Thursday, June 10, 2010
Paradox
As I was reading the same chapter, an additional literary term connected with the words I was reading. In the chapter explaining true war stories, there comes a revelation. "War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is a drudgery. War makes you a man." Obviously, this statement is a paradox; it seems impossible, not to mention contradictory, that war consists of each one of these adjectives at the same time. How can a war be hell and love? How can it be nasty, but fun? I pondered over this for a few minutes. It appears to me that war creates many feelings in the hearts and minds of soldiers. How else can reenlisting be explained? War is just like life; it is not always wonderful, but parts of it make it worthwhile. There are emotions and feelings that make it so. The multiple stories already recounted by O'Brien have covered these emotions such as guilt to love to hatred to fear and so on. Every emotion is experienced by the soldiers, creating a paradox in explaining war.
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I like your connection to those who reenlist.
ReplyDeleteI just finished this chapter and couldn't believe the many ways O'Brien described war. It really puts war in a whole new light when you read a first-person account of something so tragic. It seems so distant to us: war and all who fight it. But O'Brien really makes the connection to life, like you said.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mr. Costello!
ReplyDelete& I 100% agree with you Claire. I think if you ask any soldier (past or present) about this chapter, they'd agree with every single description O'Brien makes.