We Were Soldiers: The Life Changing Effects Of War

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The life changing effects of war can be felt by all people who are both directly and indirectly involved in war. This ideology can be found throughout various text types such as films, novels, poems and even songs. Specific examples of these text types include Randall Wallace’s “We were Soldiers”, Alfred Tennyson’s poem “The light Brigade” and Andrew Wright’s poem “Goodbye Brave Soldier”. In these various text types the creator has used a variety of techniques to create their different texts in which the life changing effects of war permeate through. Randall Wallace makes a strong case of the life changing effects of war in his film. In Randal Wallace’s film “We were Soldiers”, Wallace has represented the life changing effects war has on society…show more content…
The life changing effects of war permeate throughout the film; we learn the humanity of the “enemy” through Wallace’s use of the NVA soldier who can be seen using a diary where he wrote love letters to his fiancé and kept pictures of his family, Wallace focus’ on these images before the NVA soldier is killed in a charge against the American forces. Wallace makes life changing effects of war more prevalent in scenes later in the film. Wallace uses camera angles and various sound techniques and symbolic items to portray this underlying ideology of the life changing impacts of war. One example of this is where Wallace makes use of a high angled shot of the cab driver after being scolded by the housewife, this indicates the powerlessness of the cab driver in his role of delivering the telegrams to the housewife’s. Wallace also uses camera tilt where he directs the camera upwards from the young children to the mother who has received a telegram indicating her husband’s passing this technique shows that she now has to support her children in her husband’s absence. This camera technique in…show more content…
“All Quiet on the Western Front” exposes war in a firsthand experience which depicts the dread, insignificance and bloodshed of war in a firsthand experience. Remarque’s novel is a dramatic recount of the events of World War I which portrays the mind-numbing terror and savagery of war which entails a constant focus on the negative impacts of war on the individual both physically and psychologically. The setting of the novel allows Remarque to focus heavily on the damaging effects that war has on the soldier. The physical threat that is placed on the characters in the book is used to emphasise the anxiety and the instinctive fear of not knowing if they would survive. The negative impacts on the soldiers as a result of war are made clear through the harsh conditions in which Remarque clearly establishes a truly horrific picture. The soldiers are living in conditions which can only be described as filthy, waterlogged trenches which are overwhelmed with vermin and corpses which would only diminish the psychological state of the soldier. Remarque makes out that the only way for one to survive such conditions and accept their situation is by losing their humanity which progresses throughout the novel as they suppress emotions and detach from feelings and each other. The loss of humanity that is demonstrated by Remarque is an example of the

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