake reality. Then the general goes on to say “just carry this gun, you’ll even get paid” not telling the soldiers the bad side of the war. The generals do this because if they told the soldiers that it was horrific they would not go. Similarly, in the poem Charge of the Light Brigade where the soldiers do not seem to know what they are getting themselves into as it says in the text “Boldly they rode and well, into the jaws of death”. In the movie First Blood, John Rambo says “It wasn’t my war, you asked me, I didn't ask you”, implying that he did not fully understand what was happening meaning he could have been lied to or …show more content…
This is shown in Hero of War in the last chorus when it says “a hero of war, is that what they see? Just medals and scars, so damn proud of me” as opposed to the other choruses where it says “A hero of war, yeah, that's what I'll be, and when I come home they'll be damn proud of me”. As alike to First Blood, when Rambo gets off the plane and into the airport he is called horrible things. We are told about this in at the end of the movie where he says “and I come back to the world, and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting, calling me a baby killer and all kinds of vile crap”. Ted Kotcheff and Alfred Tennyson are trying to tell us that people should not make assumptions about people unless they have been then and seen what they have seen. This is a good message because it is very true to the world today and how people think that they know the things that people are thinking deep down in their
Over many centuries, Poetry and song has been a way for people to explore their feelings, thoughts and questions about War & Peace. Rupert Brooke's “The Soldier” and Cold Chisel’s “Khe Sanh” provide two different insights into the nature of war. . “The Soldier” conveys a message of bravery for soldiers to go into war and fight while “Khe sanh” conveys a message about post-traumatic stress and the horrible factors of coming back into civilization after war.
Many soldiers who come back from the war need to express how they feel. Many do it in the way of writing. Many soldiers die in war, but the ones who come back are just as “dead.” Many cadets come back with shell shock, amputated arms and legs, and sometimes even their friends aren’t there with them. So during World War I, there was a burst of new art and writings come from the soldiers. Many express in the way of books, poems, short stories and art itself. Most soldiers are just trying to escape. A lot of these soldiers are trying to show what war is really like, and people respond. They finally might think war might not be the answer. This is why writers use imagery, irony and structure to protest war.
The poet Wilfred Owen was one of many poets who were against war. He reflected this idea of anti-war in his poems, one of his poems called “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, mirrors most aspects of war all put together in this short still deep poem. An example of that would be when the speaker stated,” What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”(1) The speaker asks is there any sound that marks our soldier’s death other than the sounds of church bell’s which are mostly rung to represent somebody’s absence? Clearly, the speaker sets anger as the tone of the poem through this question to show that soldier’s death is unremarkable.. The speaker compares the soldiers to a “cattle” which illustrates that soldiers are treated more like animals with no feelings and also shows how they are killed indiscriminately in war. Finally the line ironically contains an iambic pentameter which is a natural rhythm for such dark, grim, dull subject. The two novels, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, and All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, both present a similar idea of how soldiers are killed out there in the front comprehensively and the dehumanization of war towards its soldiers. The first novel is set during the Civil War, and it focuses on the psychological aspects of one soldier named Henry Fleming and how his naive thoughts about war constantly change through the course of the novel. The second novel presents the life of a soldier named Paul Baumer and his friends who were faced with the terribleness of war and how severely it affected their lives. The Red badge of Courage and All Quiet on The Western Front are similar in the way of how the main characters develop through the novel to change from naïve and innocent men ...
Tim O’Brien states in his novel The Things They Carried, “The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can’t help but gape at the awful majesty of combat” (77). This profound statement captures not only his perspective of war from his experience in Vietnam but a collective truth about war across the ages. It is not called the art of combat without reason: this truth transcends time and can be found in the art produced and poetry written during the years of World War I. George Trakl creates beautiful images of the war in his poem “Grodek” but juxtaposes them with the harsh realities of war. Paul Nash, a World War I artist, invokes similar images in his paintings We are Making a New World and The Ypres Salient at Night. Guilaume Apollinaire’s writes about the beautiful atrocity that is war in his poem “Gala.”
Both Stephen Crane's "Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War Is Kind" and Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" use vivid images, diction rich with connotation, similes, and metaphors to portray the irony between the idealized glory of war and the lurid reality of war. However, by looking at the different ways these elements are used in each poem, it is clear that the speakers in the two poems are soldiers who come from opposite ends of the spectrum of military ranks. One speaker is an officer and the other is a foot soldier. Each of the speakers/soldiers is dealing with the repercussions from his own realities of the horror of war based on his duty during the battle.
In Slaughterhouse Five the reader is encouraged to show contempt for war and to abandon all hopes of thinking war as a place where deeds of heroism are and bravery are performed. A character in the novel, Roland Weary, seems to think the very opposite of what Vonnegut is trying to communicate in the novel. He sees war as an adventure, a time for exploration, not as a time where horrible atrocities are committed and where massacres take place. Even army personnel turn on each other. Billy Pilgrim who is being beaten by Roland Weary is saved from death, ironically, when a German patrol finds him. Another bunch of characters that seem to ‘mistake’ war as something fun is the English officers at the POW camp. In the words of Vonnegut, “they made war look stylish, reasonable and fun.” Another interesting thing that Vonnegut does is that he frequently uses the phrase “So it goes,” after every death or mention of dying in the novel. He uses the phrase very often, and after a certain amount of time, it begins to remind the reader that the reader is powerless to stop all the killing that is going on.
In the beginning, the tone conveys the excitement and nationalism of the country in the early days of war. “Bronzed hero's, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory!” The trepidation over war was contagious because they would idolize the soldiers. They had this unrealistic, idea of what would happen to their veterans. Furthermore, they automatically assume that their boys are returning, unharmed physically and
There is a very homoerotic/masculine feel from the opening scene of Rambo III. We are introduced to a ripped and glistening character that looks like he has been bathing in baby oil/tanning oil for the past 48 hours. There is nothing that seems to hurt Rambo as he takes every blow delivered to him in the opening scene. He is also willing to kill countless amounts of Russians in order to save the American general. The game that Rambo learns to play? It is only a physical game played with goat carcass. Rambo is made out to be un-stoppable and even God-like. When Trautman reveals that Rambo is coming to resue him, Zaysen asks Trautman who he thinks Rambo is…God? Trautman replies, “No, God would have mercy…he won’t.” Rambo would rather die than not fight for what he believes in. Even at the end, when all seems lost, he refuses to go down without a fight. His determination to fight is the greatest testament to his masculine identity. The Afghanis respect this and in this sense, Rambo almost becomes a martyr to them. By the end, it almost seems like they aren’t fighting for themselves, but for Rambo! In relation to Jeffords, the “hard-body” physique is clearly present with Stallone’s character as are the narratives of heroism, toughness, strength, etc… in the film which helps to clearly demonstrate the mastery over foreign enemies.
The song "War Pigs," by Black Sabbath, argues the fact that, during the Vietnam War, politicians were willing to start wars and cause destruction because they were not the ones in danger of losing their lives or being injured. The song suggests that the politicians of the 1960's and 1970's started a war for fun, treating soldiers in America's army as "pawns in chess." By the end of the song, the lyrics say that those men and women will get what they deserve when their day of judgment comes.
The reality of war changed many soldiers' lives because of nightmares from firefights and small skirmishes to bombings and atrocities. Many places from Saigon to Khe Sanh are filled with stories from many veterans. A letter from a marine fighting in Khe Sanh said to his Parents "Since we began, we have lost 14 KIA and 44 men WIA. Our company is cut down to half strength, and I think we will be going to Okinawa to regroup. I hope so anyway because I have seen enough of war and its destruction." From the death of close friends any person's emotions would crumble. A normal everyday business person in the shoes of this soldier wouldn't last a day. The experience a soldier goes through will change his view on life forever. This is just showing how it affects people. Seeing death and killing on a daily basis. The random occurrence of death would truly disturb any person. Seeing the death of friends and mangled bodies of South Vietnamese villagers left by Vietcong guerillas, the soldiers were left with the vivid visions of the bodies.
Through reading this poem several times I decided that the message from the poem is that war is full of horror and there is little or no glory. Methods which I found most effective were Full rhyme and metaphor.
The simple definition of war is a state of armed competition, conflict, or hostility between different nations or groups; however war differs drastically in the eyes of naive children or experienced soldiers. Whether one is a young boy or a soldier, war is never as easy to understand as the definition. comprehend. There will inevitably be an event or circumstance where one is befuddled by the horror of war. For a young boy, it may occur when war first breaks out in his country, such as in “Song of Becoming.” Yet, in “Dulce et Decorum Est” it took a man dying in front of a soldier's face for the soldier to realize how awful war truly is. Both “Song of Becoming” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” are poems about people experiencing the monstrosity of war for the first time. One is told from the perspective of young boys who were stripped of their joyful innocence and forced to experience war first hand. The other is from the perspective of a soldier, reflecting on the death of one of his fellow soldiers and realizing that there is nothing he can do to save him. While “Song of Becoming” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” both focus on the theme of the loss of innocence, “Song of Becoming” illustrates how war affects the lives of young boys, whereas “Dulce et Decorum Est” depicts the affect on an experienced soldier.
As a poet, Wilfred Owens wants to show the effects of warfare from the viewpoint of a soldier during a War. Owens uses his own experience as a fighter to capture the reader’s attention and get across his point. He often uses graphic imagery and words to depict his thoughts about war. Wilfred Owens, poems, “Dulce et Decorum est” and “Anthem for doomed youth” talk blatantly about the effects of warfare on the soldiers, their loved ones, and those who make an ultimate sacrifice by making a statement about the efficacy of war.
... Instead of idealizing war in a romantic way, war poets such as Wilfred Owen aimed to expose gruesome truths about these wars and how they impacted lives. It points a finger and criticizes the governments and authorities that wage these wars but don’t fight in them themselves but rather watch as lives are lost. It exposes propaganda for what it is, a tool for brainwashing. It puts into question the notion of dying for ones country to be noble, honourable and admirable.
	The pounding of shells, the mines, the death traps, the massive, blind destruction, the acrid stench of rotting flesh, the communal graves, the charred bodies, and the fear. These are the images of war. War has changed over the centuries from battles of legions of ironclad soldiers enveloped in glimmering armor fighting for what they believe to senseless acts of guerrilla warfare against those too coward to be draft-dodgers. Those who were there, who experienced the terror first hand were deeply effected and changed forever. In their retinas, images of blood and gore are burned for the rest of their life.