Reading Log 1 James Glynn   

Text Title: The Next War

Author/Director: Wilfred Owen

Text Type: Other Written Text

Date Finished:  26th February 2017

 This is a war poem that expresses the feeling of a soldier or many soldiers going to their deaths, whilst it is also outlining the very reality of war. They are referring to a relationship with “he” who is the grim reaper.The poet says, “War’s a joke for me and you, while we know such dreams are true.” This is explaining that we can fulfill our dreams in a free world because the soldiers of our countries have sacrificed their lives through fighting to do so.

The theme of grief is explored in the text when the writer says, “Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to death, sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland, pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.” This shows to me that the soldiers have gone through so much grief that they are not scared of death anymore, and throughout the poem, they are transforming their fear into acceptance.The language feature used in this quote is personification,”sat down and eaten with him.” The image that is in my head when I hear this personification is a soldier and the grim reaper sitting at a table exchanging food and eating their meals, meaning the soldiers and death have a very close relationship.

In the text the writer quotes, “We laughed, knowing that better men would come, and greater wars: when each fighter brags he wars on death, for lives, not men, not flags.” This connects to the rest of the world culturally because the fighters are stating that they do not fight on flags or men, but death, this is fighting culture. In the quote, the writer uses listing to stating the reasons people go to war, “Each fighter brags he wars on death, for lives, not men, not flags.” The effect the language feature portrays sums up what the fighters fight for, which is fighting for their lives.

Politically this text connects with the whole world because everyone and every country are changed by war just so some countries can have a better economy or be more dominant than other countries.This text teaches me about the society and the world we live in through the straight honest facts of how horrible war is and how lucky we are to live in a country that has nothing to do with war anymore, compared to countries that are experiencing modern-day war such as Syria.

The way the characters behaved in the setting was accepting. The writer says. “He’s spat at us with bullets and he’s coughed shrapnel. We chorused when he sang afloat,” in the quote the writer uses a metaphor, the imagery expresses soldiers running through the battlefield whilst dodging bullets from their opposing enemy. The quote shows to me that the characters in the poem know that every day they could die and are accepting that fact.

This text connects to my personal experiences through sport, having to endure the full duration of the game accepting that I might lose but having hope that I dominate the opponent. These fighters would have the same experiences on the battlefield hoping they get through the day on top. The difference is if I lose sport I survive if they lose the fight they die.

Three reasons I would recommend the text is because it is very brief but very detailed. There is a wide range of language features used to keep the reader engaged such as “We’ve walked quite friendly up to death,” (metaphor and alliteration). The style of writing keeps you engaged, although it may not be true it is very exciting and puts a lot of imagery in the reader’s head, for example when it says “He spat at us with bullets and he’s coughed up shrapnel” this immediately puts an image in the reader’s mind that the soldiers are hiding from bullets and doing everything they can to survive.

Reading Log 2

Schindler’s list

Steven Spielberg

Visual text

Finished: 14/04/17

Oskar Schindler is a businessman during the 1940s in German-occupied Poland, he took advantage of the Holocaust by hiring cheap Jewish workers to run his business. By the end of the film, all of Schindler’s workers have been saved from being killed by the Nazis. This is because they are valuable to the German army through producing ammo.  

The theme for this film is good vs evil. The theme good vs evil is explored through the Nazi soldiers trying to tear down the Jewish religion whilst Oskar Schindler and other good people are trying to save it. Oskar Schindler says to a Nazi commander Amon Goeth “Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don’t.” Amon Goeth replies “You think that’s power?”. This shows that Oskar Schindler is fighting for the good whilst Amon Goeth and all other Nazis are fighting for evil without any thought.

This film connects with the world historically because it has changed the whole world and almost deceased a whole religion. Oskar Schindler saved the lives of 1200 Jews, this was a big historic event because those Jews he saved had survived the Holocaust and were able to keep the Jewish religion going. The Jewish people lived in concentration camps riddled with lice and diseases whilst the Nazi commanders were living in mansions filled with rich luxuries, this connects with the world we live in nowadays because there are people in poor countries “surviving” off their society’s leftovers, these people don’t have enough basic necessities to live whereas, in the same country, rich people have far more than the basic human needs.

This time period and series of events have taught the world how to react to the situations that took place and how to avoid those situations from occurring again. No religions have been categorized as weak and should be obliterated.  

This connects to my personal viewpoints because the film has given me a better understanding of the story of Oskar Schindler saving 1200 Jews and a better understanding of what happened during the Holocaust through visual scenes.

I would recommend this text because it gives people like me ( who have a very brief understanding of how the Holocaust occurred.) a better understanding of the Holocaust and Oskar Schindler’s story. Another reason I would recommend this film is because it is nothing short of a masterpiece that uses great ideas and imagery (for example, the whole film is in black and white, and at one point a little Jewish girl in a red coat is in colour, the director has done this to express her innocence.)

Reading log 3 

Alive

By Piers Paul Read

Extended written text

Finished: 21/07/17

Alive is a true story set in the 1970s. A Christian Uruguayan rugby union team decide to go to Chile to play their national team, but on the way to Chile, their plane crashes into the Andes mountain range. They are lost without food proper warmth and have no chance of getting communication with the outside world.

The theme addressed in the text is survival. The theme is explored through eating human flesh so that they can live another day, the reason the plane crashed during the flight was due to human error, this means the passengers had to try and survive if they wanted to get home. They debated whether to eat the dead “ I think God would want us to survive. Strive to live.” as they were eating the human flesh they knew that the dead people had actually gone to heaven and that they were just bodies of meat that they were eating.

This relates to the world historically because nothing like this had happened at the time, no plane had crashed in the mountains and making the passengers endure 71 days of eating human flesh in the freezing cold weather, it was all in the media everybody wanted to interview the survivors from the crash, they were hassled about what they ate to survive but they didn’t want to tell the media, it says in the text “The boys hoped the news of what they had done could be kept until they reached Montevideo.” it led to many discussions about what people would do to survive.

This teaches us that we take a lot of things for granted such as food, warmth, and shelter. The survivors had to endure the freezing cold weather, eating hardly any food… If they did it was human flesh, they didn’t have a home or bed to sleep in, they also had very harsh injuries from the plane crash.

This text connects with my personal experiences from when I have been hunting in the snow having to endure the cold weather, but I can only imagine how horrible it would have been for the people in the text, not only were they in freezing cold weather they had to eat human flesh to survive.

I believe this text is great because it is short (94 pages) but sweet, it is very in depth. I would not recommend this for the faint-hearted, it tells the truth, they may not be pretty but they are the truth “The human flesh was difficult to cut because it was frozen.” , I also like the structure of the text because it goes to different locations during a set time, e.g when the survivors are suffering and the parents are searching for them. Not once did I get bored of the novel it was simply outstanding.

Reading Log 4

Dandelions in the spring

Kyle Schlicher       

Poem

date finished: 22/07/17

The plot is based on an American soldier enduring the Vietnam war wishing he could go home to the “springtime in the states and dandelions bursting forth and floating down to earth upon a gentle breeze.” I believe most American soldiers were wishing they could do this at the time, all go back to their families and normality, not having any fear of being shot, stabbed or bombed when they go to sleep at night.

The theme of addressed in this text is survival. The theme is explored by having to endure enemy fire and all other threats such as enemy bullets hitting them, on the front line in Vietnam. The writer says “Each time I see white phosphorus exploding and showering down to earth.” I think this means that this happens constantly and they are constantly at risk of dying, therefore, they have to survive by keeping their heads down and hold onto hope by thinking of home.

This connects with the world historically because at the time every American soldier would have had the same feelings, most of them wouldn’t have even known what they were fighting for and would much rather be at home without the threats they had to face daily. It also stirred up a lot of riots and protests (Vietnam war) this made it political because the government of America played a big role in drafting and recruiting men.

This teaches us that in this present day we are very lucky there is no battle that our country is drafting us to go to, we are also lucky that our country doesn’t have any conflict at all with another country. It also teaches us that we are all alike in some way, we would all be scared and want to go home if we were in a battle for our lives. The theme survival relates to the world we live in nowadays in poor, war-torn countries such as Syria, they have to endure and survive the bombings, this is happening at their homes and there is nowhere they can go, they can’t go home to see the dandelions bursting up and floating down to earth.

This connects to me personally because I believe that I could be in that same situation with those same feelings. I believe that if I was at war fighting another country, in another country there would always be things that would remind me of home. I would come back another person, many people came back from war broken and in the state of an emotional wreck.

I would recommend this text to a reader who will think about the poem after they read it, think what they would do and how they would react in the situation. This poem also has a good use of language features such as a metaphor  “Dandelions bursting forth and floating down to earth upon a gentle breeze.” this is good because it puts a descriptive image in the reader’s head of Dandelions “bursting up” and then slowly coming back to.

Reading log 5

Lone Survivor,

Peter Berg

True story film

date finished: 12/08/17

The plot is based on a four-man seal team who go on a reconnaissance operation to locate a target somewhere in Afghanistan, as they are scouting they are seen by farmers and their mission is compromised. As they make their way back for extraction they are attacked by Taliban fighters, three of the four seals die, one seal survives to tell the story.

Two themes for this film are ‘endurance’ and ‘brotherhood’. endurance is explored in this text by being in an outnumbered and outgunned battle. The seals are having to retreat down cliff faces where they break their backs, knees and all sorts of other injuries, they endure this by having a strong brotherhood and the rule that they live by (not worrying about yourself being injured, but by worrying about one of your brothers being injured.). During the film, Axelson and Luttrell conversate, (Axelson)- “If I die I need you to make sure that Cindy knows how much I love her.” Luttrell responds, “she knows.” Axelson then says, “And that I died with my brothers, with a full fucking heart.” This shows that the four-man team has a very strong bond and that they are willing to die for each other.

This film connects with the world historically because it shows them what the military is about and portrays events that not everyone would experience. It connects with the families of the three men who died because they are able to get the truth and have an idea of how much their sons gave up for their country to protect it. Luttrell says in the film “you are never out of the fight.” meaning they fought until they could fight no more, they would only stop fighting when they were dead, they were fully sacrificing their lives for their country.This teaches us that we are very lucky that brave men and women in the military are willing to sacrifice themselves for peace in the world.

This connects to my personal viewpoints in the way of what would happen if these brave men and women were not around in the world, would the world be in anarchy, total chaos? I would recommend this to viewers who like a good war film or like true stories, Marcus Luttrell (the real survivor) said that Peter Berg and his team have done an outstanding job of portraying what happened and that if there was going to be a film about what actually happened he wanted it to be done right, and so Peter Berg did.

Reading log 6

Into thin air,

Jon Krakauer

Nonfictional novel

Date Finished: 3/10/17  

The plot is based on a journalist (Jon Krakauer) for an outdoors magazine that goes up Mt Everest to report on the commercialization and rivalry between the guiding companies. All is good until the day that they are about to summit Everest, on this day a few climbers reach the summit in good time and come back to base camp, the other climbers summit Everest but, not in good time this is due to lack of oxygen because the sherpas mistakenly left empty oxygen bottles at the south cole. Stormy weather rolls in onto the mountain and 8 of the climbers die including the main guide and owner of the guiding company Rob Hall, Jon survives to tell the story.
Endurance is addressed in the text when the climbers are enduring the horrible stormy weather to survive, Rob Hall shows endurance and loyalty when one of his clients (Doug Hansen) is extremely fatigued due to lack of oxygen, Rob decides to stay with Doug at the south cole hoping that sherpas can come and save them due to the horrible weather they both die of hypothermia, this shows the endurance and loyalty of Rob Hall to make sure his customers have the best outcome of safety in the situation and if that means risking his own life then he’s willing to do it. Another example of endurance is when Beck weathers (another client) passes out due to the cold weather but then wakes up and walks all the way back to home base by himself, he said survives. 

This connects with the world commercially as it asks the question, do humans go too far to try and compete with other companies. I believe in this instance it was not the competitiveness that killed the 8 climbers but instead human error made by the sherpas for not leaving enough oxygen at the south cole.  

This teaches us that people such as Rob Hall are loyal and determined enough to take this group of people up Everest, guide them to the summit and make sure that none is left behind, he is not competitive but loyal to his clients. This has also taught the world that a thorough plan is needed to be put in place to take clients up mountains, such as having backup oxygen tanks or more camps closer to the summit.

This text connects with me personally as when I go up hunting in the alpine area, I need to look at the risks and have a good backup plan. I also know how hard it would be for Beck Weathers to carry on with his level of fatigue. I would recommend this text to readers who may enjoy climbing mountains as it may teach them lessons about being in the alpine area. This novel may also be suitable for readers that enjoy learning about events that are true and have already taken place. Jon Krakauer (the author) also does a good job of giving descriptions to the characters and the setting to make you feel like you are almost there.