War Peace Paper English

Stephanie

English 320B

Professor Nishimura

10 November 2015

War/Peace Paper #1

The example I would like to discuss from O’Brien’s novel would be on page 20, “they carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” I believe that this quote is an example of what they can inform the next generation of what men carried throughout and after the war. They carried an emotional baggage of the men they witnessed die and the deaths they caused. They carry grief with them all the time and terror and love for those around them. Death is something that would never go away and stay with them forever.

Each soldier carries their own baggage, intangible things, things that were very important to them but could also burden them during the war. For example, Jimmy Cross who loved Martha. Martha made him forget he was even at war. He ebelieve he caused Lavender’s death, that he hates looking or thinking of Martha, because all he feels is guilt. She was important but she was also a burden to him during the war. Every time he would think of her or see a picture of her, it reminded him of Lavender’s death. The memory of Lavender’s death is always with Jimmy Cross.

Grief is a response to losing someone. Loss is something very emotional. Grief is just a part of the healing process. It is very difficult to lose someone and to go on with life without them. The length of the grief process is different for everyone, it can take weeks, months, and even years. It is a difficult process to go through.  Although even if you process grief, there will always be times where significant dates, holiday, or anything that reminds someone of their loved one, it can trigger back feelings and their loss.

There are five stages of grief. The first stage is denial, it helps most of the time to survive the loss. Life doesn’t make sense, we don’t want to believe a loved one died. You wonder how you are going to get through life without your loved one, and you find ways to not even think they are gone. Denial helps a person cope and makes it better for one to ignore the fact that a loved one died. But then you start to understand your loss and start asking yourself questions. So everything that was denied, becomes anger. Anger is the second stage of grief. It is good to go through this stage, so then you truly show and feel your true feelings. Anger is pain. Pain you have to carry throughout life, emotional baggage. Something soldiers’ carry every day. Then the next stage is bargaining. To make promises so a loved one won’t die or wanting it to be just a dream and for it to not be true. You start to think more and what you could have done to prevent from a death happening. For example, Jimmy Cross, he believed it was his fault Lavender died because he would think of Martha. The fourth stage of grief is depression. It will always be a part of grief. Then acceptance, the last stage, where you finally accept that your loved one is gone. This isn’t where “I’ll be ok, or alright,” it’s more like you accept that your loved is really gone.

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