This photograph depicts a soldier literally standing in a field of dead bodies. It is impossible to describe thoughts and emotions going on in this man's head because war is so vague. It is vague because as Tim O’Brien writes in The Things They Carried, “absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth” (79-80). This is true because the message or moral it tries to send to its readers may not be able to be interpreted if the whole truth is told. That is why O’Brien does not tell actual true events in his stories. He does this because fiction can make a message more clear or visible to the audience, which in this case is non-soldiers. O’Brien will later explain in his novel why he doesn’t the true events in his stories. He says,”I want you to feel what I felt.” (171). This is because war cannot be imagined. It has to be felt to make it true. This is something that can be depicted from the image because this image is conveyed to tell the truth from the man in the middle. The man in the middle at first glance looks like he is standing in a mountain of his dead comrades. However, he would be shot by surrounding soldiers if he were, which helps conclude that he is a soldier on the other side. The artists makes it seem that they are his friends, because that is what he felt. He feels a mountain of guilt pressing against him but if he were more clearly a seen as a soldier, the audience wouldn’t feel what he felt. It is made to deceive you from the truth because it is the only way the readers can understand he felt. If he were to seem like he was another soldier, the audience would not be able to sense how he felt. This an example of how something may be a lie but be truer than the truth. It tells a truth through fiction because war is sensed not imagined. It deceives the brain to tell a truth that cannot be told through actual occurrence. The truth wouldn’t make the audience feel like the soldier did, therefore making the true events that happened, not the truth.Oates, H. THE LIBERATION OF BERGEN-BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP, APRIL 1945 WAR OFFICE SECOND WORLD WAR OFFICIAL COLLECTION. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 1945. <http://isl.iwmcollections.org.uk/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll?QF0=AutoID&QI0=660418&QF1=IDNO&QI1=BU%204260&TN=Uncat&RF=details&AC=QBE_QUERY>.Tuesday, March 22, 2016
War is something that is felt; It is can not be seen or imagined
This photograph depicts a soldier literally standing in a field of dead bodies. It is impossible to describe thoughts and emotions going on in this man's head because war is so vague. It is vague because as Tim O’Brien writes in The Things They Carried, “absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth” (79-80). This is true because the message or moral it tries to send to its readers may not be able to be interpreted if the whole truth is told. That is why O’Brien does not tell actual true events in his stories. He does this because fiction can make a message more clear or visible to the audience, which in this case is non-soldiers. O’Brien will later explain in his novel why he doesn’t the true events in his stories. He says,”I want you to feel what I felt.” (171). This is because war cannot be imagined. It has to be felt to make it true. This is something that can be depicted from the image because this image is conveyed to tell the truth from the man in the middle. The man in the middle at first glance looks like he is standing in a mountain of his dead comrades. However, he would be shot by surrounding soldiers if he were, which helps conclude that he is a soldier on the other side. The artists makes it seem that they are his friends, because that is what he felt. He feels a mountain of guilt pressing against him but if he were more clearly a seen as a soldier, the audience wouldn’t feel what he felt. It is made to deceive you from the truth because it is the only way the readers can understand he felt. If he were to seem like he was another soldier, the audience would not be able to sense how he felt. This an example of how something may be a lie but be truer than the truth. It tells a truth through fiction because war is sensed not imagined. It deceives the brain to tell a truth that cannot be told through actual occurrence. The truth wouldn’t make the audience feel like the soldier did, therefore making the true events that happened, not the truth.Oates, H. THE LIBERATION OF BERGEN-BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP, APRIL 1945 WAR OFFICE SECOND WORLD WAR OFFICIAL COLLECTION. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 1945. <http://isl.iwmcollections.org.uk/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll?QF0=AutoID&QI0=660418&QF1=IDNO&QI1=BU%204260&TN=Uncat&RF=details&AC=QBE_QUERY>.
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ReplyDeleteI really like your use of O'Briens quote to help drive your point forward. Along with this your analysis of the picture and how you tie the quotes and the picture together work really nicely. The only problems that I could see were some spelling errors, words missing/omitted and a word or two being there but it shouldn't be.
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