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Fallen angels in paradise lost book 1
Paradise Lost The Fallen Angel analysis
Paradise Lost The Fallen Angel analysis
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It was famed writer, Phillip Dick who once claimed, “Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane,” when address mental health. The fact of the matter is that many undergo a nervous breakdown on a weekly basis; however, most do not recognize how beneficial their lives are compared to others. Take for instance the war in Vietnam, where thousands of men, some younger than myself, fought in one of the most gruesome war the United States has seen. In the work Fallen Angels, Walter Dean Myers depicts a story of a young man, escaping his lifestyle in the United States by enlisting in the military. One of the major themes this book brings to mind is the theme of accepting reality, and overcoming such reality mentally. Ergo, this work will be a …show more content…
For example, as Richie is waiting with his squad he states, “Something had crawled across my wrist … I grabbed it and squeezed … Every Cong in the world must had to hear it … I wanted to cry.” (194). It is moments like these where the reader better understands what triggers these soldiers’ fear. Richie knew that too much noise may lead him to his grave, as many of his comrades knew as well. Being at a point where you anticipate death is one that I hope to never be at, but the sad reality is that many were faced with these types of situations in the Vietnam War. The method to which I see that Richie is utilizing to cope with the war is writing to his family, which is a daunting task in itself. He wishes to tell them the hurtful truths, but feels as if he would look like a failure to those he writes to. Regardless, his driving power to keep fighting is that he wants to get home, to be safe, and to carry on with the life he still has yet to find how he will spend it. In addition, he is also working to assist others in staying
Tom Paine’s, A Boys Book of Nervous Breakdowns: Stories, published by Louisiana State University in 2015, is a collection of stories that deals with issues from war, Wall Street, and to inner demons within a human mind. Each story there are the main characters, the background characters, and the care free characters. Each character struggles with some form of sickness whether its PTSD, depression, or suicidal thoughts. Every character is not some hero to change the world but to struggle and survive everyday problems. Whether it’s a soldier from Afghanistan with a girlfriend that wants a normal life, to a Japanese reggae singer that is positive that the CIA killed the infamous singer Bob Marley.
Wallace Terry has collected a wide range of stories told by twenty black Vietnam veterans. The stories are varied based on each experience; from the horrific to the heart breaking and to the glorified image of Vietnam depicted by Hollywood. Wallace Terry does not insinuate his opinion into any of the stories so that the audience can feel as if they are having a conversation with the Vietnam Veteran himself. Terry introduces the purpose of the book by stating, “ Among the 20 men who portray their war and postwar experiences in this book. I sought a representative cross section of the black combat force.”(p. XV) Although the stories in this book were not told in any specific order, many themes became prominent throughout the novel such as religion, social, and health.
Tim O'Brien, a Vietnam war vet, had similar experiences as the soldier above. Even though O'Brien didn't die, the war still took away his life because a part of him will never be the same. Even in 1995, almost thirty years after the war, O'Brien wrote, "Last night suicide was on my mind. Not whether, but how. Tonight it will be on my mind again... I sit in my underwear at this unblinking fool of a computer and try to wrap words around a few horrid truths" (Vietnam 560). 1 think that O'Brien is still suffering from what he experienced in Vietnam and he uses his writing to help him deal with his conflicts. In order to deal with war or other traumatic experiences, you sometimes just have to relive the experiences over and over. This is what O'Brien does with his writing; he expresses his emotional truths even if it means he has to change the facts of the literal truth.
In conclusion the soldiers use dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions which all allow an escape from the horrors they had to go through in Vietnam. These coping mechanisms allowed the men to continue to fight and survive the war. They wouldn’t have been able to carry on if it wasn’t for the outlets these methods provided. Without humor, daydreaming, and violent actions, the war would have been unbearable for the men, and detrimental to their lives going forward.
...y crying not knowing what to do then he turned and peered back to the Minnesota shore line. “It was as real as anything I would ever feel. I saw my parents calling to me from the far shoreline. I saw my brother and sister, all the townsfolk, the mayor and the entire Chamber of Commerce and all my old teachers and girlfriends and high school buddies. Like some weird sporting event: everybody screaming from the sidelines, rooting me on” (58). This is when he knew he could not turn his back on his beloved country. All the wrong he felt the draft was he could not cross the border to flee from anything or anyone. This whole situation describes the rest of his life, but mainly his years in the Vietnam War. He would have to make decisions, decisions that would be hard but would have to do for the ones he loved.
Tim O’Brien served in the Vietnam War, and his short story “The Things They Carried” presents the effects of the war on its young soldiers. The treatment of veterans after their return also affects them. The Vietnam War was different from other wars, because too many in the U.S. the soldiers did not return as heroes but as cruel, wicked, and drug addicted men. The public directs its distaste towards the war at the soldiers, as if they are to blame. The also Veterans had little support from the government who pulled them away from their families to fight through the draft. Some men were not able to receive the help they needed because the symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) did not show until a year
It is undeniable that human struggle is relative. It is relative to one’s background, life experiences, and strength- and at some point everyone is faced with an obstacle that they feel incapable of overcoming. In Surviving Hell, written by Leo Thorsness, the author is captured after a mid-flight ejection in the Vietnam War. He spent years undergoing torture and solitary confinement, not knowing if he would make it out alive. Physically shattered, his spirits remained strong.
The soldiers that fought in the Vietnam War had to endure many incredibly horrifying experiences. It was these events that led to great human emotions. It was those feelings that were the things they carried. Everything they carried affected on them whether it was physical or mental. Every thing they carried could in one-way or another cause them to emotionally or physically break down. Pain, loss, a sense of safety and fear were probably the most challenging emotional, and psychological feelings for them to carry.
O’Brien’s unique verisimilitude writing style fills the novel with deep meaning and emotion. Analyzing the novel through a psychological lens only adds to its allure. Understanding why characters act the way they do helps bring this novel to life. The reader begins to empathize with the characters. Every day, the soldiers’ lives hang in the balance. How these soldiers react to life-threatening situations will inspire the reader. Life has an expiration date. Reading about people who are held captive by their minds and who die in the name of war, will inspire the reader to live everyday as if they are currently in the
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 hardest events that a soldier had to go through during the war was when one of their friends was killed. Despite their heartbreak they could not openly display their emotions. They could not cry because soldiers do not cry. Such an emotional display like crying would be sign of weakness and they didn’t want to be weak, so they created an outlet. “They were actors. When someone died, it wasn’t quite dying because in a curious way it seemed scripted”(19). Of course things were scripted especially when Ted Lavender died. It had happened unexpectedly and if they didn’t have something planned to do while they were coping they would all have broken down especially Lieutenant Cross. Cross...
...though people believe that, those on the home front have it just as a bad as the soldiers, because they have to deal with the responsibilities of their husbands, there is nothing that can compare to what these men have gone through. The war itself consumed them of their ideology of a happy life, and while some might have entered the war with the hope that they would soon return home, most men came to grips with the fact that they might never make it out alive. The biggest tragedy that follows the war is not the number of deaths and the damages done, it is the broken mindset derives from being at war. These men are all prime examples of the hardships of being out at war and the consequences, ideologies, and lifestyles that develop from it.
It is crazy to hear about all these mass shootings on television. There have been so many, including the most recent, at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, all over Paris, and now at the Inland Regional Center for disabled people in San Bernardino, California. Mass shootings are always a top priority of the news, so everybody gets to hear about it. Many of the survivors, who lost a friend, loved one, or co-worker to the shooting, or in recovery from being shot themselves are scarred for typically a lifetime. The people affected need a way to cope effectively during the aftermath. In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien puts coping mechanisms into context and how they were essential during and after the Vietnam War. His novel depicts that the soldiers displaced themselves through keepsakes, the soldiers were brought together through companionship, and used humor as coping mechanisms.
The soldiers feel that the only people they can talk to about the war are their “brothers”, the other men who experienced the Vietnam War. The friendship and kinship that grew in the jungles of Vietnam survived and lived on here in the United States. By talking to each other, the soldiers help to sort out the incidents that happened in the War and to put these incidents behind them. “The thing to do, we decided, was to forget the coffee and switch to gin, which improved the mood, and not much later we were laughing at some of the craziness that used to go on” (O’Brien, 29).
Giving that I was writing about a mental illness that many people assume they understand and find its definition obvious, I decided to give my readers diverse definitions of PTSD: the governments definition, my definition, and the author of The Evil Hours, David J. Morris, definition of PTSD. I chose this topic because as a person who was recently diagnosed with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (also known as C-PTSD), I’ve begun to look at it as more like a state of mind that I’ve been trying to not just change, but also find a way to live with. And because I am still in the process of doing so, I was able pour my heart and thoughts into the words of my memoir — Proving that PTSD is the perfect topic for me to discuss. These emotions