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Child development in our society today
Child development in our society today
Child development in our society today
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Must you have battle in your heart forever? The bloody toil of combat? --Homer, The Odyssey Shortly after the publication of his memoir, This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff addressed the topic of Vietnam. When asked about the influence of Vietnam in This Boy’s Life, Wolff responded that he “wanted the reader to be aware very early on that this boyhood is a progression to a place. That the boyhood obsession with weapons has a terminus somewhere, that it ends in war. There’s a logical progression in the kind of life that boys are encouraged to lead and dream of in this country. There’s a lot of violence in the book- a lot of male violence. That kind of thing all goes somewhere.” For Toby, Wolff’s younger self, that “kind of thing” led to Vietnam. Sociologist James W. Loewen names the process through which boys are encouraged to dream of going to war “heroification.” Heroification works because our educational media and the media in general turn flesh-and-blood individuals into pious, perfect heroes without conflicts, suffering, or complications. According to Loewen, this process implies that the purpose of teaching history is to disguise the truth because people don’t want complicated icons. Instead, the purpose of teaching history as stated by Richard Gross, former president of the National Council for the Social Studies, is to “develop in the young such traits as character, morals, ethics, and good citizenship.” To do this, the media and education create mythological figures out of men, turning them into symbols of these desired traits. As a result, the complex, often painful realities of real people become muffled “under a blanket of nostalgic adulation.” Toby and his friends, for example, watch war documentaries and fantasize about becoming soldiers. Yet, they seem painfully oblivious to the disturbing realities of the men they want to emulate. In this way, This Boy’s Life reflects the heroification process at work through a young boy’s obsession and adulation of the war hero. More importantly, in This Boy’s Life Wolff breaks down this myth-making function through his depictions of the damaged men who more than a decade later still felt the emotional ripples from WWII. This is a story that is different from the surface narrative of nostalgia, one with more shades of sorrow and anger mixed with youthful idolatry. The WWII generation is sometimes referred ... ... middle of paper ... ...gher than the sentimental tributes portray. It is hardly surprising that boys like Toby who dreamed of battle were unprepared for the reality of war, since the real problems of their parents’ generation were eclipsed by “nostalgic adulation” of myth-like heroes. In the words of Tobias Wolff, “I went into the army…. It seemed to me when I got there that this was where I had been going all along, and where I might still redeem myself. All I needed was a war. Careful what you pray for.” There may be times when war is necessary, but if we send soldiers into harm’s way, then ideally our youth should be under no illusions about what that means and that the repercussions are felt long after the fighting stops. Works Cited Brokaw, Tom. The Greatest Generation. New York: Random House, 2004. Print. Childers, Thomas. Soldier From The War Returning. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 2009. Print Lyons, Oliver, and Bill Bonnie. "An Interview with Tobias Wolff." Contemporary Literature. 31.1 (1990): 1-16. Web. 12 Feb. 2012. Mathews, Tom. Our Father’s War: Growing Up in the Shadow of The Greatest Generation. New York: Broadway Books, 2005. Print
In the story “Home Soil” by Irene Zabytko, the reader is enlightened about a boy who was mentally and emotionally drained from the horrifying experiences of war. The father in the story knows exactly what the boy is going through, but he cannot help him, because everyone encounters his or her own recollection of war. “When their faces are contorted from sucking the cigarette, there is an unmistakable shadow of vulnerability and fear of living. That gesture and stance are more eloquent than the blood and guts war stories men spew over their beers” (Zabytko 492). The father, as a young man, was forced to reenact some of the same obligations, yet the father has learne...
The Young People of Today, a series of opinion polls conducted among young educated Frenchmen by Henri Massis and Alfred de Tarde find romantic sentiments for war much like von Treitschke. The two authors interviewed a professor who tried to explain that there were in fact unjust wars, however, according to the professor, “the class obviously did not follow me; they rejected that distinction” (Massis and de Tarde 224). Massis and de Tarde go on to write about the many young men who left their high studies to pursue lives as soldiers because for them “it is not enough, for them to learn history: they are making it” (Massis and de Tarde 224).
However, with war imagination, boys are creating their boundaries rather than moving on. For example, in “Rites of Passage”, the speaker noticed that the son and his friends had become “like Generals, they relax and get down to/playing war” (Olds 24-25). This explains that even though they are young, they act mature without overcoming their wrestling game which prevents them from growing up. Similarly, boys believe they are capable of becoming generals. For example, in “Boys” while they played dangerous war game, the speaker and his friends imagined themselves, “We were the generals – we ran the war” (Tilley 5). This demonstrates that their imagination enthusiasm them to become General along with their war game. Because of that, they are unable to stop their game and move on to develop their mature men. This poem emphasizes that as long as they develop their war imagination and interest of war, boys will not be able to grow up. They will have to advance their ego from their juvenile to realize that their war imagination is impossible to become a mature
This story brings back some harsh truths about warfare, and explains why so many naïve young men joined up, only to suffer deaths well before their time.
In the beginning of the short story, the young boy is already imprinted with the ideas of war from his father. His father was a former soldier who “had fought against naked savages and followed the flag of his country..” (Bierce 41). The image of war that is imprinted on the young boy from his father is that of nobility and righteous that comes from war.
Therefore through evaluating and comparing each author’s work we will see how each is utilizing this intermingling effect between conflict and innocence to reveal how the horrors of war can affect individuals mentally. To relate how the authors accomplish this effect we will observe how each utilizes specific devices such as scenarios and specific language to engage the reader into viewing a character as more than a construct but rather a multifaceted complex individual that has flaws and mental issues much like many of us.
...n amnesiac nation into “working through” its troubled past.” (Bly ,189) Story telling was the soldier’s salvation, their survival method. Being able to tell their stories let them express everything they were feeling and ultimately cope with the horrors of war and the guilt the carried.
Innocence is often lost in childhood. Maturity is gained through experience which takes time. This idea is featured in The Wars by Timothy Findley, and in William Faulkner’s “Two Soldiers.” In the “Two Soldiers” the young boy is unnamed. Faulkner wants all readers to relate to the character. Timothy Findley names his protagonist but also reveals how his innocence is eroded during war. Both authors focus on maturity through adversity as innocence is lost in wartime environments, which changes the heroes’ lives forever.
A Rumor of War is a book written by Philip Caputo on his experience in Vietnam and the hardships of being in war. His journey began at the age of 24 when he is diploid, from 1960 until 1965. The book illustrates this image of Caputo of the maturity process he goes through. Caputo explains his main reason for going to war was his experience during the Camelot of the Kennedy era, where like many other Americans, Caputo wanted to know "what he could do for his country," as according to what President Kennedy said in his speech. Many Americans at the time believed that they needed to have that spirit and embrace their country. The images portrayed by the media impacted how Americans responded to the heroism these soldiers accomplished. Caputos accomplishments with the war was completely parallel to those of the American people.
2nd ed. of the book. New York: St. James Press, 1995. Literature Resource Center -. Web.
“War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead,” (80). In the fiction novel The Things They Carried, the author Tim O’Brien reminisces fighting in the Vietnam War and the aftermath of the war with his platoon mates through short stories and memories. He goes in depth about the emotional trauma and physical battles they face, what they carry, and how Vietnam and war has changed them forever. O’Brien’s stories describe the harsh nature of the Vietnam War, and how it causes soldiers to lose their innocence, to become guilt-ridden and regretful, and to transform into a paranoid shell of who they were before the war.
When the author’s nine-year-old daughter Kathleen asked him “have you ever killed anyone?" The author gives a glimpse of the long-reaching impact of war. A nine-year-old girl can theorize “you keep writing these war stories, so I guess you must’ve killed someone." It illustrates that the impact of war reaches far beyond the battlefield and the combatants, but impacts us all. How did we get
In the textbook, the War and Peace chapter is preluded by an epigraph from Tim O’Brien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone which states: “Do dreams offer lessons? Do nightmares have themes, do we awaken and analyze them and live our lives and advise others as a result? Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.” O’Brien’s quote goes against the stereotypical depiction of the “war hero.” O’Brien believes that just because someone participates in a war does not mean that the person is able to make sense of war. As O’Brien believes, and as numerous other authors throughout the War and Peace Unit believe, war is confusing and meaningless, especially in regard to the vast
Beers, Kylene. Elements of Literature. Vol. 5. Austin, [Tex.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2009. Print.]
Written just after the first global war, Hemingway delivers a subtle anti-war novel. World War I ended in 1918; A Farewell to Arms was published eleven years later. Although eleven years seems as if it would be enough time to forget, no time span can allow Hemingway to forget the effects of World War I. After World War I, Hemingway is struck with countless nightmares. Hemingway uses these nightmares and flashbacks to write A Farewell to Arms (Analysis 1). When reflecting on the novel, a blogger writes, “A Farewell to Arms is a war novel, not in the sense that it glorifies the war, but as all know, it describes the cruelty, madness of the war which deprives human life and happiness” (Analysis 1). During the novel, Hemingway displays his anti-war message by showing how the characters indulge in distractions to escape the reality of war. Love and sex, alcohol, and religion are all ways characters distracted themselves.