Summary Of Between Days By Yusef Komunyakaa

The author, Tim O'Brien, is writing about an experience of a tour in the Vietnam conflict. This short story deals with inner conflicts of some individual soldiers and how they chose to deal with the realities of the Vietnam conflict, each in their own individual way as men, as soldiers.

Brazilian Guided Tour Daytripper, by brothers Fabio Moon and Gabriel Bá was my first graphic novel of any length. As someone who has not been a fan of comic books or graphic novels, I’d have to say I enjoyed Daytripper more than I thought I would. Initially, I found the storyline hard to follow and was surprised at the death in the first chapter of who appeared to be the main character. After delving into the second chapter, I became more comfortable with the story line, helped along by the beautiful illustrations that helped me visualize the content of the story more fully. The ability to convey emotions and expressions through their graphics helped me to better understand the dialogue and storyline and pulled me in etching for more.

The poem starts with similar word choices as ‘The Soldier’ but written in the perspective of the mother. The mother tells his son that when he dies he will be in a place of ‘quietness’ and free from the ‘loss and bloodshed’. This reinforces the fact that the battlefield was full of horrors and death. The poem then moves onto how ‘men may rest themselves and dream of nought’ explaining that the soldiers do not have to fear for their lives after their death. This illustrates how they feared for their lives and had negative connotations.

The poem “Facing it” by Yusef Komunyakaa has a tone that will haunt a reader well after they are done reading it. The poem is about the author, a veteran visiting the Vietnam veteran’s memorial for the very first time. The author describes the emotional impact the visit has on him. The author uses lines such as “I said I wouldn’t, dammit: No tears.” (Komunyakaa, 1947, line 3-4) and “I’m stone. I’m flesh” (Komunyakaa, 1947, line 5) to drive home the emotion and deep feelings in the poem. Throughout the poem the author utilizes personification to add to the effect and tone of the poem as well. The author talks about the memorials stone as if it were alive. He uses the line “I turn this way –the stone lets me go.” (Komunyakaa, 1947, line 9). This is an example of the personification the author uses to help bring the stone to life. The author feels the stone truly has a strong hold on him.

Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War is a novel that is a personal view of the Vietnam War from the perspective of a Vietnamese soldier. Like the American novel “The things they carried”, this novel brings about the effects of war on people, and especially how it defeats the human capacity for things such as love and hope. Bao Ninh offers this realistic picture of the Vietnam War’s impact on the individual Vietnamese soldier through use of a series of reminiscences or flashbacks, jumping backwards and forwards in time between the events most salient in memory, events which take on a different theme each time they are examined. His main protagonist Kien, who is basically Bao himself, looks back not just at his ten years at

Death defines life; it has the ability to reinvent the living for better or worse. “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien, provides a non-linear, semi-fictitious account of the Vietnam War that poignantly depicts the complicated relationship between life and death. His account breathes subtle vitality and realism into the lingering presence of the dead, intimating that the memories they impart have as profound an impact as the living.

With the Vietnam War fresh in Le’s memory, recurring themes of the war are vivid throughout his work. As Le was growing up in California at a young age, he had little exposure to his Vietnamese culture which was eventually fed to him through American popular culture rather than his own experiences. This caused him to disassociate whether

War is woven into the familial aspects of this novel. It not only separated families, but also separated Vietnam itself, dividing the people and therefore compromising the idea of unity and cultural identity. The Vietnam War left a residue of resentment

The poem Homecoming deals with the horror of war, focusing specifically on the Vietnam War like in Weapons Training. Dawe manages to capture the frustration of those who witness the senseless carnage as well as the dehumanisation of war, that it is to no avail, and ultimately a waste of human life. The slight sadness in Dawe’s tone compels our agreement with this message. Choices of words such as “sorrowful”, “frozen sunset”, “whining like howls”, “tremble like leaves tree”, relate to what people think to relate to sadness, and this influences the readers thoughts of this downcast tone that suits the theme that war bestows nothing but dread onto the human population.

In the second part of the book, “Day” by Elie Wiesel, the name of the main character, Eliezer, is given. During five years of separation, Kathleen had married an older man whom she was not able to love. After she divorced her husband, she returned to New York, where she reconnected with Eliezer.

On page 128, August goes to Summer’s house for the first time and Summer explains her family and dad. Summer’s dad was a platoon sergeant and died because it said on page 128, “ “Oh, no,” I said. “He was a platoon sergeant. He died a few years ago”.” Summer’s dad risked his own life for others like the whole US army. The US Army risks their life to keep our country safe from harm. Nearly 500,000 soldiers in the military died during the U.S. Civil War and in World War two around 406,000 people died. About 42 million people have served in the military during wartime. Summer’s dad and other soldiers in the army give up their life for others to live.

If Philip Caputo’s memoir is meant to be the story of an American soldier, Trâm’s diary becomes the story of the Vietnamese people and their struggle. On May 7th 1970 Trâm recounts her feelings on the history of war in Vietnam, and how the people still remain undeterred. “Twenty-five years immersed in fire and bullets, we are still strong.” Not only after all this fighting and after all that Trâm herself has witnessed and endured she is still confident in her country. “We will persevere and be courageous and hold our heads high and take the offensive.” Trâm’s diary makes it clear that there was never any doubt in

Bao Ninh’s novel The Sorrow of War tells a very realistic and explicit story of Kien, a North Vietnamese soldier and writer, during the Vietnam War. Kien manages to survive, usually by luck, through battles and

In this ambitious work, Jeremy Bowen details the happenings between Israel and Palestine. This Middle East war sparked much debate throughout the world especially amongst historians. Bowen uses this work as a personal recount of the six days that shaped the world as it is today. Bowen, an experienced BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) journalist and editor, presented the world with the Radio 4 series which allowed listeners to learn of the Six Day war. Through a detailed assessment of Bowens words readers of the book are able to submerse themselves back to 1967 and view how monumental moments such as West Bank settlements, the rise of Yasser Arafat, Black September and the 1973 Yom Kippur war all have roots stemming from the Six-Day

The short story “A Great Day” is written by the New Zealander Frank Sargeson, one of New Zealand’s leading authors. He wrote this novel during The Great Depression in the mid 1930s. New Zealand was one of the countries that were affected by The Great Depression. Unemployment reached 12 percent at its worst and New Zealand’s national income decreased severely. The author explicitly emphasises this by bringing up the unemployment of both of the characters, Fred and Ken.