Blog Post 3-3

When Paul goes home, he runs into his old teacher at the bar. His teacher is the one who first convinced him and his friends the sign up and join the war. All the teacher wanted to talk about with Paul was the war, which is a very touchy subject for Paul. The teacher started telling Paul how to win the war. He was telling Paul how to fight and that would end the war. This made Paul even more angry because his teacher didnt know anything about the war. His teacher has never experienced was Paul is going through, so him telling Paul how to win the war doesn't make and sense. I think when you go to the war it changes you. You see a didn't perspective on life and how fast it could be taken from you. I think Pauls reaction was appropriate for this type of situation and I would of acted the same way.

Blog Post 3-6...What If?

What if Paul never went to the war?
What if Paul's friends didn't die?
What if the students were never pressure into the war?
What if Paul had died first?
What if Kat wasn't dead?
What if Paul was never able to leave the war?
What if you decided to flee from the war?
What if the war makes me crazy?
What if Paul was not the narrator?
What if Paul's family understood what the war was like?

What if Paul died first? - If Paul died first, I don't think his friends would have survived that long without him. Paul kept the group sane and in control. Even though they hat Kat as a good leader, Paul was different and changed the boys in a good way.

The War in the Air

The War in the AirBy Howard Nemerov

For a saving grace, we didn't see our dead,

Who rarely bothered coming home to die

But simply stayed away out there

In the clean war, the war in the air.

Seldom the ghosts come back bearing their tales

Of hitting the earth, the incompressible sea,

But stayed up there in the relative wind,

Shades fading in the mind,

Who had no graves but only epitaphs

Where never so many spoke for never so few:

Per ardua, said the partisans of Mars,

Per aspera, to the stars.

That was the good war, the war we won

As if there was no death, for goodness's sake.

With the help of the losers we left out there

In the air, in the empty air.

This poem's subject is clearly stated in the title. It is a poem regarding the consequences and loss of the war. Even though the poet stated that the war was won, it didn't feel victorious to them considering so many lives had been lost. The line "Seldom the ghosts come back bearing their tales", means that there are rarely people who return from the war to share their stories. It also seems that the people who do return from war receive all the praise, forgetting the ones that have died for their country. 

Propaganda Posters

This poster is saying that if the Germans win, that no hom on British soul will be safe. That EVERYONE will be at the mercy of the barbarian. I feel this poster is trying to make people intimidated, but is trying to convince people that they need to fight harder. This poster is making people think that if they lose, they wont have the freedom they want.













This poster encourages men to go and join the war. This poster shows a little girl and her mother praying for her dad who is fighting in the war to be safe. What the girl means as "send him help" is that she wants God to keep him safe by sending him 'help' to keep on fighting and getting through the war, knowing that his family will be home waiting for him.

Dulce et decorum est patria mori

I disagree that it is sweet and good to die for your country. "Dulce et decorum est patria mori" means that it os sweet and good to die for ones country. I dont agree with this statement because i dont think its right for someone to die for their country. It is a very brave and honorable thing for someone to do, but if i was in that situation i personally wouldnt die for my country. I have a lot of respect for anyone that would die for their country. Your life can be taken from you at any moment, so why would you want to sacrifice yourself for your country.

All Quiet

"Someone shot him point blank in the stomach." Muller is also dead. He was shot in the abdomen and 'lived for half an hour' in 'terrible pain'.

Detering saw a cherry blossom tree and went a took a branch off of it because it reminded him of home. He wandered off and no one saw him for a while. Detering gets 'caught by the field gendarmes'. It doesn't say that Detering gets killed, but if a soldier trys to run away and gets caught, you get killed. 

"Our hands are earth, our bodies clay and out eyes pools of rain. We do not know whether we still live"

Kat goes out to get food and when he comes back he falls. It's just Paul and Kat now. Kat shin is smashed and Paul wraps him up. "The wound begins to bleed fast." Kat isn't very heavy so Paul takes him up on his back. Paul and Kat talk for a while and Paul thinks he's going to be ok. "He is stone dead" Paul says. Paul is thinking that he has fainted but he knows that Kat has passed. Paul finally notices that he has a splinter in his head. His only friend that he had left is gone. 

WWI

I learned that WWI was a very serious and traumatic event in our history. The conditions in WWI were very bad. There was such things as deafening noises, extremely cold weather, trench foot, rats, lice, and awful sanitation. There were many forms of gas used on the battlefield for attack. Shell-shock or combat stress caused PTSD. Symptoms were tiredness, irritability, lack of concentration, and headaches. Mental breakdowns often occurred from shell-shock. If you had combat stress you were most often executed. Soldiers in WWI were killed for insubordination, desertion, and refusing to fight. I expect All Quiet on the Western Front to be about men in the war fighting for their lives. The will probably face many struggles along the way and witness many deaths.  

This photo shows someone who has trench foot. It is a very serious condition and could result in amputation.

Blog 3-3

Paul runs into his old teacher at a bar. His teacher was the one who encouraged him to sign up for the war in the first place. They start talking and his teacher starts saying all this stuff about the war, acting like he knows whats going on. His teacher starts telling him if you do this and that the war will be over. He was talking like he knew what was happening in the war, when he doesnt know one thing about it. This makes Paul is upset because this isn't the teacher he remembers before the war. He doesn't like how the teacher is saying these things about the war because he has never experienced it.

A Red, Red Rose

A Red, Red RoseBy Robert Burns

O my Luve is like a red, red rose

   That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melody

   That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

   So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

   Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

   And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

   While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!

   And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

   Though it were ten thousand mile.

I think it's about a man talking about how much he loves a girl and that he would do anything and would even travel ten thousands miles to be with her. And if anything were to happen he would still and always love her.

"And I will come again, my luve, Though it were ten thousand mile".- He would travel really far to be with her.

"O my luve is like a red, red rose".- He is maybe referring to the rose as the girl he loves.

The end of Gilgamesh

The Relationship of Mankind to the Gods:  Consider the creation and death of Enkidu and Utnapishtim’s story of the flood (and the aftermath).  What do these episodes tell us about the relationship between the gods and human beings? How, if at all, do Exceptional human beings differ from ordinary ones in this regard? 

     Both of these episodes tell us that the gods will do and can do whatever they want. Since the flood was started by the gods, it shows us that they didn't care that they were going to kill humans. Even though the god Ea, went and told the fence about the gods plan, showing that he maybe cared for the humans. Then with Enkidu dying, he killed humbaba and the bull, which angered the gods. The gods punished Gilgamesh by killing him, meaning that they didn't care how he would feel about losing his 'brother'. I feel that exceptional human beings differ in how they act from ordinary ones. The gods are so powerful and can accomplish anything and the ordinary people have to try much harder and don't have the power that the gods do.

Chord- Stuart Dybek

A man steps out of sunlight,

sunlight that streams like grace,

still gaping at blue sky

staked across the emptiness of space,

into a history where shadows

assume a human face.

A man slips into silence

that began as a cry,

still trailing music

although reduced to the sigh

of an accordion

as it folds into its case.

      I like this poem because it has a good meaning and also a bad meaning. He is trying to find happiness but he keeps getting sucked back into the darkness. Another meaning could be like he is dying and he's trying to accept that. The last line "of an accordion as it folds into its case" hints that its at a funeral and his life has ended.

G-MESH

    What I think being 'human' means is how you act, and not necessarily the way that we are made. Being human doesn't just include walking upright, our brains, social life, and language. Gilgamesh in the beginning shows a side where he is very powerful and strong. He doesn't care for anyone else but himself. Later, Gilgamesh meets Enkidu, who he becomes great friends with. Enkidu has an effect on Gilgamesh. You start to see that Gilgamesh is becoming more 'human' like by just being an all round better person. He turns down a woman named Ishtar, this shows he is more human like because in the real world today most people would not do what Gilgamesh did. I think he finally notices how some people are just bad and in the end are going to hurt you Like Ishtar would do to Gilgamesh. Both Enkidu and Gilgamesh are both exceptional people by showing that you can help someone change to be more human.

Poetry Out Loud- The Net

Into this net of leaves, green as old glass  
That the sun fondles, trembling like images

In water, this live net, swung overhead
From branch to branch, what swam? The spider’s thread

Is less passive, where it appears to float
Like a bright hair clinging to the wind’s coat.

Hot at work, history neither schemes nor grieves  
Here where the soaking dead are last year’s leaves,

And over them slung, meshed with sun, a net  
No creature wove, none frantically tried to fret.

The huge weight of time without its sting  
Hangs in that greenly cradling woof. A wing

Has caught there, held. Held. But not to stay,  
We know, who, how slowly, walk away.

I like this poem because I'm unsure of what it's taking about. I really don't know if this poem is talking about a spider or someone trying to catch something, but it's very interesting trying to find out what it means.