Kyle Henderson
Mrs. Stein
Junior English Honors
4/3/17
Season in Purgatory
Thesis Statement: Through multiple stylistic elements including similes and metaphors as well as extreme scenes of gore, Thomas Keneally shows how a war experience can bring out extreme emotion and create bonds that will never be broken between humans.
Topic Sentence 1: While using scenes of extreme gore, Thomas Keneally shows the reader exactly why war is one of the most life changing experiences a human can go through.
Quote 1: “While riding back in the truck, there was sheer silence as they all knew they would never be the same” (Keneally 92).
Analysis 1: This quote came when Pelham and a couple of his associates went to the market to buy some supplies, and on the way back they witnessed multiple german soldiers brutally beat and kill a young Yugoslavian woman that was accused of stealing. While this scene does not have extreme gore, it did manage to change Pelham’s life. This is one of many examples throughout Season in Purgatory where Keneally shows how going through a war experience can change a human's life.
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Quote 2: “The young soldier fell to his knees as blood began to pour out of his chest.
He couldn’t have been more than sixteen” (Keneally 172).
Analysis 2: This quote came during the end battle scene when Pelham was wounded and hiding under a cot in the trauma wing in the hospital. This is clearly a gore filled part of the story, and Keneally does this in order to show the reader just how awful and life changing a combat war experience truly
is. Topic Sentence 2: Through multiple stylistic elements including similes and metaphors, Thomas Keneally explores the emotional toll that can be taken on a human in a war setting. Quote 1: “It occurred to him that he was in hell, that there was no one around him who was not a monster” (Kenneally 103). Analysis 1: This quote comes at a pivotal part of the story as David Pelham and his associates in his hospital were attacked by german soldiers. David created the hospital for the wounded along with his lover Moja Javich, and 10 partisan soldiers who were sent to protect the hospital along with cooks and housekeepers. The hospital was located just outside Yugoslavian war zones, and it was in german territory. The quote comes after the battle had ended and Pelham had seen multiple get shot and killed. He went on to say that he thought they were in hell and everyone around him were monsters and killers. This shows the emotional toll that war takes on a human because it has caused Pelham, who is a courageous and brave war doctor, to think that he is in hell. He goes on to pray that the war will soon come to an end. This quote is also a stylistic element of Thomas Keneally's writing because it is one of his multiple metaphors as he compares everyone around him to monsters without using the words like or as. Quote 2: “When she was gone, it felt like a part of me went with her, like an angel leaving a corpse” (Keneally 183) Analysis 2: This part of the story was when David Pelham had found out that the love of his life, Moja Javich, had been forced to leave the hospital by order of the partisan army. This was because word had gotten out about their affair. So, this was obviously a very emotional time for Pelham as he didn’t know if he would ever see her again. He explains how he felt emotionally by using the simile in the quote. Similes are very useful to stories because they can help the reader understand the characters emotions by making wise comparisons while using the words like or as.
... At first he thinks they are out of breath but then he realizes they are wounded or even dead. Luther avoids the men on the ground, even if it is someone he knows because for some reason he thinks death could somehow be contagious. One last example of the inhumanity of war is when Forrest breaks through the Union lines at the Battle of Fallen Timber. Forrest grabs a Union solder and uses his body as a shield.
The three narratives “Home Soil” by Irene Zabytko, “Song of Napalm” by Bruce Weigl, and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen all have the same feelings of war and memory, although not everyone experiences the same war. Zabytko, Weigl, and Owen used shifting beats, dramatic descriptions, and intense, painful images, to convince us that the horror of war far outweighs the devoted awareness of those who fantasize war and the memories that support it.
It is apparent that the topic of war is difficult to discuss among active duty soldiers and civilians. Often times, citizens are unable to understand the mental, physical, and physiological burden service members experience. In Phil Klay’s Ten Kliks South, the narrator struggles to cope with the idea that his artillery team has killed enemy forces. In the early stages of the story, the narrator is clearly confused. He understands that he did his part in firing off the artillery rounds, yet he cannot admit to killing the opposition. In order to suppress his guilt and uncertainty, our narrator searches for guidance and reassurance of his actions. He meets with an old gunnery sergeant and during their conversation, our narrator’s innocence
Tom Brokaw’s use of the stylistic element of imagery is one of his many methods of compelling the reader to understand that “the greatest generation” is, undeniably, great. His picturesque approach gives the reader a mental image of the great hardships that these heroes surmounted through their hard work and dedication.
War is often thought about as something that hardens a soldier. It makes a person stronger emotionally because they are taught not show it and deal with it internally. People say that death in war is easier to handle because it is for the right reasons and a person can distance themselves from the pain of losing someone. However, there is always a point when the pain becomes too real and it is hard to maintain that distance. In doing so, the story disputes the idea that witnessing a traumatic event causes a numbing or blockage of feelings. Rat Kiley’s progression of sentiment began with an initial concern for the buffalo, transforming into an irate killing of the animal, and then ending with an ultimate acceptance of death. These outward displays of feeling suggested that witnessing the death of a close friend caused him to become emotionally involved in the war.
By incorporating this sense of failure into fictional events, O'Brien is able to communicate the true human emotion behind the story, rather than just the facts. Above and beyond a simple set of war stories, The Things They Carried reduces fiction to the very heart of why stories are told the way they are. Works Cited:.. O'Brien, Tim. A.
...c, and Patty Campbell. War Is…Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk About War. Cambridge: Candlewick, 2008. Print.
As can be seen, Paul Boyer, Tim O’Brien, and Kenneth W. Bagby, convey the notion that war affects the one’s self the most. Through the use of literary devices: tone, mood, pathos, and imagery, these 3 authors portray that war affects a person’s self most of all. War is not only a battle between two opposing sides, but it can also be a mental conflict created within a person. Although war is able to have an effect on physical relationships between family, friends, or even society, conflict within oneself is the most inevitable battle one must face during war times.
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.
One of the worst things about war is the severity of carnage that it bestows upon mankind. Men are killed by the millions in the worst ways imaginable. Bodies are blown apart, limbs are cracked and torn and flesh is melted away from the bone. Dying eyes watch as internal organs are spilled of empty cavities, naked torso are hung in trees and men are forced to run on stumps when their feet are blown off. Along with the horrific deaths that accompany war, the injuries often outnumber dead men. As Paul Baumer witnessed in the hospital, the injuries were terrifying and often led to death. His turmoil is expressed in the lines, “Day after day goes by with pain and fear, groans and death gurgles. Even the death room I no use anymore; it is too small.” The men who make it through the war take with them mental and physical scarification from their experiences.
Birdy, who is a new soldier, fears that he will end up dead during the war. He said,“Then I realized that it was the noise, the constant booming, that just filled my guts with a trembling sensation. I knew if I heard the boom I was safe because whatever had exploded hadn't hit me. But it was the idea that at any moment it could be all over, that I could be dead or lie in the sand twisting in agony, that filled me with a terror that I hadn't known before. Terror. It wasn't just being scared. It was a feeling that was taking me over. I knew it but I hoped no one else saw it,” (Myers 71). This description of Birdy's fear develops the idea that in Iraq, surviving emotionally during the war is important to be alive. Walter Dean Myers wants the reader
Although a great deal of physical effects exist in Emeny’s work, the spiritual consequences of war serve as the most devastating ones. The will and spirit of those amidst the harshness of war diminishes because of the seriousness of war. Prior to the complexities of war, the “spirit flees gleefully to the clouds,” ( ) illustrating the freedom one expresses without repression. As soon as the “wire catches,” ( ) or the war commences, and intervenes with the lives of innocent bystanders, the innocence is lost. Furthermore, the hearts of the untainted human beings experience demolition due to the irrationality of war. Before the tragedy of war enters the picture, a heart “goes openly to the street,” ( ) showing the freedom that one possesses until the “wire snares,” ( ) and the sense of innocence disappears. Significantly, as a direct result of the entanglement of war, man’s mind suffers pain and misfortune. A man’s mind “grows in searching” ( ) preceding the brutality of war, exhibiting the ability of man to explore his surroundings without interference.
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, written by the talented author Chris Hedges, gives us provoking thoughts that are somewhat painful to read but at the same time are quite personal confessions. Chris Hedges, a talented journalist to say the least, brings nearly 15 years of being a foreign correspondent to this book and subjectively concludes how all of his world experiences tie together. Throughout his book, he unifies themes present in all wars he experienced first hand. The most important themes I was able to draw from this book were, war skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a constant battle between death and love.
Lawrence Hill Books, c2009 Bracken, Patrick and Celia Petty (editors). Rethinking the Trauma of War. New York, NY: Save the Children Fund, Free Association Books, Ltd, 1998.
People look at war scenes as being like a dollhouse you can just reach in a clean up real fast. It’s like you want to make all the bad things go away, like a bad dream. The author wants us to realize that it is much more than that it doesn’t just go away when you want it to. Like for instance, “just the broken furniture in the street, a shoe among the cinder blocks, a light snow falling” (26-28). These streets are where his home was, now they are covered in the remains of what was his home, and the air is covered in the ashes from the bombing. In life you don’t just get to reach inside the dollhouse and pick up the fallen piece, it’s