Tyler Yancey American History, Period 1 Fields of Fire 2013 February 22 Review of Fields of Fire Fields of Fire by James Webb is a historical novel first published in 1978 that takes place in the year 1969 during the Vietnam War. Although there are many characters that are significant to the story, the novel focuses mainly on three marines who find themselves in a platoon with each other; Robert E. Lee Hodges, “Snake,” and Will “Senator” Goodrich. Webb gives the reader a great, detailed background of each of these characters through a combination of both direct and indirect characterization. As the novel progresses, major events that occur include battle and violence, loss and coping, and learning. The themes that naturally …show more content…
Webb’s educational background helps to show, with the help of his military profile, that he is more than qualified to proficiently write on the subjects discussed in his novel, Fields of Fire. James Webb focuses on three main characters in his novel: Robert E. Lee Hodges, “Snake,” and Will “Senator” Goodrich. The inspiration for these three characters seems to be not the life of any particular historical figure, but rather the common backgrounds of real soldiers who served in Vietnam in general. Characters in the novel are most often developed only after their initial introduction into the story. After introducing a character to the reader, Webb will often follow this introduction with the story of the characters life before the military and how or why he decided to enlist. Those characteristics not mentioned at his introduction or those that change are typically revealed during or after intense, traumatic events, such as near-death experiences or witnessing the death of a friend. Although the novel centers on only three characters, these three characters represent highly prominent reasons that American’s had for enlisting; to continue a family legacy and protect his family’s honor, to escape the steep decline and unhappiness of his life, and by accident or unwillingly being drafted. In this novel, the characters are what really embody and portray the main themes. Robert E. Lee Hodges claims that he is fighting to carry on his family’s
had to wear some old shoes that he had at home. Gold did not like this
Gates of Fire is a story about the Spartan way of life and their fight to protect their country. The story is told by a dying Spartan squire named Xeones, who was captured by the Persian army after the battle at Thermopylae. He is telling the story to the Persian king. The story took place around 480 B.C. Xeones began the story in a small town where he grew up called Astakos. He tells of how his town was destroyed and how he was taken in by the Spartans. Eventually he became a servant for a Spartan youth name Alexandros, who was the protégé of Dienekes. Xeones finally became a squire for the Spartan officer Dienekes.
Throughout the 16th century, as there was a demographic collapse of the indigenous population, there was now a new demand for slave labor in Latin America. In Brazil, the Portuguese needed a large workforce to cultivate sugar plantations. As a result, numerous slaves from Africa were imported to work on large plantation fields. In various plantations, rural slaves experienced harsh working and living conditions. Few slaves had a high life expectancy. Robert Edgar Conrad in “Children of God’s Fire,” shares some primary sources that dealt with the types of environments and conditions many slaves faced and encountered in Brazil. The sources also gave insight into the regulations and economics/business of the slave trade. Conrad states that rural Brazil was “a hell for blacks” (Conrad 54). Many slaves dealt with extremely harsh conditions just to keep the European market in Latin American growing and profitable. This paper will analyze how rural slaves lived and worked on Brazilian sugar plantations.
“Words of Fire,” by Anthony Collings, details the lives of different journalists in regards to free press and covering potentially dangerous stories. Anthony Collings is a former CNN reporter who shifted his focus from reporting to telling the story of journalists who have come under fire in a power struggle between government and free press. Collings puts free press into a spectrum, on one side there is the United States, where the press is largely free, and on the other side there are places like North Korea or China where press is largely restricted by the government. Collings does not focus on these extremes, but rather the places in the middle where there is an ongoing struggle between state power.
Fields of Fire, by James Webb, is a novel about the Marines who fought in Hoa Basin in 1969. The book is told through the prospective of the Men who were experiencing the fighting and hardships first hand, and it is the most authentic piece of military literature I have ever read. It starts out describing the background stories of the two most prominent characters, Snake, and Robert E. Lee Hodges, JR. After these introductions Webb goes on to describe the Marine’s first tastes of combat, with grit and violence of the jungle warfare that was Vietnam. Hodges and Snake met when Hodges took over as platoon commander of the platoon that Snake was a squad leader in. After all the fighting was done, the story didn 't have a
The Viet Nam War has been the most reviled conflict in United States history for many reasons, but it has produced some great literature. For some reason the emotion and depredation of war kindle in some people the ability to express themselves in a way that they may not have been able to do otherwise. Movies of the time period are great, but they are not able to elicit, seeing the extremely limited time crunch, the same images and charge that a well-written book can. In writing of this war, Tim O'Brien put himself and his memories in the forefront of the experiences his characters go through, and his writing is better for it. He produced a great work of art not only because he experienced the war first hand, but because he is able to convey the lives around him in such vivid detail. He writes a group of fictional works that have a great deal of truth mixed in with them. This style of writing and certain aspects of the book are the topics of this reflective paper.
The story “The Things They Carried” reveals emotional and physical challenges soldiers face during the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien introduces the reader not only to the subject of war and physical exhaustion, but also to human feelings and inner struggle soldiers are going through at this war. Besides the equipment and necessary things, soldiers carried emotions which strengthen their hope of staying alive in order to continue their mission. Tim O’Brien uses female figure, Martha, to create psychological escape which distracts a young soldier, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, from the war. However, such a distraction leads to the death of a group member, Ted Lavender. The illusion of love for Martha and false hopes gradually transform into bitter feeling of guilt and the harsh reality of war. Tim O’Brien masterfully describes Jimmy Cross’ and other soldier’s experience and feelings during
In this book, Tim O’brien reveals all his experiences in detail about the war; as well as stories about his fellow soldiers, and makes a true, but over the top about them. He explains how he feels through stories that are difficult to clearly identify as “true.” This book has a lot of themes, death and violence is one of the major themes.
Imagine losing your whole family in one week, now imagine half of a population being wiped out. Armenian genocide killed half the population between the years 1915 and 1917. People were taken from their homes, imprisoned, and killed. The book Forgotten Fire, written by Adam Bagdasarian, is about a 13-year-old Armenian boy who survives the genocide. Vahan embarked on a long tough journey to get to safety in Constantinople where he would be free from the Turkish government.
Hundreds of bodies littered the ground. Sounds of explosions and endless gunfire filled the air. Soldiers, with their uniforms splashed in crimson, fought viciously and ruthlessly. Their main objective, which was to win the battle, took a backseat to their newfound desperation to stay alive. After all, war is not a game, especially one such as the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and left its survivors haunted by a multitude of atrocious events. Terry Erickson’s father and George Robinson, who were two fictional characters from the short stories “Stop the Sun” and “Dear America”, respectively, were veterans of the Vietnam War. The differences and similarities between Terry’s father and George Robinson are striking, and they merit rigorous scrutiny.
A World Lit Only by Fire by William Manchester Outline The Medieval Mind I. The Dark Ages A. The Years A.D. 400 to A.D. 1000 1. Referred to as the Dark Ages because knowledge and literacy vanished during this era.
Ilan Stavans says that Juan Rulfo’s book, The Plain in Flames, is best represented by the phrase realismo crudo. Stavans defines this phrase as “a type of realism interested in the rawness of life”, meaning that he characterizes Rulfo’s writing as an unfiltered view into the lives of the average Mexican (Stavans, xi). By writing in this style, Rulfo is able to provide “an image—instead of just a description—of our landscape” as stated by Octavio Paz (xv). To create this image, Rulfo broke his story writing the process down into three separate steps. As paraphrased by Ilan Stavans, the first step “is to create a character”, the second step “is to place him in an environment where he might move around” and the third step “is to discover how the character expresses himself” (xiii). Rulfo was able to repeatedly crafted stories that were filled with high levels of realismo crudo by using that special three-step process. By creating his protagonist, crafting an environment for said protagonist, and allowing the character to express themselves within this environment, Rulfo crafted a three-tier image of post-revolutionary life in Mexico that has never been seen before.
In presenting Tom Robinson as a political individual, subject to the systematized and impersonal race bias of the South, Harper Lee goes beyond than telling a story against a political background. Lee explicitly makes politics an integral element of the movie. On the other hand, the physical and, especially, emotional wounds Stone has sustained in Vietnam will forever remind him of the disgraceful dehumanization he endured in the war, which he was extremely successful at eliciting on Platoon. Disturbing emotions such as fear, confusion, desperation and hate are conveyed. They depict the duality of man and the way in which a person’s emotions and attitudes can be swayed one way or the other through the horrors of war. War shapes and haunts the
Catching Fire is a novel written by Suzanne Collins. It is the Second book in the series The Hunger Games. It is about a girl named Katniss Everdeen who won the 74th Hunger Games, She and District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are still alive, and Katniss Realizes she might have helped create a rebellion against the capitol. There are 496 Pages and 25 Chapters, the story takes place in district 12 and the arena and is told from Katniss’s Point of View. I think what sets the story in motion is when President Snow visits Katniss and her mom,
Have you ever had a book you can’t forget about? Well, same here. My favorite book that I still can not forget about is a realistic fiction novel called Forged By Fire written by Sharon M. Draper. This book took me, the reader, through the main character's (Gerald) life. It explains the ups and downs of the character's life. The book was super realistic and made you feel like you were in each and every one of the character shoes, form the main characters, to some you might of seen in the book once or twice. It describe each character with great detail, showing there life from childhood to adulthood. It showed me that we might all be different , but we all have something to connect to. My favorite part about this book was that the very first