For What It's Worth

In response to For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Spring

For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield is a song written in 1966 in the middle of the Vietnam War. Buffalo Spring represents the feelings of youth culture in America at the time. He says “There's a man with a gun over there

Telling me I got to beware” representing the people’s confusion. During the Vietnam War, people did not understand why America entered the war and this line helps represent that. Officials were telling people to be aware but the youth and citizens of America did not want to be involved with this.

Buffalo Springfield goes on to say “There's battle lines being drawn Nobody's right if everybody's wrong,  Young people speaking their minds Getting so much resistance from behind.” Despite the fact that this song was not actually a war song, it helps represent the feelings well. The Vietnam War had a strong youth anti-war movement that went along with it and lines in it represent what they thought. These lyrics can help represent what the youth thought about the war, especially the line “Nobody’s right if everyone’s wrong.” People believed America had no right going into this war, which is why this line works well to describe it.

Even though the song For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield is not exactly an anti-war song, it still represents the thoughts of people and how they reacted to the war.

Guilt

In response to Speaking of Courage

In the novel The Things They Carried, the readers experience the soldier's guilt through text and examples of the war stories. Two examples of guilt are with Bowker reliving Kiowa’s death and the story of the man I killed.

Norman Bowker took Kiowa’s death to heart and was overwhelmed with guilt losing a member of his squad was something that struck him hard. Kiowa’s death was not something that he could have prevented but because Norman was present for it, he took responsibility and felt the guilt. This is a great example of survivor's guilt and shows elements of Bowkers conscience in it. Bowker, like the other guys in the war, was thrown into circumstances far different than those he grew up with and was raised to follow. These circumstances can be known to change people and let parts of their conscience take over the others. Despite the fact that these circumstances change people, Bowker was still able to let his humanity through. His moral sense of right and wrong outweighed all others and he knew that he should have an emotional response to his death instead of just moving on.

Another example of guilt is the story of the man I killed. Tim O’Brien’s character reflects on the aftermath of a man he killed from the other side, and through this made a story about him. He creates identities for this man, wondering who he was and going over what he took away from his world. O’Brien’s character is filled with an overwhelming guilt that he can not handle it. This is an example of how elements of his psyche are revealed. O’Brien facing death does not fills him with so much guilt he can not handle it, even when it is someone on the other side of the war. Instead of just moving on, he is devastated, which shows how strong his super ego is.

Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong

In Response to Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,

In war, societies standards are thrown out the window. What was once known as right and wrong is no longer relevant in war, which has been known to change people, which is exactly what happened to Mary Anne Bell in The Things They Carried.

In the chapter, Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, the reader is introduced to Mary Anne Bell, the high school sweetheart of one of the guys in the war. Mary Anne was brought to Vietnam to be with her boyfriend, and when she arrived, the crew noticed something about her. She was the stereotypical female of the time and that's how the enlisted men, especially her boyfriend, saw her. They saw her through society's standards and used that mold to fit her into. As Mary Anne stayed in camp with the men, she began to change. The moment she arrived in camp, Mary Anne was curious. Curious about how things functioned and wanted to be a part of the war. As she stayed, Mary Anne began to change. She was not afraid to work with weapons or get bloody and she was changing and evolving, but her boyfriend still saw her as the perfect mold of societies standards. In the end of the chapter, Mary Anne has evolved to lose her sense of standards, as one does in war.

Mary Anne has been growing up in a place where society's standards and rules were strict and something a person had to follow, and being thrown into a war messed her up. A war does not follow the same rules that society does, and anyone, especially a young adult can be changed by it. Mary Anne was just out of high school by the time she left for Vietnam, just finally given a chance to be her own person and decide what standards to follow, but living in a place where everything she once knew was no longer real caused a dramatic change. This change is something that could happen to anyone, male or female.

A Generation filled with Disillusionment

A Generation filled with Disillusionment

In response to They Are Dead Now: Eulogy for Sacco and Vanzetti

World War I shook the world.  A changed generation came out of this climactic event.   This new generation was,“characterised by doomed youth, hedonism, uncompromising creativity, and wounded—both literally and metaphorically—by the experience of war.”(2).  From this, emerged new group of writers and artists known as the Lost Generation. Along with emotional scarring and damage the war “created a feeling of disillusionment as this war as taken away their innocence that these people once all were filled with”(3). They rejected traditional ideas and the literary structures that were in place before the war, and created their own way of comprehending the world around them

The new generation produced some of the most noted literary figures in American history. This included people like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and Ezra Pound. These artists brought in a new theme of disillusionment into their works. Disillusionment was the realization that the “American Dream” was a lie. They began to question the things and the policies society had set.

Several authors of the time period “had a deep sense of disillusionment created by the violence of the war, with many members viewing the war as an extended act of senseless brutality that destroyed the innocence that dominated society at the turn of the 20th century.”(1) The lost generation authors were influenced by the tragedy of war, which led them to write about themes of disillusionment.

One poem that expresses disillusionment and the death of the American Dream  is John Dos Passos’s "They Are Dead Now.” This poem was written on the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian-American immigrants who were put on trial and executed for a murder in which there was little evidence that they were guilty. This caused an uproar because people believed they were only convicted because they were immigrants and anarchists. Eventually they were sentenced to death for the crimes.

In the poem, John Dos Passos states “they are free of dreams now” in reference to the imprisonment of Sacco and Vanzetti. They were freed from the cloud that had been placed over their thoughts and no longer were being misguided in hopes of the “American Dream”. This poem refers to two different people who are are dead, the literal Sacco and Vanzetti and the symbolically dead members of society. The “dead” are people who have been trapped into the holding cell of society. These are people who came to America like Sacco and Vanzetti with a dream, only for it to be crushed by the harsh reality of American conditions at the time. By analysing Passos poem, it is clear that he believes those who are stuck in a holding cell and soon to be dead, are more free than those who are still living in the current American society.

This poem shows how common it was for there to be themes of disillusionment in Lost Generation works. These authors understood they were being lied to, in a sense, the dreams and goals people aspired for were not realistic.  The Lost Generation was a group of literary writers and artists who were struck with the tragedy of war, resulting in a shift in society. Despite this tragedy and change in lifestyle, works of art were produced in this time period. Authors of the Lost Generation created inspiring work that has guided future generations into creating art.

"The Lost Generation by michael amberg on Prezi." 2015. 23 May. 2016 <https://prezi.com/c6pcx51rpelb/the-lost-generation/>

"American Literature in Europe - The "Lost Generation" - British Library." 2007. 23 May. 2016 <http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/amliteuro/lostgen.html>

"The Sensible Thing: Biographies - PBS." 23 May. 2016 <http://www.pbs.org/kteh/amstorytellers/bios.html>