Annotated Bibliography Assignment

By Edith Torres , Perception of War in Literature

 1. Remarque, Erich Maria, and A. W. Wheen. All Quiet on the Western Front. Boston: Little, Brown, 1929. Print.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that follows the story of Paul Baumer who joins the German army a little after WWI. It explores the gruesome realities of fighting on the war front as well as the detachment of civilian life that many soldiers experience once they arrive home from the war. Written by a German veteran of WWI, it provides a picture a very real picture of what life was like for soldiers fighting the war. Although it is not a memoir, there is no doubt that the author’s personal experiences in the war influenced his perception of the war, which is in turn expressed through his piece of literature. All Quiet on the Western Front became a very popular book and is often used as a required reading in high school classrooms. In exploring this piece of literature, one could discover why this novel gained popularity as well as whether the perception of the war, as told by Erich Maria Remarque, is still held today. Making the connection between literature and the beliefs related to war will reveal if there is a correlation or cause and effect relationship between war literature and the view of war. 

2. Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.

A Farewell to Arms is a first-person narrative told from the point of view of an American ambulance driver, Henry, serving on the Italian front. Upon meeting a young nurse, Catherine, Henry begins to pursue his love interest. After being injured on the front Henry is relocated to Milan to begin to recover. When Catherine moves to Milan, she begins to help him in his recovery. Once Henry is recovered and goes back to the front, the front is bombarded by German troops. After a long battle, Henry is barely able to escape. He meets up with Catherine and they escape together. When she goes into labor, she ends up dying of a hemorrhage. Henry stays by her side until she is gone. This novel gives us a sense of the way the lives of people who were involved in the war were being directly affected, all aspects. The connection between love and war do exist. Out of this book, we plan on choosing a chapter that directly described a battle and analyzing the language of that in order to explore any similarities and differences between the way that this war is described and other wars.

3.  O'Brien, Tim. If I Die in a Combat Zone; Box Me up and Ship Me Home. New York: Delacorte, 1973. Print.

This novel is an autobiographical account of Tim O’Brien’s experiences in combat in the Vietnam War. O’Brien narrates the typical day in the life of a soldier in the Vietnam War. He narrates the events going on in his life as a soldier while taking the reader back to how it all began from enlisting to basic training. This transition in narrative gives the reader a fuller sense of what a person who was in battle was going through given their background and their current struggles. The background provided will allow us to analyze how his personal history affected his perception on war while comparing that to the way other literature pieces express their perception on war. He describes in detail his time in the Alpha Company. After many battles and personal struggles, the narrative ends with O’Brien being flown home. Like the other novel we are going to take a chapter that describes a battle as it is happening and put it through the sentiment analysis tool and AntConc in order to analyze similarities. Being an autobiographical account creates an authenticity in the stories and recollections O'Brien is sharing. It gives us confidence in exploring his experiences and comparing them to an overall sentiment about the Vietnam War.

4. Ambrose, Stephen E. Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. Print.

Band of Brothers, written in 1992 is a collection of stories written about the experiences of soldiers who participated in World War II.  It provides a historical account of East Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. It begins at basic training and leads to D-Day. It's rich narration is told from the point of view of front line soldiers, privates, and noncoms. The book makes it clear that making it to the ranks of the soldiers whose stories are told was not an easy task. Most did not make it past basic training. This is emphasized through the description of the physical effort that it took in order to make through basic training. On top of all that, Ambrose describes the nine months of training that the company completed in England. From Normandy to Holland the book describes that harsh, difficult battles and the men that were lost in the journey. The company was deactivated on November 30th, 1945 almost three years after it was put together. Ambrose describes the experiences of the soldiers in such a way that the reader feels as though they themselves are a part of it. By doing this, he is able to establish empathy, validating the soldiers experiences. Their perceptions on war influence the way the reader sees war.

5. O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Print.

The Things They Carried is a collection of short stories by Tim O'Brien, of soldiers in the Vietnam War. Each story presented is semi-autobiographical and each presents a different aspect and experience of war. Together the collection of short stories breaks down the complexity of being present in war. The reader is able to receive first-hand the uniqueness that characterized the Vietnam War. In a lot of the short stories O'Brien is looking back and remembering his experiences, which could either be a really reliable account or been altered over time. One of the short stories, "Ambush" describes a time when O'Brien's daughter asks him whether or not he has ever killed a person. He denies it but then tells the reader of a time during the war when he was in My Khe. In the confusion of the environment and interactions with unknown people, O'Brien kills a young man who, to this day, is not sure if he was an enemy. Stories like these depict how the confusion of the war can tear soldiers apart. The internal conflicts that most soldiers experience directly impact the way that war in general is perceived. Through this literature soldiers are given a voice, affirming the reality of their experiences.