The Impact and Cruelties of War The common phrase, “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes”, tells the world to never put a label on an individual before you have truly experienced what they have gone through. Tim O Brien’s work, In the Lake of the Woods, shows how men who have all experienced war, truly have walked in each other’s shoes. These traumatizing experiences impact the human spirit dramatically because once back from the war, veterans struggle to live normal lives.
Only men and women who have experienced this brutality can begin to understand why veterans from every war are left traumatized and haunted by the terrifying scene called war. O’Brien’s novel shows the journey of a narrator trying to heal from his own war experience by living vicariously through John Wade. Through his reconstruction of John Wade’s life, the narrator is able to come to terms with his identity. He realizes that his own experiences have affected him tremendously, and through his research he can slowly begin to heal.
War goes against what normal society thinks is morally acceptable, such as killing, injuring and shooting other human beings. Veterans also have trouble relearning to understand their emotions and open up to others. Both the narrator and John saw firsthand, the horror and death of war through all of the brutal killings. Not only that, but they were participants in this killing as well. Living through an incredibly difficult experience like this can really affect and change an individual’s life forever as it did for both the narrator and John.
The Essay on Personal Experience that Changed my Life
America may be experiencing the worst financial crisis this year. People may worry about losing jobs and missing opportunities for bigger earnings. But at age eighteen and fresh from high school graduation, I am all hopes and all set to start the best years of my life. Just a few years back, I was enjoying the comforts of home in Wooster, Ohio, simply unconcerned about my future. My parents were ...
The narrator and John were both moved and traumatized by their past, making it difficult for them to open to others. Their disturbing war experiences caused their relationships with others to suffer dramatically. In fact, their experiences left such a great impact on their lives that they both faced anxiety and despair later on in their life. War trauma can also leave soldiers disillusioned by the terrible acts they have seen or committed; that can make it difficult for them to live comfortably in a non-war society.
This untimely, made the narrator interested in John’s life because he too faced the same struggles and cruelty of war. Without having any background experience with war, the narrator, would not have been able to understand John’s story the way he did. Since he feels like no one in the normal world understands his past, he is able to use John’s experiences to finally relate to someone and that is why he does not feel isolated anymore. At the same time, it brings back all the terrible memories and murky moments from the war, which will haunt him and live inside the narrator forever.
The research that the narrator has gone through in developing this novel has many positive implications on his life. One main thing that the narrator took from all of these realities was that he finally got closure with his questions about John’s disappearance. His close peers told him that he was spending too much of his life researching John’s journey and not spending enough time actually living his own life. Because of John’s story, the narrator has come to terms with his own life.
With this new closure he hopes to help other traumatized veterans recover as well. His experiences allowed him to move in the right direction because at last, the narrator was able to grow from his past, rather than dwell on it. War, no matter how strong or weak the person is, may leave that individual a different person than he or she was before. However, most often it will change these brave individuals for the worse. Fortunately, this was not the case for the narrator. He took such a terrible experience and grew from it.
The Essay on Edgar Allan Poe Life John Wrote
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston on Jan. 19, 1809, he died on Oct. 7, 1849 in Baltimore. Poe lived with his parents, David Poe Jr.and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins. They were both touring actors. They both died before he was 3 years old. His father left him when he was a little boy and his mother past away when he was 3. He was taken into the home of John Allan after his mother died. John was ...
Without re-living John’s life, the narrator may have never been able to get through this devastating time and it would have after all haunted him forever. His research allowed him to understand and appreciate his life for what it was and how it is now. He is now able to let it all go and move on with his own world. He realized that the brutality of war is appalling and it does not define who he is or wants to become. This is the greatest path any veteran can take.
