The Things They Carried
War is full of death and sadness. It is a tragedy to anyone that it involves and brings nothing but death. The book deals with the hardships that the war entails. It showcases the soldier’s emotions and how they have to deal with them. The book also tells stories on how the soldiers feel after the war. Pablo Picasso’s Guernica expresses the emotions and destruction that war entails. Picasso thinks that war is futile and expresses this feeling as well as others in the painting. Both of these pieces of art reflect on the hardships the come with war and the price that must be paid during time of conflict.
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a reflection on his stories and memories. The men of Alpha Company deal with the short and long term effects of the Vietnam War. In the summer of 1968, Tim O’Brien receives a draft notice. Despite a desire to follow his thoughts and flee to Canada, he feels he would be embarrassed to refuse to fulfill his patriotic duty and so decides to fight in Vietnam. During their tour of duty, the men of the Alpha Company must cope with the loss of their own men and the guilt that comes from killing and watching others die. After he returns from war, O’Brien deals with his memories by telling stories about Vietnam.
The main basis of the book that O’Brien wrote is about things that soldiers carried with them, both literal and figurative. The characters carry physical loads such as their weapons and other gear on their backs. However the soldiers also carry emotional loads such as grief, fear, and love. For every man in Alpha Company, their emotional burdens outweigh their physical burdens. Tim O’Brien talks very little about a single mans physical hardships compared with his emotional ones. Soldiers cope with their emotions in different ways. For example, Henry Dobbins wear his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck. He states that it keeps her in his mind and gives him luck. In the same manner, Jimmy Cross carries maps and compasses. Somehow that reminds him that he is in charge. All of the men however, carry something the same as everyone else and that is fear. They all have their reputations to keep and if anyone shows their fear it will showcase them as being vulnerable.
The Essay on Explain the Impacts the Vietnam War Had on Soldiers
The Vietnam was a war like no other and the nature of the fighting in this war had great impacts on the soldiers. At this time, communism was seen as a great threat, especially by Western countries, and so extreme emphasis was placed on the domino theory that when one country falls to communism, others would follow and that forward defence would be the only solution to this issue. Also during this ...
Even after the war soldiers still carry some things with them. Most of them have memories that continue to haunt them and have a role in their daily lives. Those that live through the war have to carry grief, guilt, and uncertainty. The majority of the stories O’Brien writes describe how the survivors come to terms with their experience. Jimmy Cross still has not forgiven himself for the death of Ted lavender and he confides this with O’Brien. Norman Bowker drives around a lake pondering on his thoughts of the war. He later writes O’Brien a letter saying that he feels different after the war and later kills himself because of his emotional burdens. O’Brien on the other hand carries his stories and retells his accounts in The Things They carry.
Created in 1937, Guernica is arguably one of Pablo Picasso’s boldest and most memorable works. He named the painting as such as a type of memorial, because history’s first aerial bombardment of a civilian population occurred in the small village of Guernica. There were a devastating amount of casualties, with the ultimate goal being to force the people of Spain into a state of fear. This fear would lead them to support the fascist regime, and not put up any sort of resistance to their new government. This intimidation tactic obviously infuriated Picasso, and he felt that he needed to bring this situation to the masses through his painting.
The Essay on Family and Life Story Work
?In this assignment I aim to discuss life story work: which can provide the care worker, and care receiver a better understanding of each other’s needs, and provide the care worker with information that can help support the care receiver in the best way. The carer needs to possess certain skills sensitivity, confidentiality, empathy, trustworthiness, and have commitment to seeing the story to the ...
Pablo Picasso had initially meant for Guernica to be about a bull fight, but changed the name and altered some of the content to express his sadness in a mural that he was commissioned to do for the World’s Fair of 1937, in order to represent Spain. Creating the work in his own style, Picasso chose not to represent the horror of Guernica in realist or romantic terms. He did not want it to be a recreation of the events, but more to show the futility of war and the mess that comes as a result of it. Guernica, like his other works, was painted directly out of the emotion that he was feeling, so he did not feel the need to censor himself in his art.
Picasso chose to paint in black and white, depicting the bleak and dismal nature of a country during wartime. The painting is an immense display of protest, standing at approximately eleven by twenty-three feet. The main theme throughout this painting is death. A human skull is painted as part of the horse’s body, and a dead soldier lies directly under the horse. The images of Guernica run one into the other. The overlapping was done on purpose, so as not to distinguish one element clearly from the other. Art historians have suggested that the painting challenges our notions of warfare as heroic and exposes it as a brutal act of self-destruction. Using animals as ‘main characters’ also triggers those notions, because of the level of barbarism that comes during wartime seems to lack human elements. It is as if there are beasts fighting one another for ultimate supremacy. That is just what was happening during the Spanish Civil War and the war in Vietnam.
The works both deal with the consequences of war and depict stories and feelings felt throughout the ordeal. Although the stories are different they contain the same thoughts and views on war. The works come from different time periods and different wars so the events are different but the messages are similar. Both artist have a strong distaste for war and show it in different ways. Picasso uses a mash-up of images showcasing death while O’Brien uses stories he has collected throughout the war.
