The way weaponry has been portrayed. Essay Example for Free

The way weaponry has been portrayed. Essay Theme: The way weaponry has been portrayed. Throughout literature poets have used various literary devices in order to convey their message to the audience. Wilfred Owen has cleverly personified weaponry in the context of war and has woven it in his poems. This in turn accentuates the message he is trying to convey the paradox of War. The use of this tool is most prominent in three of his poems, The Last Laugh, Arms and The Boy and Anthem for Doomed Youth. In these poems he depicts weapons as sinister, flesh-hungry savages whose only purpose is to kill. In Anthem for Doomed Youth Wilfred Owen writes and elegiac sonnet moaning the loss of innocent life. Like his other poems to one too is steeped in irony. War he wants to point out is not fanfare and glory. It is dirt and muck and pain and struggle which ultimately end in death. His view of war is greatly influenced by his own experiences. Disenchanted, brutalised and lied to by his own nation he like so many others felt betrayed. They were taught that war was glorious and soldiers were proud and valiant, the truth of it was that war was none of these and soldiers were being herded like cattle to tthose deaths. He goes on to personify weapons in the Last Laugh as mocking the soldiers that they ruthlessly killed using words such as â€Å"guffawed and chirped† In the poem Arms and the Boy, Owen changes the portrayal of the weapon and showcases it as a toy that is being handed out to a child â€Å"Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade†. Along with the description of the weapon Owen also juxtaposes the loss of innocence that prevailed during the time of war. In the poem Sonnet On Seeing a Piece of Our Heavy Artillery brought into Action Owen portrays weapons as an object that has to be paid respect to, this is shown by the words ‘thou, thee’. He furthermore goes on to personify the guns by saying that he slowly lifted ‘thou long black arm’ and also describes the destruction that they eventually cause. The four poems have a lot of literary devices packed into them such as sound imagery, metaphors and personification which compliment his description of the weapons. World War 1 was the war that changed history. The use of mechanised weapons on an unsuspecting enemy proved to be the biggest challenge. Earlier war was seen as something glorious and even  chivalrous. World War 1 overturned that view, the senseless bloodshed, the ruthless use of weapons made this war anything but glorious. Owen was one such soldier who first hand experienced the horrors of war and unlike poets before him conveyed the reality of war. He and a few others were instrumental in ripping the faà §ade of the honour and glory that war claims to be. His poems are raw, undisguised versions of the harsh reality of what was occurring in the t renches of the Western Front. Wilfred Owen uses a significant amount of literary devices to convey how weapons play a large role in warfare. His poem the Last Laugh begins with an expletive, ‘Oh! Jesus Christ! I’m hit’ the title itself is rich in irony as the poem goes on to depict how the weapons that are personified ‘chuckle’ and ‘guffaw’ at the soldier’s death. Lines like ‘the bullets chirped, machine guns chuckled†¦and the Big Gun guffawed’ reveal the dark humour that underlies the poem. The use of onomatopoeia adds to the chilling darkness of the imagery, â€Å"tut tut and the way the splinter spat and tittered’ are evidence of this. His use of alliteration enhances the poetic tempo. The ‘lofty Shrapnel’ is personified as it ‘gestures leisurely’ at the dying man calling him fool. Weapons are further personified as grim, hostile entities. The Bayonets have ‘long teeth’ and grinned as ravels of shells ‘hoot and groan and gas hisses’. The use of capital letters to classify the weapons furthe r draws attention to their significance, in this case as purveyors of destruction. In Arms and the Boy, Owen depicts how innocence is destroyed by war. The title itself seems like an oxymoron because children are usually not associated with weapons. The poem begins with a calm suggestion of letting the boy try the bayonet blade and see how ‘cold the steel is’ The bayonet itself is personified as a creature with a predatory nature, ‘it’s keen with hunger of blood’ its appetite is further described as ‘famishing for flesh’ this use of alliteration of fricative sounds embellishes the rapacious nature of the weapon, it is described as being ‘blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash’ this simile conveys the cruelty and evil that is associated with this weapon. By using explosive sounds and the use of adjectives such as cold increase the sinister effect of the weapon. The second stanza similarly begins with a tender gesture asking the young boy to ‘stroke these blind blunt bullet leads’ the use of consonance  adds to making the bullets seem less deadly than they are words such as ‘ long to nuzzle’ portray warmth but ironically the euphuism , ‘in the hearts of lads’ stands for the death of young children. Cartridges are described as having fine zinc teeth, their sharpness is compared to ‘the sharpness of grief and death’ in saying ‘give him’ these weapons of destruction the poet is juxtaposing innocence with experience and death. Owen does so in a manner that seems innocuous asking the boy to play with these objects of death and destruction. The third stanza ‘his teeth seemed for laughing round an apple’ conveys the idea of childish innocence. The young boy does not have fangs nor ‘claws behind his fingers supple’. Furthermore Owen writes ‘God will grow no talons at his heels or ‘antlers through the thickness of his curls’. This conveys that God had not meant for man to be like a beast. Man needs to arm himself with weapons to don the mantle of a predator. In showing the young boy through the ‘thickness of his curls’ further implies how angelic and innocent he is. Owen is bereaved that he will one day pick up the weapons of destruction and will thus be robbed of his innocence. Owen uses many literary devices such as personification to depict the weapons he says the cartridges ‘have fine zinc teeth’ and the bayonet is described as being ‘keen with hunger of blood’. The poet alludes to Virgil’s epic the Aeneid ‘of arms and the man I sing’. The poem itself uses half rhyme and alliteration ‘famishing for flesh’, ‘blind blunt bullet leads’ to convey the tone of the poem which is largely sinister. In his poem ‘Anthem for doomed youth’ Owen takes the theme of how weapons destroy one step further. Here to the imagery is stark and the poem begins with sound imagery, ‘what passing bells for these who die as cattle?’ The reference to cattle further shows the diminished emotion that war instils in humans. Soldiers are equated to cattle and the death knells are merely in passing. Written as a Petrarchan sonnet with a ABA rhyme scheme Anthem for doomed youth vividly demolishes the myth of soldiers being valiant of glorious in battle. Here too weapons are personified guns are shown as having ‘monstrous anger’ and ‘the stuttering ripples rapid rattle’ The use of alliteration further enhances the sound imagery as the reader is transported back in time. Word s such as ‘stuttering and patter’ convey a sense of grief and hesitation. There is no one to grieve for those who have  died, ‘no mockeries now for them†¦nor any voice of morning save the choirs’ and these choirs are that of the ‘shrill demented, wailing shells’ by using words such as wailing and mourning Owen is trying to depict the harsh reality that the soldiers had to face. There is neither fanfare nor celebration ‘and bugles call for them from sad shires’ the soldiers are portrayed as the forgotten, remembered only in the ‘pallor of girl’s brows’ And in the ‘tenderness of patient minds’. Owen juxtaposes very interestingly the two themes of religion with war. The imagery of candles and flowers are harshly juxtaposed against that of death and pain. His use of mild innocuous language contrasts sharply with the violence of the action depicted. The two stanzas are starkly different as the first vividly describes the horror of war and the second the hope of the families left behi nd waiting for fathers, brothers, sons to return. The disillusionment and bitterness is illumined in this poem. The tone is contrite and bitter and a sense of irony pervades the poem. Written as a eulogy the heading conveys the theme perfectly, it is truly an Anthem for the youth who are doomed to die in a war that made no sense. In the Sonnet that Owen wrote he describes the weapons initially as an object those posses’ majestic qualities. He praises the gun by calling it â€Å"Great† which shows his respect for this artillery. He furthermore shows the Gun ‘towering towards heaven’ which shows that the gun is about to attack God himself, portraying the amount of power that it posses. He personifies the gun and lifted its ‘long black arm’. He also describes the canon as a weapon that protects its soldiers as well as kills. Throughout this poem he admires the weapons but the last two lines reveal his true perception of artillery. Harsh words such as ‘cut thee from our soul’ shows the level of resentment that he has against weapons as he also asks God to ‘curse thee’. The title itself is absurd as a Sonnet is a poem that is addressed to a lover however he uses it differently and uses it to both praise the weapons as well as criticise them. All of Wilfred Owens poems are bound by the sense of irony. His poems resound with pathos. He truly conveys the pity of war and doesn’t seek to elevate it as poets in the past did. His poems are stark snippets of reality as were experienced by young soldiers in trenches. The horror, the infestation the overpowering stench of war is all beautifully conveyed through his poetry. His poetry does not want to gloss  over reality it is reality.

Voltaires Candide: The Transformation of Candide Essay -- Voltaire Ca

Voltaire's Candide: The Transformation of Candide   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Candide (1991), which is another version of "Voltaire" by French writer Francois-Marie Arouet, is a short but diverse story that tells of a young man's journey for love and the hardships he faces all the while keeping a very strong, positive and philosophical outlook on life. The book starts in an unknown year, hinted sometime around the Renaissance, with a young man named Candide. Candide loves the princess of a Baron and is banished from the land because of it. Wanting so much to be with his love, he starts his travels to find some way that he can be with her. Right from the start Candide falls into trouble. From being forced to join an army, to seeing and loosing his love again, to great riches and to the lowest pit of poor Candide is able to overcome adversary and conquer the odds. In this amazing journey he finds that every event in the world has a reason, and whether there are positive or negative moments you have to live them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  At the beginning, the reader finds out about Candide's misfortunate event that leads him on his journeys. His being taught, by Pangaloss, of philosophical ways of life leads him to long for his beloved. This longing is the official start of his journey to marry the beautiful Cunegonde.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Candid finds himself at the first of his woes when he enters a tavern in the town of Waldberghofftrarbk-dikdorff. He is coaxed into going to a camp by mean of a meal. In the camp he is captured and forced to fight for the Bulgarian army. He attempts to escape but is caught and is forced to run the gauntlet. He then tries escaping again in the heat of battle and succeeds.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After being taken in and helped by James, an anabaptist, he runs into h... ...on: if you had not walked over America: if you had not Stabbed the Baron: If you had not lost all of your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts" (87). This last quote by Pangaloss is the end of Candide's journey. This is where Candide finally realizes that the events in the world have reasons behind them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Candide realizes, through the teachings of Pangaloss and his journeys, that no one can change what has happened or what might happen in the near future. The only thing that can be done is to take life as it is dealt and play the hand you got. This is a major change for Candide philosophical thoughts of events from beginning to end. Candide can now make the bast out of events that may not favor him in the future. Works Cited Voltaire. Candide. Dover Publications, Inc. New York, 1991

Lemurs in Madagascar: Surviving on an Island of Change Transcript

Lemurs in Madagascar: Surviving on an Island of Change Transcript Speakers: Ian Tattersall, Jonah Ratsimbazafy, Michelle Sauther, Frank Cuozzo (Rain trickling, lemur sounds: squeaking and calling) (Music playing in background) IAN TATTERSALL: I think everybody who is involved with lemurs is concerned for the future. We’re in a finite island that cannot infinitely be exploited and ravaged. And if present trends continue, the outlook for any of the natural habitat or any of the lemurs is fairly poor. (Birds chirping) Lemurs are members of the order primates, that is to say the large group of mammals to which human beings also belong.And they’d found they are uniquely in Madagascar and on a couple of the adjacent islands of the Comoros group. (Music playing in background) An evolutionary radiation is the diversification of different species from the same ancestor and once a new kind of organism like a primate comes into a new environment as happened in Madagascar about six ty million years ago; there are many, many different ways in which that environment can be exploited. It’s very hard to say exactly how many species of lemur there are because new species are being described all of the time.But in general terms, there now looks to be about thirty to thirty-five species of lemurs and it shows us just what the potential of primates is to occupy an enormous range of different habitats. (Music playing in background) Habitat destruction takes place on a much shorter time scale than evolutionary change and the amount of change that is happening so rapidly in Madagascar as a result of human activities is clearly something with which no evolutionary process can cope. JONAH RATSIMBAZAFY: Now we are here in Ranomafana National Park in the southeastern rainforest of Madagascar.This place used to be loved by loggers but since the park was created, the forest started to be productive. Here in Ranomafana, there are twelve different species of lemurs. Seven are active during the day and five are active during the night. There are many different ways of studying lemurs. It depends on what you want to look at. (Speaking in background) I look at the behavior and how the behavior fits in the habitat. For example, if you want to know which foot and what prints they rely on because if we can continue to protect the habitat, that will help to protect them or to conserve them.Every five minutes we take note what species of tree, who the closest neighbor is, the closest trail, because we want to know where do they go to estimate the home range and if they eat, what do they eat. Some species cope better than the others. If you are a specialist on your diet and if people cut down your food, you are gone. For example, the bamboo lemur. They exclusively eat bamboo and if people cut down those plants, they are gone. They can disappear very fast. (Music playing in background) IAN TATTERSALL: Different lemurs are affected in different ways by the env ironmental destruction that is going on in Madagascar.Some lemurs are in danger, some are critically endangered, some are vulnerable, and some are threatened. The less vulnerable ones are the ones that do well in secondary habitats, in habitats that have been altered by people. MICHELLE SAUTHER: We’re at a site called Beza Mahafaly, and it incorporates a protective reserve as well as areas outside of the reserve and our research here focuses on the effects of fragmentation and changes in habitat on lemur biology and their behavior. We study lemur catta which is the ring-tailed lemur. It’s the type of lemur most people have seen in zoos.They are one of the most far ranging of the lemurs. They are incredibly adaptable and one of the things that we are kind of interested in is what is the biology of adaptation or what is the biology of avoiding becoming extinct. And because ring-tailed lemurs are so widespread, and that’s not to say they’re not threatened, b ut they seem to be able to deal a lot behaviorally and biologically with habitat change. I think what we’re seeing in terms of the troops we were looking at today is a troop that is actually utilizing some of the anthropogenic change.They will go out and utilize local people’s crops so they are actually exploiting some of the habitat that has been degraded and turned into crop land for their own use. FRANK CUOZZO: In terms of the ring-tailed lemurs, because they are rather generalist, they do seem to adjust to different types of disturbance. As Michelle mentioned a few moments ago, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have to watch out or think about it and it doesn’t mean there aren’t very real threats to long-term survival, but ring-tails specifically seem to deal with things in ways that some of the more specialized lemurs don’t.MICHELLE SAUTHER: But there is always limitations to those though. That’s what we’re trying to un derstand is where are you when you get to the limits of even a ring-tailed lemur in terms of being able to adapt. (Music playing in background) I used to feel depressed when I came here because, again, you see the habitat changing and a lot of fragmentation occurring. I feel a bit better now because we’re trying to really get a handle on what sort of ways you can interact with local people because that is the reality.What you saw around here is the reality of Madagascar. IAN TATTERSAL: I think what we ought to be looking for in terms of conservation is habitats to protect and what we need to do is to find those places where, with the least disturbance to local people or to the greatest benefit of local people, tracks of forest that support the native fauna of Madagascar can be conserved. (Lemur sound) [End of Audio] Copyright  © 2006 by Films Media Group. All rights reserved. Adapted with permission.

Hitlers Success in Winning the Hearts and Minds of Youths...

Hitlers Success in Winning the Hearts and Minds of Youths During Hitler’s rule, he attempted to gain as much support as possible and impose Nazi values into everyday life. Hitler aimed a large amount of propaganda at women but he also targeted at the youth generation. Similarly to women, it’s very difficult to determine their true feelings or if the evidence obtained is genuine. It is also debated whether or not Hitler actually won over the hearts and minds of the youth or if he only controlled them. This essay will consider whether Hitler ‘won’ the hearts and minds of German youths, or if he just controlled them. Another interpretation could be that he did not win over the hearts and minds of the†¦show more content†¦Letters and pamphlets were also circulated as anti-Nazi propaganda. The evidence here shows that the hearts or the minds of Youths were not all dedicated to Hitler, or else there would not have been any such organisations or pamphlets being made. Parents of the Youths also played a pivotal part in their child’s participation in Hitler Youth Groups. Hitler was aware of this, which is why he introduced payments and reward for parents who encouraged parents to make their children join. An action likes this also suggests that Hitler lacked confidence with his own persuasive skills and that not all youths joint by their own choice. This also provides evidence that Hitler failed to win over the hearts and minds of youths, despite the large numbers of children who joined. Hitler tried to impose his ideology on the rest of the Country; one of his targets was to achieve a Pure Aryan race. In order for this Hitler needed co-operation from Germany people, including youths, as they were the future. Hitler adapted school curriculums so girls would be taught subjects similar to home economics and boys would be taught more physical subjects such as PE to prepare them for their ‘future roles’. 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