When we were first assigned this blog I was quite skeptical on whether or not I would honestly be able to find correlations between the texts we were reading in class and current happenings in modern day conflicts. I thought picking a broad topic of various effects of war on the family members of soldiers or those living in the areas of combat but not directly involved in the fighting would make forming these connections easier. However, a few weeks in to the semester I found that I was not connecting to these elements in the text as much as I initially assumed I would. Instead I found myself more drawn to the way these stories of war were written and the ways that they conveyed their theme and feelings to the audience.
The Language of War is what has driven my last few posts. Maybe its the countless literature classes I’ve taken over the years which have inadvertently directed my attention to the the different uses of words and tone, but these things stood out more strongly for me in the texts than people who are speaking/writing these words. The use of language in the texts and blogs/websites are also the one thing that I am most familiar with, because I have never had to experience any sort of military conflict nor have I, thankfully, ever had anyone I cared about involved in combat. The subtleties of the language used to convey the horrors and traumas of war are what I found most interesting. Each of the authors we examined in class wrote on similar themes: death, heroism, and morality. Yet, they all constructed their literary images in very different ways. The blogs that I followed throughout the semester did this same thing, but on a more domestic level.
Over all I found this blog more beneficial than I anticipated. It allowed me to keep making connections between the literature and real life outside of the class room more so than some of my other courses.
