War and Peace in Literature

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War and Peace in Literature

• Martin Donohoe
• http//www.publichealthandsocialjustice.org
• http//www.phsj.org

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Why Literature

• Vicarious experience
• Explore diverse philosophies
• Promotes empathy, critical thinking, flexibility,
  non-dogmatism, self-knowledge
• Encourages creative and ethical thinking
• Allows for group discussion/debate
• Valuable for educating health professionals

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Themes

• Honor
• Futility
• Suffering
• Death
• Abrogation of Rights
• Protest
• Peace

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Famous Novels of War and Peace

• War and Peace, Tolstoy
• Red Badge of Courage, Crane
• All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque
• Johnny Got His Gun, Trumbo
• A Rumor of War, Caputo
• A Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller

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The War PrayerMark Twain (1835-1910)

• Written during the US war on the Philippines
• Submitted to Harper's Bazaar (exclusive contract)
  in 2005 - rejected as "not quite suited to a
  woman's magazine.
• I don't think the prayer will be published in my
  time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the
  truth.
• Published posthumously in 1923

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• The War Prayer
• Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens)

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Christopher ColumbusUpon meeting the Arawaks of
the Bahamas

• Theybrought usmanythingsThey willingly
  traded everything they ownedThey do not bear
  armsThey would make fine servantsWith fifty men
  we could subjugate them all and make them do
  whatever we want.

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John Wayne

• I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great
  country away from them. There were great numbers
  of people who needed new land, and the Indians
  were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

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William Tecumseh Sherman

• War is hell.

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Alexander Pope

• Our business in the field of fight, Is not to
  question, but to prove our might.

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Horace Odes (III.2.13)

• Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
• It is sweet and fitting to die for ones country

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"Dulce Et Decorum Est"Wilfred Owen, 1917-18

• In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He
  plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
• If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
  Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And
  watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His
  hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin

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"Dulce Et Decorum Est"Wilfred Owen

• If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
  Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
  Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile,
  incurable sores on innocent tongues,- My friend,
  you would not tell with such high zest To
  children ardent for some desperate glory, The
  old Lie Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

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Ernest Hemingway

• They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and
  fitting to die for one's country. But in modern
  war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your
  dying. You will die like a dog for no good
  reason.

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Josef Stalin

• The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of
  millions is a statistic.

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SurvivorsSigfried Sassoon, 1917

• No doubt they'll soon get well the shock and
  strain Have caused their stammering,
  disconnected talk. Of course they're "longing to
  go out again," --These boys with old, scared
  faces, learning to walk.

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SurvivorsSigfried Sassoon, 1917

• They'll soon forget their haunted nights their
  cowed Subjection to the ghosts of friends who
  died, -Their dreams that drip with murder and
  they'll be proud Of glorious war that shatter'd
  all their pride. . . Men who went out to battle,
  grim and glad Children, with eyes that hate
  you, broken and mad.

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Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
  every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense,
  a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
  those who are cold and not clothed.

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The BibleBook of Matthew

• All they that take the sword, shall perish with
  the sword.

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Mahatma Gandhi

• An eye for an eye only makes the whole world
  blind.

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Herbert Hoover

• Older men declare war. But it's the youth who
  must fight and die!

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Issac Asimov

• Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent.

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Jean-Paul Sartre

• When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.

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Arthur Ponsonby

• When war is declared, Truth is the first
  casualty.

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Hermann Goering(at the Nuremberg Trials, shortly
before being sentenced to death)

• Of course the people don't want war. Butit is
  the leaders of the country who determine the
  policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag
  the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a
  fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a
  communist dictatorship . . .

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Hermann Goering

• Voice or no voice, the people can always be
  brought to the bidding of the leadersAll you
  have to do is to tell them they are being
  attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
  patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

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George OrwellNineteen Eighty-Four

• War is Peace.
• Freedom is Slavery.
• Ignorance is Strength.

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Benjamin Franklin

• They that can give up essential liberty to
  obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither
  liberty nor safety.

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Will Rogers

• You can't say that civilization don't advance,
  however, for in every war they kill you in a new
  way.

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Solomon Short

• The only winner in the War of 1812 was
  Tchaikovsky.

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Mao Zedong

• War can only be abolished through war, and in
  order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to
  take up the gun.

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Albert Einstein

• A country cannot simultaneously prevent and
  prepare for war.

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Jeannette RankinFirst Female Member of Congress

• You can no more win a war than you can win an
  earthquake.

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Eleanor Roosevelt

• We have to face the fact that either all of us
  are going to die together or we are going to
  learn to live together and if we are to live
  together we have to talk.

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Our only hope today lies in our ability to
  recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a
  sometimes hostile world declaring eternal
  hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Darkness cannot drive out darkness only light
  can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate only
  love can do that.

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John F. Kennedy

• Mankind must put an end to war before war puts
  an end to mankind.

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R. Buckminster Fuller

• Either war is obsolete or men are.

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Albert Einstein

• I know not with what weapons World War III will
  be fought, but World War IV will be fought with
  sticks and stones.

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John F. Kennedy

• War will exist until that distant day when the
  conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation
  and prestige that the warrior does today.

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Günter Grass

• The first job of a citizen is to keep your mouth
  open.

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First they came for the JewsPastor Niemoller

• First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak
  up, for I was not a Jew.
• Then they came for the communists, and I did not
  speak up for I was not a communist.
• Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did
  not speak up, for I was not a trade unionist.
• Then they came for me, and there was no one left
  to speak up for me.

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Bob Dylan

• Come you masters of warYou that build all the
  gunsYou that build the death planesYou that
  build the big bombsYou that hide behind
  wallsYou that hide behind desksI just want you
  to know I can see through your masks.

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Mothers Day Proclamation, 1870Julia Ward Howe

• Arise then...women of this day!Arise, all women
  who have hearts!
• Say firmly"We will not have questions answered
  by irrelevant agencies,Our husbands will not
  come to us, reeking with carnage,For caresses
  and applause.

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Mothers Day Proclamation, 1870Julia Ward Howe

• Our sons shall not be taken from us to
  unlearnAll that we have been able to teach them
  of charity, mercy and patience.
• From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice
  goes up withOur own. It says "Disarm! Disarm!

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Mothers Day Proclamation, 1870Julia Ward Howe

• Let women
• promote the alliance of the different
  nationalities,The amicable settlement of
  international questions,The great and general
  interests of peace.

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Anita Roddick

• If you think you are too small to have an
  impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in your
  tent

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Margaret Mead

• Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
  committed people can change the world. Indeed, it
  is the only thing that ever has.

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Contact Info, References

• Martin Donohoe
• martindonohoe_at_phsj.org
• This slide show and others available at
• http//www.publichealthandsocialjustice.org
• http//www.phsj.org