The Imagery of War and Its Effect on People Described in Literature
The Imagery of War and Its Effect on People Described in Literature Literature plays a big role in describing a warfare and its consequences. Many literary works of writers and poets describe how horrifying the war can be and how it effects and changes human behavior. They create universal images of war and send powerful messages about how it builds new characters in soldiers and how that changes their lives for a lifetime. Stories and poems describe terrifying scenes of war, how the soldiers shoot and get shot at, how they must kill and get killed. They get injured, see their friends and others die, and even get emotionally wounded and injured when their girlfriends or wives leave them. In the story “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien, the author described the Vietnam war, and the daily routine of U.S. troops. He thoroughly characterized every soldier; what they went through on daily basis and painted terrible images of war. Through the characters like Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and his soldiers, the author exposed the reader how the war has changed their behavior by making them tougher and colder. Another good example of a battlefield trauma is given in Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Man He Killed”. This poem was written in 1902, eighty four years earlier than “The Things They Carried”, and speaks of much earlier war. However, both stories describe the war similarly and express the same message. They tell how it effects the soldiers. Moreover, if we look into some examples of our modern day wars, it becomes obvious that they are as useless and horrible as they have always been. The film of Oren Moverman The Messenger (2009) is another good example which shows horrible consequences of Iraq war. It pictures soldiers and their families suffering from it at our present days. Given examples of war-stories from three different generations describe the pain and horror of a war and how soldiers return home injured physically and mentally, and continue suffering from their