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A tale of two cities, the two main characters
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A tale of two cities
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The author of “The Shatterer of Worlds” is very effective at creating a strong atmosphere that supports his theme. The author, Kildare Dobbs uses character and language to establish a powerful atmosphere and support his theme. Dobbs states that war is one of the worst actions a country can engage in, and therefore a nation must be careful about entering war. By using character and language the author is able to create a horrific atmosphere throughout the short story. Kildare Dobbs uses both Emiko, an innocent Japanese girl who survived the atomic bomb, and the himself to create a horrific atmosphere throughout the short story. At the beginning of the short story Emiko is portrayed as a typical Japanese girl, “Fragile and vivacious, versed in the gentle traditions of the tea ceremony and flower arrangement” (Dobbs 69). Emiko does not know what is to come of her day in Hiroshima when she says goodbye to her sister, Hideko for the last time. By portraying Emiko as a traditional fifteen year old Japanese girl on her way to school, Dobbs emphasizes the idea that no matter how big or sm...
Kurt Vonnegut, a modern American writer, composed stories about fictional situations that occurred in futuristic versions of today’s world. His stories included violence, both upon oneself and one another, and characters who sought out revenge. In “2BR02B” and “Harrison Bergeron”, Vonnegut conveys physical violence most likely experienced while a prisoner of World War 2, as a way to show how war brings pain and destruction.
The crises to which this work responds was the total annihilation of Hiroshima and the aftershock experienced by those left behind. Those who witnessed this devastation were left to make sense of it, and then attempt to carry on with their lives. Aki had temporarily managed to go on with her life until she went to visit her friend Tomiko. At her friends house she saw "two small jars"that contained "fetuses that had been miscarried"( Takenishi 1895), most likely an after affect of being exposed to the bomb. The sight of these fetuses must have stirred some deeply buried feelings, because shortly afterwards, Aki started to have very disturbing flashbacks and dreams of the devastating event that took place during her childhood. Through these dreams and flashbacks it becomes apparent that Aki is unable to acquire any closure regarding this horrible event. This feeling of deficiency could be, in part, attributed to her feeling that there was a shameful lack of consideration shown for the "rites" owed to those who died. In her eyes they were never properly laid to rest; Therefore they" will not rest in peace" (Takenishi 18...
The character, Miss Sasaki, who was left trapped, disabled and severely injured, by the dropping of the bomb suffered more in the long haul, from the emotional impact than just the physical destruction alone. Not only was she physically disabled, but also emotionally disabled, as the overwhelming feeling of being hopeless is a permanent psychological scar on the brain. Being unable to walk properly for the remainder of her life, Miss Sasaki, knew that she would no longer be able to provide for her family anymore; in Japanese cultural the honor of their family is of utmost importance, similar in nature to radical religious groups. Also of Japanese cultural priorities, were that of marriage. In Japan, women who were married were looked upon with higher statue and class. Miss Sasaki knew that her chances of getting married now had been reduced and for a woman of this time, that realization, also leaves damaged emotional baggage within herself. All of the aforementioned, left Miss Sasaki depressed for years to come and ultimately left her a permanent emotional scar affecting the rest of her life. By including the accounts of Miss Sasaki, in this book, John Hersey, exposes to the readers, that atomic warfare not only affects the human body physically for years to come but also
Storm of Steel provides a memoir of the savagery and periods of beauty that Ernst Jünger’s experienced while serving the German army during the First World War. Though the account does not take a clear stand, it lacks any embedded emotional effects or horrors of the Great War that left so few soldiers who survived unaffected. Jünger is very straightforward and does remorse over any of his recollections. The darkness of the hallucinations Jünger reports to have experienced provides subtle anti-war sentiment. However, in light of the descriptive adventures he sought during the brief moments of peace, the darkness seems to be rationalized as a sacrifice any soldier would make for duty and honor in a vain attempt for his nation’s victory. The overall lack of darkness and Jünger’s nonchalance about the brutality of war is enough to conclude that the account in Storm of Steel should be interpreted as a “pro” war novel; however, it should not be interpreted as “pro” violence or death.
In the book Hiroshima, author paints the picture of the city and its residents' break point in life: before and after the drop of the "Fat Boy". Six people - six different lives all shattered by the nuclear explosion. The extraordinary pain and devastation of a hundred thousand are expressed through the prism of six stories as they seen by the author. Lives of Miss Toshiko Sasaki and of Dr. Masakazu Fujii serve as two contrasting examples of the opposite directions the victims' life had taken after the disaster. In her "past life" Toshiko was a personnel department clerk; she had a family, and a fiancé. At a quarter past eight, August 6th 1945, the bombing took her parents and a baby-brother, made her partially invalid, and destroyed her personal life. Dr. Fujii had a small private hospital, and led a peaceful and jolly life quietly enjoying his fruits of the labor. He was reading a newspaper on the porch of his clinic when he saw the bright flash of the explosion almost a mile away from the epicenter. Both these people have gotten through the hell of the A-Bomb, but the catastrophe affected them differently. Somehow, the escape from a certain death made Dr. Fujii much more self-concerned and egotistic. He began to drown in self-indulgence, and completely lost the compassion and responsibility to his patients.
during the war. This novel is able to portray the overwhelming effects and power war has
When the war breaks out, this tranquil little town seems like the last place on earth that could produce a team of vicious, violent soldiers. Soon we see Jim thrown into a completely contrasting `world', full of violence and fighting, and the strong dissimilarity between his hometown and this new war-stricken country is emphasised. The fact that the original setting is so diversely opposite to that if the war setting, the harsh reality of the horror of war is demonstrated.
War novels often depict a war hero facing off against an enemy, with a winner on the other side. However, Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse Five takes an opposite approach to the telling of a war story. The narrator uses the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, to display his own anti-war sentiment. Vonnegut’s style of writing as well as his characters help to portray the effect of war on individuals and society as a whole.
The non-fiction book Hiroshima by John Hersey is an engaging text with a powerful message in it. The book is a biographical text about lives of six people Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamura, Father Kleinsorge, Dr. Sasaki and Rev. Tanimoto in Hiroshima, Japan and how their lives completely changed at 8:15 on the 6th of August 1945 by the dropping of the first atomic bomb. The author, John Hersey, through his use of descriptive language the in book Hiroshima exposes the many horrors of a nuclear attack.
Throughout their lives, people must deal with the horrific and violent side of humanity. The side of humanity is shown through the act of war. This is shown in Erich Remarque’s novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”. War is by far the most horrible thing that the human race has to go through. The participants in the war suffer irreversible damage by the atrocities they witness and the things they go through.
Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five; or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is, as suggested by the title, a novel describing a crusade that stretches beyond the faint boundaries of fiction and crosses over into the depths of defogged reality. This satirical, anti-war piece of literature aims to expose, broadcast and even taunt human ideals that support war and challenge them in light of their folly. However, the reality of war, the destruction, affliction and trauma it encompasses, can only be humanly described by the word “war” itself. Furthermore, oftentimes this term can only be truly understood by those who have experienced it firsthand. Therefore, in order to explain the unexplainable and humanize one of the most inhumane acts, Vonnegut slants the hoarse truth about war by extrapolating it to a fantasy world. Through this mixture of history, reality and fantasy, Vonnegut is able to “more or less” describe what he believes truly happens in war yet, at the same time, reveal a greater truth about humanity's self-destructive war inertness. Vonnegut's use of fantasy in Slaughterhouse-Five unveils mundane war misconceptions as it rallies action against war through a comparison and contrast between the Tralfamadorian world and philosophy and Billy Pilgrim's existence and war experiences.
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.
Earnest Hemmingway once said "Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime." (Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference) War is a gruesome and tragic thing and affects people differently. Both Vonnegut and Hemmingway discus this idea in their novels A Farewell to Arms and Slaughterhouse Five. Both of the novels deal not only with war stories but other genres, be it a science fiction story in Vonnegut’s case or a love story in Hemingway’s. Despite all the similarities there are also very big differences in the depiction of war and the way the two characters cope with their shocking and different experiences. It is the way someone deals with these tragedies that is the true story. This essay will evaluate how the main characters in both novels deal with their experiences in different ways.
Jones, Peter G, War and the Novelist: Appraising the American war Novel. University of Missouri Press, 1976. 5-6. Rpt. in Literary Themes for Students, War and Peace. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 2006. 449-450. Print.
Unique in style and content, the novel explores the emotions of a young Civil War recruit named Henry Fleming. What is most remarkable about this classic is that the twenty-four-year-old author had never witnessed war in his life before writing this book. Crane's story developed to some degree out of his reading of war stories by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy and the popular memoirs of Civil War veterans, yet he also deviated from these influences in his depiction of war's horror. Critics have noted that his portrait of war is an intensely psychological one, blending elements of naturalism, impressionism, and symbolism. Indeed, he broke away from his American realist contemporaries, including his mentor William Dean Howells, in his naturalistic treatment of man as an amoral creature in a deterministic world.