Metaphors In D. Tannen's 'Fighting For Our Lives'

The story begins with a description of America’s continuation of the war in the middle east despite Osama Bin Laden’s death. The narrator describes this seemingly endless war as “hunting down low-level pipe swingers in the name of GWOT” (78). The acronym GWOT is military jargon for the Global War On Terrorism. Interestingly, Janis writes for an intended audience of non-military citizens who likely have no knowledge of GWOT’s meaning. In this case, the usage of “GWOT” implies a greater significance essential to the author’s overall argument. Since most readers won’t understand the meaning of GWOT, the presence of the acronym evokes feelings of isolation from the combat so many soldiers must face. It indirectly tells readers they have absolutely no idea what the soldiers face in the middle east, how they cope it, and how it affects their lives, both during their deployment and long after. This is simply accomplished by adding one word the audience is not likely to understand.

Metaphors are considered to be one of the most important forms of figurative languages used in everyday speech, prose, fiction, and poetry. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, a metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison” (Van Engen, 2008). Metaphors are used to enhance imagination of the reader when reading stories and poems. Metaphors make imaginative comparisons between two completely different objects; one object said to be another. For instance, in the poem Casey at the Bat, the author uses a metaphor to compare players to objects by stating the players are those actual

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible”(Tony Robbins). This quote from Tony relates to a 15 year old Bobby Phillips who becomes completely invisible. In this book the protagonist Bobby became invisible mentally and physically by a electric blanket. In Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements the author uses metaphors to convey the theme of invisibility. The first example of a metaphor is used by andrew clements when they are stealing information about his blanket from Sears Tower.

Fourth, students must realize how much metaphors are used in the english language. Not only are metaphors used so commonly, they also greatly influence the way we think about things. All subjects are based on metaphors. Education is currently seen as a business with the students as the clients. Language is a tree with deep roots. Metaphors are a cornerstone to how we grasp concepts and understand the knowledge we have. We really only know things in relation to other things, often by a metaphor

Tim O’Brien reminds us that true war stories are never moral. A war story is true if it is obscene and evil, with no virtue. A true war story will have no examples of the way humans should behave (514). The contributing authors absolutely influence the perception of the war, their works are meaningful, powerful. Further, we have the luxury of 20/20 hindsight and a PBS documentary that took 10 years to complete to consider when forming our opinion. Personally, I am grateful for the influence media and writings have on perceptions of warfare. I am coming to understand my grandfather who served in the Navy and the biases he brought home from the war. While I disagree with them, I am beginning to see where they originate from and why even at the

In David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers, Finklel details different versions of the war in Iraq. Over the years, the image of war portrayed through literature has changed. Looking at non-fiction wartime novels of the past, the image of war was completely different. The novels of the past focused much more on the aftermath of war and the survivors of war, rather than the actual war it’s self like in today’s novels. When novels of the past did feature scenes of war, the details used to describe the scenes were not as vivid as they are today. I attribute this change to the change of style in which narrative pieces of non-fiction are written. After Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was published in 1966, the landscape of the non-fiction narrative completely changed, thus the wartime books published after this also changed. In addition to that, the advancement in technology has also changed the way wartime novels are written. Today, society can go on YouTube and watch videos of the war. There is also more media present on the battlefield than there was in the past. Having access to actual footage of the ongoing war, the public knows what the war looks like. With that in mind, authors can portray the realities of war because they already know the public has some sense of what the battlefield already looks like.

A large number of former football players that have played for multiple years have suffered an injury throughout their careers and still have to deal with the long term effects it has on them. Some of them have knee problems, ankle problems, any problem you could think of. Even though football can give a person some beneficial characteristics, football can also give a person some bad characteristics. Football can change a person’s whole mind set. Once you play a sport like football you do not see things in the same light. For example, if a person was to play football for a couple of years and build an attitude that did not allow for anyone to boss them around then that could lead to some anger problems. Many professional athletes have to deal with hecklers that are in the stands. Most of the time they do not let it bother them, but there have been many cases where they snap because of the stress the game has put them through. Sometimes when players are so fed up with all the nonsense they try to shut themselves away from all the media to prevent a huge conflict with their image. They cannot let things affect the way they play because once you lose mentally you lose physically

The ‘Tet Offensive’ showed the first signs of the effect the media had in Vietnam, which led to the the question of “why did the audience see what they saw?” Firstly, unlike previous wars journalists had “extraordinary” freedom to cover Vietnam without any direct government intervention. Overtime this noticeably created a problem where the harsh brutal accounts from journalists differed from the positive optimism that United States Officials portrayed. The media was simply the messenger to the American people. But this was the first instance where technological advances had allowed a war to be played out on your own television screen every night of the week. The journalists reacted in the same way as the American public; they too were shocked beyond belief at the constant scenes of burning villages, bloody soldiers and lifeless bodies. These feelings came across in the broadcasts and like the ‘media effects theory’ explains, naturally Americans took up that same belief. This was the first time that the American public showed collective beliefs opposing to the war. To further push public opinion against the war, Hallin suggested that there was a “…declining morale among American troops in the field…”. The thirty-minute nightly

Public opinion on the Vietnam War hit its second turning point during the Tet offensive, which raged between January and April in 1968. NVA forces launched a huge attack on nearly all cities in northern Vietnam. Many US military bases were also affected by the attack. In total, over 4300 American and South Vietnamese soldiers were killed in action during the Tet Offensive. 16000 were wounded and over 1000 were missing in action. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong casualties numbered approximately 45000, with an additional 7000 taken prisoner. Shortly after this information was released, the anti- war movement reached its highest membership. In hindsight, we cannot fully understand weather the anti-war movement escalated because censorship of the media was let go, but one could argue that they worked together hand-in-hand to increase interest in the truth about Vietnam. If it had not been so vividly presented in the media, the Tet Offensive would not have posed such a huge problem. The offensive became a turning point. Up until this point, the US public was led to believe that the war was coming to an end, and that the soldiers would be home within the year. Herman and Chomsky argue that “Media coverage of the Tet Offensive has been the centrepiece of the critique of the media for ‘losing the war’ by their incompetent reporting and anti-government bias reflecting their passion for confronting authority.” They can be supported when we consider that still iconic images such as ‘the napalm girl’ began to be seen in the papers and on television. Americans depended on television to see and understand the war, but the death and destruction they saw appeared as unjustified murder when prospects for the war began to deteriate, so as expected the more and more American people lost faith in the war and the government after

The Vietnam War was the critical conflict that altered our “post modern” societal view of what war is really about. Tim O’Brien shows the brutal reality of war to our “post modern” society without adding the propaganda and fluff that our society has come to accept. In our trying times today, Operation Iraqi freedom has supposedly come to an end. With the amounts of embedded reporting, our society has been able to see battles as they occur. The news ran non stop coverage on the war, where T.V. audiences were enthralled with scenes of battle. These broadcasts did not accurately depict the American casualties. The only live broadcasts were images of U.S. soldiers were taking out objectives with little resistance from Iraqi forces.

The act of war involves conflict between two parties and can be conducted in a civil or violent manner. Though the typical American news stream constantly seems to highlight death tolls, new weaponry, and civilian captives from any country that finds themselves in battle, the media has been making a recent adjustment to the types of battles it narrates to its viewers. The wars that matter the most now are the ones that are happening right inside our country. Right outside of your house. Does a gay person have the right to marriage? Is an African American’s privilege still seemingly less to that of a Caucasian? Are males given more opportunities than females? Is there discrimination against the poor, the physically and mentally altered, or

"I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out." Rodney Dangerfield. Ever since the start to the game of hockey, violence has always played a role in the sport. While that role both contributing positive and negative aspects to the game, violence has taken its toll on not only the players but the fans as well. As violence in hockey is as many fans say part of the game and what makes “hockey” hockey, the negative outcomes overweigh the positive. From fights to brawls, slashes to high sticks, boarding to head contact the violence surrounds the entire game. As fans cheer and rant at their full potential when a fight breaks out during a hockey

In times of War, the media plays a crucial role both in reporting, monitoring and giving updates. During the Vietnam War of 1955-1975, the American press played crucial roles of reporting until it ended up shifting its tone under the influence of occurrence of some events like the Tet Offensive, the My Lai Massacre, the bombing of Cambodia and leaking of Pentagon papers resulting into lack of trust in the press (Knightly 1975). From the beginning of the war up to present times there have been undying debates over the role of media in the war. The have been various criticisms over the American News Media’s actions and influences on the outcome of the war. The debate is embedded on the particular political assumptions perceived across the

It is true that some sports are not as brutal as others during gameplay; however, those that are are particularly violent. Horrifying levels of brutality, also known as ritual hazing, can be found in many team sports. Major League Baseball, which has banned the practice, is still known for its players brawling on the field. Hundreds of videos online showcase these outrageous affairs as if they’re

Some immensely violent acts of hooliganism have been seen by the witnesses by these supporters of football. The conflicts that exist between these people can be as small as fistfights and sometimes so intense that these people make use of the deadly weapons against each other. The use of glass bottles, sports bats, pistols, knives, rocks and machetes has also been seen in football hooliganism. There have been cases in the past when hooliganism and conflicts inside the stadium during an ongoing football match resulted in panic and injuries were inflicted on the fans that were there. When these