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On the Concepts of Fear
Role of fear in human life essay
On the Concepts of Fear
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From the story “In the Field” Tim O’Brien talks about death of a fellow soldier Kiowa, something so simple as turning on a light can cost one's life. This is pretty ironic since light is usually associated with life, happiness and love. Only the irony is a flick of a switch and a man is dead. The soldier set up camp in the field that was far from good, it was a flooded area covered in water, mud and as they put it crap. This was not easy to begin with, Tim O’Brien puts it great himself “War is hell, but that is not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage..war is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling..war makes you a man; war makes you dead.” This relates to Kiowa since he is a man who literally died in
53. The chapter is told centrally in the third person omniscient point of view, providing various insight on differing characters such as Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Mitchell Sanders, a juvenile trooper, and Azar. The narrator isn’t limited to information and provides substantial background info and transcending details for each mentioned character. Essentially, the reader is given diverse point of views ranging from the many differing characters mentioned in the chapter.
War as seen through the eyes of Ambrose Bierce in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge depicts it as truly gritty. The author successfully sends a message of how death is a part of war, and it is not as noble or glorious as one would think it is. Due to popular media, we have this attitude that the protagonist is going to go down in a blaze of glory, and while it may be true for some, it is not like that for everyone. War is rough, dark, and gritty but no one ever wants to talk about those parts of war because it would ruin the fantasy of it.
When Paul was in the war he and his Friend Kat ran into a recruit that had been shot and they were debating whether or not to put him out of his misery. "We'll be back again soon," says Kat, "We are only going to get a stretcher for you."We don't know if he understands. He whimpers like a child and plucks at us: "Don't go away--” Kat looks around and whispers: "Shouldn't we just take a revolver and put an end to it?" (Page 34). In the movie Gallipoli, the main character Archy was a runner and he had no idea what he had gotten himself into. But when it was his time to cross the front line he had hesitation and did what he had signed up for. In the poem In Flanders Field it makes you feel sad for all the lives that had been lost. “Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.” this gives you a feeling of sadness for all the people who died and their families that they will never see
Death, it cannot be prevented from happening, no matter how many bullets you carry, or how high you get. Kiowa, an Indian, a soldier, a warrior, he is just there, in Vietnam, at war, carrying on a tradition, carrying the distrusting feelings of the white man and most important carrying the pride of his people.
The death of Kiowa is the point in this story, and arguably the entire novel, where the true nature of war becomes evident. His death in any situation would have been tragic, and camping in that “shit field” alone would have been an emotionally scarring experience; however, that these events had to coincide in time only multiplies the gravity of the situation. Interestingly, every soldier has his own way of grappling with such overwhelming feelings of grief for his highly-esteemed comrade. Yet what every man has in common is that in the end he concludes that he alone is the one ultimately responsible for Kiowa’s death.
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.
The Civil War, World War I, the Vietnam War, World War II, and the conflict in the Middle East are all wars that have been fought over the difference of opinions, yet come at the cost of the soldier 's fighting them; Humans killing other humans, and death is just one of the many emotional scars soldiers of war face. Why do we go to war when this is the cost? For many it is because they are unaware of the psychological cost of war, they are only aware of the monetary cost or the personal gains they get from war. Tim O 'Brien addresses the true cost of war in "The Things They Carried". O 'Brien suggests that psychological trauma caused by war warps the perception of life in young Americans drafted into the Vietnam War. He does this through Lieutenant
Ideologies unite groups of people and promote the collection of ideas necessary for operation of a properly varnished society. E.K. Hunt and Jared Diamond are two well known authors who discuss the scrupulous importance of ideologies within society. Their books, Property and Prophets and Guns, Germs, and Steel, discuss the success of certain ideologies throughout history, while also integrating the commendable relevance of economics. In determining the correlation of the two novels, one must assess the social, political, and economic factors associated with their viewpoints. Through interpretation of their understandings we can determine the rationale of medieval ideologies as well as, the breakdown of the Christian Paternalistic Ethic as
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.
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.
What is war really like all together? What makes war so horrifying? The horror of war is throughout All Quiet on the Western Front. For example Albert says the war has ruined them as young people and Paul agrees. “Albert expresses it: "The war has ruined us for everything." He is right. We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.” (Remarque, Chapter 5). The way the war has affected each soldier has changed them forever. The boys who were once school boys will never be the same.
Norman Bowker's flashback of Song Tra Bong, sets up the story for cultural analysis. The monsoon signifies the war as a whole, as it causes violence to spill over the entire world. Over time the monsoon causes the mud to act as quicksand, sucking in everything it touches. Like the monsoon, the war causes men to be drafted to fight for their country. The mama-sans yelling at the soldiers to get out of the muddy field represents the world being against the war. America is protesting and rioting for the war to be called off, but the soldiers are ordered to do their job, just as Lieutenant Jimmy Cross orders the men to stay on the muddy field. Once the men discover that the field is a shit field, it is obvious that the shit field symbolizes the political involvement in the war. The politics of the world start the war, and they order men to go out and fix the shit by fighting one another. When Kiowa begins to sink in the horrible slime, all Bowker can do is watch. This not only signifies the men being drafted into war, but also the men being killed one by one. The soldiers of the war face death every day and they know that, in an instant, they could be the next to die. Bowker; however, ...
War has corrupted societies and minds alike since the beginning of time. It has managed to instill the fear of death in the thoughts of those who have fought or those whose lands were fought upon. This causes PTSD, haunting the lives of the individual’s affected by the war. Post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] can be caused by isolationism, having disturbing experiences from their past, or by lasting trauma from incidents which imprint themselves upon the minds of those unlucky individuals. Ken Kesey discussed how the narrator, Chief Bromden, suffered not only because he fought in a war, but also because of uncommon traumatic experiences throughout his life that revolved around his father, and the lack of power he had. The lack of power his
Everyone has a different definition of war, but the dictionary definition of war is a large scale, usually violent, conflict. Throughout every war, there are a huge amount of deaths on both sides. But who is to blame for the deaths of the soldiers that put their life on the line to protect our country. Tim O’Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, tells us the story of a platoon and the events they undergo. This includes stories about death, happiness, metamorphosis, and most importantly, blame. O’Brien talks about who you could blame for all the death associated with war, like those who made the war, and he then goes on saying, “when a man died, there had to be blame” (O’Brien 169). In the chapter, “In the Field,” Tim O’Brien, tells