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Literary aspects in all quiet on the western front
Literary aspects in all quiet on the western front
Mass media during the Vietnam war
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The media has made sure that all of us are aware of the Vietnam conflict. Readers and movie goers the world over are now familiar with America's suffering in Vietnam and the problems American veterans have endured as they attempted to adjust to civilian life.
Although all life is irreplaceable, the fact remains that the United States lost fewer than a million men in the Vietnam conflict and their social institutions and infrastructure remained relatively intact. The Vietnamese, however, lost two million men and their culture, society, landscape and tradition were literally obliterated. Despite this destruction, their side of this horrendous story has seldom been told. Worse yet, when it is told, they are often portrayed in the most unattractive of all light. Until only a few years ago, the Vietnamese were portrayed by the media as a faceless people with no identity; entities not worth caring about. The turning point came with the publication, in Dutch, of Duong Thu Huong's Blind Paradise in 1994. This landmark book was followed by Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War.
War novels deal, superficially, with war. But underneath all the blood and horror and carnage lie far deeper social and human issues. The best novels of war, such as Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front and Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, as well as Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War, also deal with the makeup and morality of a culture or a society gone wrong. The protagonist of these books, whether real or fictional, often endures a harrowing personal struggle through both a public and private hell and usually undergoes some sort of redemption, even if that redemption results in death.
Born in 1952, Bao Ninh served in the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade during the Vietnam conflict. Of the five hundred youths who went to war with this brigade in 1969, Bao Ninh was one of its ten survivors, so it is not unusual that war should be the subject of his first book, considering the impact it has had on his life.
Semi-autobiographical in nature, the protagonist of The Sorrow of War, Kien, is the lone survivor of his brigade and a ten year veteran of the war. As the book opens he is serving as part of an MIA body collection team. It is through his memories that we slowly learn how the war has devastated his youth and the youth of his countrymen.
Another strength of this book is Prochnau's treatment of the central characters. These journalists were often reviled and criticized for their caustic and searing articles about the Vietnamese situation. These popular opinions undermined the legitimacy of their work and the truthfulness of their reportage of the deterioration of South Vietnam. Prochnau's accounting of these individuals runs contrary to these opinions, and in effect, reaffirms the validity of these journalists' work. For example, the David Halberstram has often been portrayed as an antiwar hero, yet the author stated that Halberstram was quite the opposite. "But not once during his Vietnam years or well afterward, did he (Halberstram) question America's right, even her need to be there (Vietnam). His criticisms were of methods and foolishness, lying and self-delusion, of a failure to set a policy that could win."(pg 141) These depictions exonerate the image of this hardy "band of brothers."
As with any genre, all novels termed ‘war stories’ share certain elements in common. The place and time settings of the novels, obviously, take in at least some aspect of at least one war or conflict. The characters tend to either be soldiers or are at least immediately affected by the military. An ever present sense of doom with punctuated moments of peace is almost a standard of the war novel. Beyond the basic similarities, however, each of these battle books stands apart as an individual. Charles Yale Harrison’s World War I novel, Generals Die in Bed is, in essence, quite different than Colin McDougall’s Execution. Coming years earlier, Generals can almost be seen to hold the wisdom one would expect see in an older sibling, while Execution suffers the growing pains that the younger child inevitably feels.
The Vietnam War: A Concise International History is a strong book that portrays a vivid picture of both sides of the war. By getting access to new information and using valid sources, Lawrence’s study deserves credibility. After reading this book, a new light and understanding of the Vietnam war exists.
The Vietnam War has become a focal point of the Sixties. Known as the first televised war, American citizens quickly became consumed with every aspect of the war. In a sense, they could not simply “turn off” the war. A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo is a firsthand account of this horrific war that tore our nation apart. Throughout this autobiography, there were several sections that grabbed my attention. I found Caputo’s use of stark comparisons and vivid imagery, particularly captivating in that, those scenes forced me to reflect on my own feelings about the war. These scenes also caused me to look at the Vietnam War from the perspective of a soldier, which is not a perspective I had previously considered. In particular, Caputo’s account of
Vietnam was a highly debated war among citizens of the United States. This war was like no other with regards to how it affected people on the home front. In past war’s, the population of the United States mainly supported the war and admired soldiers for their courage. During the Vietnam War, citizens of the U.S. had a contradictory view than in the past. This dilemma of not having the support of the people originates from the culture and the time period.
during the war. This novel is able to portray the overwhelming effects and power war has
The most vital proclamations in the story explain the unchallengeable understanding of the Vietnam experience by those who were there. Without having been in Vietnam, and specifically, without having been battling in the war in Vietnam there is no way to comprehend the situation. By extension, people who were not there should not even be talking about it (Kaplan 43).
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.
All in all, every year since 1975, Vietnamese have been killed or injured and they are so disappointed. The war causes chaos and is a sign of bad omen to Vietnam. This never-ending horror could be remedied if enough Americans cared about saving Vietnamese lives, as the stars of this documentary claim they did. After all, what kind of people seed a foreign land with hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives and then allow succeeding generations to lose eyes and limbs and lives? Only a “violent and unforgiving”
Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the greatest war novels of all time. It is a story, not of Germans, but of men, who even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war. The entire purpose of this novel is to illustrate the vivid horror and raw nature of war and to change the popular belief that war has an idealistic and romantic character. The story centers on Paul Baümer, who enlists in the German army with glowing enthusiasm. In the course of war, though, he is consumed by it and in the end is "weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope" (Remarque page #).
Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War is a contrapuntal reading to American literature on the Vietnam War. But rather than stand in stark contrast to Tim O' Brien's The Things They Carried, The Sorrow of War is strangely similar, yet different at the same time. From a post-colonialist standpoint, one must take in account both works to get an accurate image of the war. The Sorrow of War is an excellent counterpoint because it is truthful. Tim O' Brien writes: ". . . you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil." (O' Brien, 42) Bao Ninh succeeds in this respect. And it was for this reason that the Vietnamese government initially banned The Sorrow of War. A thorough textual and historical examination of both the war and post-war experience of Vietnam reveals that its experience was similar to, if not worse than, that of America.
While soldiers are often perceived as glorious heroes in romantic literature, this is not always true as the trauma of fighting in war has many detrimental side effects. In Erich Maria Remarque 's All Quiet On The Western Front, the story of a young German soldier is told as he adapts to the harsh life of a World War I soldier. Fighting along the Western Front, nineteen year old Paul Baumer and his comrades begin to experience some of the hardest things that war has to offer. Paul’s old self gradually begins to deteriorate as he is awakened to the harsh reality of World War 1, depriving him from his childhood, numbing all normal human emotions and distancing future, reducing the quality of his life.
War is a constant struggle to survive; it is unfortunately a part of our human history. Something that has a major effect on the mentality of soldiers, something that takes away lives and something that shouldn’t be forgotten. The Wars written by Timothy Findley is a historiographical metafiction, which is told in the 1970's examining the protagonist Robert Ross's journey in World War 1. In the novel, the narrator provides information about his findings about the lives of the characters. Robert Ross a nineteen year old, enlists in the Canadian Army to escape the guilt and psychological baggage he carries over his older sisters (Rowena) death. Robert and many other characters within the text face countless obstacles and encounter many challenges
When one relives the real memories of a soldier, they can see the brutal imagery of war in their imaginations and understand why the horrors of war cause an everlasting trauma. Happening truth shows how the experiences of war have a heavy impact on the soldier, reciprocating the impact to the audience. The facts provided by real experiences provides a visual imagery of the brutalities of war. A true feeling of war can be felt by from new emotions experienced only in war, emotions that are real. Since the truth is told, readers build a connection and trust with the writer and work in its reliability. Just as Tim O’Brien’s novel shows that happening truth is truer in depicting the nature of war, the nonfiction war novel, “Unbroken”, does the same. The moving war novel, “Unbroken”, provides a detailed description of war which successfully shows that real occurrences are emotional even without added emotion, trauma experienced is forever remembered, and that happening truth has a bigger effect on readers because they know it has occurred. Only happening truth can describe the cold truth of war such as a bomb killing a dozen of soldiers within seconds, instead of producing an emotional fairy tale like fantasy that does not exist in real
As we got further and further into the Vietnam War, few lives were untouched by grief, anger and fear. The Vietnamese suffered the worst hardship; children lay dead in the street, villages remained nothing but charred ashes, and bombs destroyed thousands of innocent civilians. Soldiers were scarred emotionally as well as physically, as