{"id":524,"date":"2016-01-12T14:26:13","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T21:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/?p=524"},"modified":"2016-05-04T14:08:25","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T21:08:25","slug":"war-never-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/2016\/01\/12\/war-never-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"War Never Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a particular scene in Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now<\/em> that reminded me of the trauma faced by a protagonist in Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.<\/em> In\u00a0 Apocalypse Now<\/em>, Willard begins his monologue of his experience returning to civilization. He goes on to recall the desire to leave the warzone when he was in duty, but quickly changes this\u00a0opinion when he feels like a stranger to the “peace” of being at home.\u00a0This realization is similar to All Quiet on the Western Front’s <\/em>Paul Baumer when he is temporarily relieved from his service at war. Paul returns to his sister and sickly mother\u00a0, however, he \u00a0is unable to\u00a0escape the belief that he does not belong by his family’s side, but rather belongs to the brutal conditions of war. (As Paul\u00a0joined the war\u00a0when he was\u00a0eighteen, he\u00a0encounters the cruelty of\u00a0manslaughter in war that\u00a0the majority of adult men\u00a0have\u00a0not\u00a0confronted.)<\/p>\n

Both Willard and Paul have experienced the cruelty and chaos of war on the frontline where they have witnessed gruesome injuries, the deaths of close acquaintances, and slaughtering of men upon men. To suddenly return to society is an adaptation that neither of the protagonists are able to make, especially when civilians and society glorify the\u00a0 act of going to war and the “pride” that is\u00a0associated with\u00a0their participation in it. Those in society euphonize the war (despite having little or no knowledge of the struggles found\u00a0within) and idealize\u00a0a\u00a0brave soldier without fear of the war.\u00a0It is due to the realization that the fantasy of a noble and unbroken soldier returning home\u00a0is impossible that causes Willard and Paul to embrace the\u00a0harsh conditions and reality of\u00a0war.\u00a0Neither of the protagonists can\u00a0cope with the denial of their trauma in the frontline (by society’s unshattering delusion of war bettering the soldier and the nation), thus they seek comfort in the atrocities of war that are real, unavoidable, and ever-lasting in memories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a particular scene in Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse Now that reminded me of the trauma faced by a protagonist in Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. In\u00a0 Apocalypse Now, Willard begins his monologue of his experience … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34751,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":530,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions\/530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/a1lieblang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}