A situation of military struggle between two factions within a country or between two countries is referred to as war. For the last century, the planet has seen some of the most devastating conflicts in history, including World War I, World War II, and the American wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam. All of these conflicts had equal impacts on nations, citizens, and even the troops who fought in them. The consequences of war are felt by all. Everyone has a story to tell. Writers; authors and poets, who in one way have felt the effects of war or even participated in it have been known to record their experiences in literature. Therefore, we can use past writings, either derivative or true accounts, to deduce the effects of war. These paper will use three literary pieces; ‘The Shabbat’ by Marjane, ‘Disabled’ by Wilfred and ‘The things they carried’ by Tom to discuss the mental, physical, and emotional scars of war.
Physical Scars of War
One of the most conspicuous effects of war are the physical scars that it leaves on people. When two or more groups or countries fight, it is not only the soldiers that get hurt, but also the citizenry of the area or country where the war is being waged. The disabled is anti-war poem written by Wilfred Owen. Owen was a British soldier himself during the infamous World War 1. He wrote the poem when he was hospitalized at the Craig Lockhart War Hospital in Scotland after being diagnosed with Shell – Shock or ‘neurasthenia.’ The poem talks about a wounded soldier who has lost all his limbs and is currently situated in a hospital. In studying this poem, we will understand the physical, emotional and mental scars of war.
According to the poem, the most outstanding effect of war on the soldier are the physical scars. In the first stanza, line three, the poet says the author sat on the wheel chair shivering and waiting for dark. He was wearing a legless suit of grey. The soldier had lost his legs during the war. In lines eleven and thirteen, the poet says that the soldier will no longer be able to ‘feel how slim girls waits are, or how warm their subtle hands are. This part suggests that the soldier could have lost his arms too. Another physical scar as a result of war.
Emotional and Mental Scars of War
The poem also highlights the emotional and mental effects that war had on the soldier. The physical harm that the war inflicted on him had psychological effects as well. Throughout the poem, the soldier is in a state of despair, regret, and hopelessness. As he sits in his wheel chair, he thinks about all the things he is going to miss due to the injuries, sinking him into worthlessness. In line forty-one to forty-six, the poet says that he will spend the rest of his life in sickly institutes and take whatever pity they may dole on him. His mental anguish is, however, more amplified in lines forty-three and forty-four. The poet says that on that day, when the soldier was waiting for dark in his wheelchair, he had witnessed how girls had turned their attention from him to strong ‘whole’ men. In line thirteen, the poet also says that women touch the soldier like he is some queer disease. The soldier here feels discriminated and in the last two lines of the poem, the soldier is helpless; it is dark and there is no one to put him to bed.
Effects of War on Soldiers
More effects of war both on soldiers and the general citizenry are well illustrated in the next two pieces of literature. In ‘The things they carried’, we first see the first effects of war when Ted was short. Ted was a soldier in the same group as the author of the stories. Their lieutenant was obsessed with a girl called Martha who she always fantasized about. He could not concentrate on the war because of her. When Ted got shot, the lieutenant could not forgive himself (Obrien, 11). From then on he burnt the pictures of Martha and letters that she had sent him. He blamed Ted’s death on his lack of concentration and never forgave himself. Yet another soldier fails to recover from the death of his friend. According to the story, Kiowa is sucked into the ground when he and his friend Bowker come under attack. He too, just like the lieutenant, never forgave himself especially because he was the one who lit up a light that revealed their location. This shows what goes on in the battle fields. When fellow soldiers die, some of their friends and partners feel like it’s their fault they weren’t there to help them. They then end up living with these scars forever.
In page nine, we see how war robs the soldiers off their humanity. According to the story, the soldiers come across a young man’s rotting body as they search the villagers. One of them takes a knife, chops the dead man’s finger and gives it to his friend as a gift (Obrien, 9). They laugh about it and on their way out, one of them kicks the dead man on the head and flies come out of his mouth. The soldiers laugh about it and leave. This shows that they are somehow no longer human. They have no mercy or compassion. They do not empathize with the gruesome fate that befell the young man. Instead, it is a source of humor to them.
As the story progresses, we also learn that the author killed a person at one point (Obrien, 85). He narrates that they were in the battle field when this happened. The author threw a grenade towards an enemy and it blew him into pieces. The author narrates that the death of the boy left a scar in him. He was responsible for the young man’s death and even if he had no other option, he blamed himself. At some point he thinks to himself that he could have let the young man walk away. After all, he had not spotted them yet. However, he illustrates how his friends did their best to convince him that his actions were justified. There was nothing else to do but to kill him. After all, this was war and the young man was the enemy. The battle lines had been drawn.
Towards the end of the stories, the author takes us to a time after the war when they were back in America. The soldiers were each trying to build back their own lives. Some like the author had succeeded but others were not so strong, or maybe what they saw hit them harder than it did than others. A good example is Bowker. Bowker was in the Vietnam War at the same time with the author. He wasn’t holding up too well. From the letter he sent to the writer, the war left him depressed, alone and with no purpose. In the letter, he says that he used to spend his days drinking. He was unable to keep a job (Obrien, 99). He had tried working as a mechanic, even a janitor but none of those jobs has lasted for more than ten months. Trying to find himself, he enrolled at a college but dropped out. He says in the latter that he lacks someone to talk to. Someone who could understand. The author also confirms that Bowker had on numerous occasions invited him for a drink just to trade war stories and chase women. Things get worse when the author decides to write a book about the war but fails to talk about the death of their friend Kiowa. Kiowa was Bowker’s best friend. Eventually, Bowker commits suicide (Obrien, 99). Bowker’s story perhaps illustrates what soldiers suffer postwar and the numerous efforts they make to try and rebuild their life.
The story also reveals that soldiers also suffer separation from their fellow soldiers after they are taken away from the war for one reason or the other. In this case, the author had been shot in the battlefield and was recovering at one of their camps. In the story, the author says that things were not the same when other soldiers returned from the bushes to get more armor from the camps. The author states that he felt like an outsider. He envied the battle scars they returned with. He also envied their dirty smelly bodies and their general shaggy look. In the camps, the soldiers were clean wore a clean shave. A look that the author disliked. Moreover, the soldiers too changed how he interacted with him. The author explains that the soldiers now treated him like a civilian (Obrien, 123).
Effects of War on Civilians
Shabbat, the third literature that we will look at gives us a different perspective. While the previous two look at the effects of war from a soldier’s perspective, the Shabbat looks at the effects from a civilian’s perspective. The Shabbat is a story about the attack on Tehran by Iraq. The story is about a family of Jews who lived in Tehran when Iraq attacked it. According to the story, the war started with talks of Iraq acquiring long-range missiles. Some of them dispute them as just rumors until they are attacked. Their houses are destroyed and people killed. Through the story, we can derive that one of the scars of war on civilians is the loss of their loved ones.
The story revolves a small Jewish family of three. The daughter is the main character. When Tehran was attacked, the family lives in fear. This is the first mental effect of war we see in the story. At one point, when the shelling occurs, she exclaims to her father and mother that she does not want to die (Satrapi). This shows what civilians go through during war. The fear of whether they will still be alive after the war leaves emotional scars that stay with them even after the war.
The second effect of war is the loss of loved ones. One day when the main character goes off to buy some pair of jeans, she returns to find that her neighborhood had been attacked her friend killed in the process. According to the story, no scream in the world could express how she felt (Satrapi).
In conclusion, war is an armed conflict between two or more groups or countries. It leaves mental, emotional, and physical scars on both soldiers and civilians. As we have seen, soldiers suffer more effects because they are the ones who fight the war. Some of the effects include the difficulty in rebuilding their lives after the war. We have also seen that they blame themselves for the deaths of their friends. They also live with the emotional consequences of killing someone. Soldiers also suffer physical consequences such as death or severe injuries such as the loss of limbs. Civilians, on the other hand, suffer the loss of property, homes, and loved ones.
Works Cited
Owen, Wilfred. “The Disabled.” English Verse. Retrieved from http://www.englishverse.com/poems/disabled.
Obrien, Tim. “The Things They Carried”. Christine Taylor Riendeau (2012). Page 1 – 158. Retrieved from savanna.auhsd.us/view/26051.pdf
Satrapi, Marjane. “The Shabbat”.
