War Is War

8 Pages 2095 Words

s same conflict is evoked as well in “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” Tennyson gives the illusion of glory to the reality of death as “Boldly they rode and well, / Into the jaws of Death, / Into the mouth of Hell (3.6-8)” The soldiers bravery to face death was glorified in this depiction of the Crimean War (Sharpe). Although the soldiers most certainly knew their fate, they realized that their own deaths were inevitable and necessary to the reality of the war. The difficulty with facing reality can also be seen in prose. Hemmingway’s Krebs in “Soldier’s Home” is an example of the problems war can create even upon return from duty. Two real concepts of truth and responsibility are often absent from Krebs’ conscience. “A distaste for everything that had happened to him in the war set in because of the lies he had told. All of the times that had been able to make him feel cool and clear inside himself when he thought of them [...] were lost themselves” (153). Krebs’s sparred life was death in a sense as he was no longer his old self. One could argue that this living death, may be more painful than physical death as one must continually struggle with what is rational given the new set of experiences to draw from. This sense of isolation contributed to his lack of motivation, Krebs “wanted his life to go smoothly” (157). He wanted to experience life without effort, responsibility and therefore without consequences. “He did not want any consequences. He did not want any consequences ever again. He wanted to live along without consequences” (154). This will of Krebs to exist in a vacuum of society is evidence of how the reality of l...