Walking Since Daybreak Analysis

Literature encapsulates the human experience, reflecting facets of our culture, traditions, and beliefs. Literature functions as a tool to develop and explore empathetic links with other individuals and can provide insight into experiences removed from our own reality. Peter Fischl’s poem ‘Little Polish Boy’ is one such text in which we can attain a unique understanding of the horrors catalysed by war. An expression of Fischl’s own Holocaust experience, this poem is set in WWII, and addressed as a letter to an innocent child of the war from a photograph Fischl found years after the war ended. We can also learn of the loss and grief children face in times of war through the picture book ‘a Soldier, a Dog and a Boy’ by Libby Hathorn. The story follows a young boy orphaned by the Battle of Somme and he’s only left to survive with his dog before an Australian soldier comes to his rescue. These texts allow us to reach a better understanding of the different effects conflict has on children.

Although Gerda was destined to grow up, it was the brutal conditions and pain she suffered under Hitler’s reign that forced her to mature beyond her years. In fact, she has also developed as a woman as the years of World War II progressed, and gained a massive supply of wisdom. Having to cope with the loss of nearly everyone she loved by herself, Gerda gained much independence. Experiencing times where death seemed to be her only liberation, it was her great optimism and her family’s infamous quote “Be strong” that kept her going. Weissmann embodies perseverance and her desire to live radiates off of her and inspires others to live. Gerda Klein’s memoir is written so delicately to the point where the reader doesn’t focus on the horrors forced

In their lives a distant and cold character exists. When the war began in Sarajevo the men on the hills cut off the city’s water. Kenan’s elderly neighbor Mrs. Ristovski thrusted her plastic bottles towards him when he opened the door and all she said was “A promise is a promise.” and left him standing at the doorway. Even before the war Mrs. Ristovski had always acted abrasively; knocking on their door early in the morning and complaining about their first born’s crying. Not once has she shown

The most memorable genocide constructed abruptly by German Nazis left both Jewish and German-Jewish residents of Poland in a whirl of destruction. 1933 had been the year that changed the lives of billions, but one young lady by the name of Stefania (Fusia) Podgorska managed to save thirteen, including herself along with her young sister. Upon moving to Przemysl and working a steady job as a grocer, ghettos in Poland had begun to be invaded, and her mother and eldest brother were not too lucky. Podgorska’s family had been sent to Germany for forced labor, like the rest of the Jewish community in that vicinity. While still without question, going through a rough patch at the grocery store, oddly enough, she had also been relieved simply because

In “The Son of Man,” Natalia Ginzburg asserts that while the war did irreparable psychological damage to its survivors, it also gave the young generation enough strength to confront the stark reality of the precarious nature of human existence. Passionately but concisely, through the use of repetitive imagery, fatalistic tone and lack of classic organization, Ginzburg shows how the war changed the world around Man and how Man changed his perception of the world.

‘Stasiland’ is a non-fiction text written by Anna Funder and follows the personal recounts and experiences of those who lived throughout the GDR prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. While the book primarily revolves around the conversations and reflections which Funder holds in relation to these stories, it is the authors remarkable use of symbolism which enables her to go beyond mere conversation delve into the complexities of not just other’s but her own experience in Stasiland. The use of physical motifs such as Hagen Koch’s Stasi plate are representative of the unrelenting oppression and control

Nikolai Litvin recalls his experiences from his tenure as a Red Army soldier in his memoir 800 Days on the Eastern Front. Litvin transcribed his memories of the war seventeen years after he left the military, which provided him ample time to process his experiences and formulate complete thoughts on what happened. Using a concise writing style, Litvin packs his memoir with vivid details of military operations and offers subtle details about Stalinist thinking and Soviet life. The memoir contains some significant Soviet bias, and Litvin’s point of view is clearly impacted by the unique experiences of a Red Army soldier. To truly understand 800 Days on the Eastern Front, the reader must decipher how Litvin understands his experiences, the impacts of internalized Stalinist thoughts and how Litvin reflects them, and how Litvin reveals the truths he believes about the war.

The personal nature of the story is communicated through the author’s experiences and by the people of Gorazde themselves. Taking abandonment as an example, we follow Sacco as he travels down the “blue road” which Bosnian Muslims cannot escape their suffering, the very same road which the UN shares with Serbian ethnic cleansers. Here we have the international abandonment of the enclave. Relayed to us by the people of Gorazde, is their abandonment of one another based on ethnicity.

Like Bridie and Sheila they too are the forgotten victims of war, left to get on with life in their new country. The opening short sentences establish an atmosphere of sadness and apprehensions as the negative connotations of ‘dampness’, ‘crowded’ and ‘sank’ denote feelings of loss. As the ‘Immigrants’ wait in silence, the onomatopoeia of ‘the train’s whistle’ is a stark reminder of their transition into a new world and loss of the old. A melancholic tone is used to frame feelings of depression coupled with the pathetic fallacy of ‘crowded air’ and ‘dampness that slowly sank into our thoughts’ to capture vividly the common experiences of dislocation that is being felt. The alliterative use of ‘slowly sank’ highlights a loss of hope further denoting pessimism about an uncertain future in a country where indifference is experienced. Skrzynecki’s use of personification ‘time hemmed us in’ reflects the confinement of the immigrants as the extended metaphor of time is symbolic of stasis in their lives, moments of transience, but with little meaning. This loss of identity, both cultural and personal is further expressed through the figurative language where the powerful simile ‘like cattle bought for slaughter’ profoundly expresses their fear and pessimism through

Soviet Ukraine was a terrible place to be in the late 1900s for Jewish people. There was strong anti-semitism during this time in the waning days of the Cold War. The Cold War was a state of political hostility between countries that was characterized mainly by threats and propaganda. Lev Golinkin wrote on his experiences about being a Jew living in Ukraine in his memoir, A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka. Golinkin possesses an interesting writing style that includes a terribly harsh tone of fear, yet he also incorporates humor that forces the reader to connect with him. Golinkin utilized tone superbly to allow the reader to better understand the topics of his memoir.

Modris Eksteins presented a tour-de-force interpretation of the political, social and cultural climate of the early twentieth century. His sources were not merely the more traditional sources of the historian: political, military and economic accounts; rather, he drew from the rich, heady brew of art, music, dance, literature and philosophy as well. Eksteins examined ways in which life influenced, imitated, and even became art. Eksteins argues that life and art, as well as death, became so intermeshed as to be indistinguishable from one another.

New Historicism is a school of criticism that is “influenced by structuralist and post-structuralist theories, [and] seeks to reconnect a work with the time period in which it was produced and identify it with the cultural and political movements of the time” (Purdue Owl). With this school of criticism, every work that is created is considered a product of the moment in history that it references. Historical criticism insists that readers need to understand

Triggering Event: Immigrants in the United States from Polish ethnicity have not been warmly received in many instances, and in fact immigrants from Poland often struggle with issues like language and legal status. While much of the focus of the news media zeros in on the issues and problems related to immigrants crossing the border from Mexico, there are other immigrants like those from Poland that also have their problems and issues. As a result of the problems many Polish immigrants experience, there seems to be a movement wherein many of these immigrants are returning to Europe.

Autobiographical texts are not simple retellings of experiences, but the result of a complex process of shaping and refining ideas and events that take place in someone’s life. The texts The Damage Done and The Happiest Refugee by Warren Fellows and Anh Do respectively, follow two different stories of survival and chance. One, a tale of the dealings of drug trafficking, and the other a description of a brave and valiant escape from post-war Vietnam. Through use of structure and language devices, my views of these two men and their surroundings have been shaped and manipulated; for Fellows, the view that he is simply an innocent victim of chance, and for Do, that he is a family man, shaped by significant events in his early life. Language conventions

As long as there has been war, those involved have managed to get their story out. This can be a method of coping with choices made or a way to deal with atrocities that have been witnessed. It can also be a means of telling the story of war for those that may have a keen interest in it. Regardless of the reason, a few themes have been a reoccurrence throughout. In ‘A Long Way Gone,’ ‘Slaughterhouse-Five,’ and ‘Novel without a Name,’ three narrators take the readers through their memories of war and destruction ending in survival and revelation. The common revelation of these stories is one of regret. Each of these books begins with the main character as an innocent, patriotic soldier or civilian and ends in either the loss of innocence and regret of choices only to be compensated with as a dire warning to those that may read it. These books are in fact antiwar stories meant not to detest patriotism or pride for one’s country or way of life, but to detest the conditions that lead to one being so simpleminded to kill another for it. The firebombing of Dresden, the mass execution of innocent civilians in Sierra Leone and a generation of people lost to the gruesome and outlandish way of life of communism and Marxism should be enough to convince anyone. These stories serve as another perspective for the not-so-easily convinced.