Blog 6

Blog 6

Michelle Klug

9/12/10

            Whitman uses vivid scenes, strategic word placement, and the comparison of nature and war to bring the recreation of a Civil War battle to life.

            Even though Whitman was not there, you would have never known. The scenes are so detailed and sprinkled with images only a bystander would know. He enlightens the senses by being telling the reader what was seen, smelled, felt, etc.  An example of this is when Whitman said, “some of the men had their hair and beard singed”. This is such a minor detail that many would not think to ask about or include, but gives the reader an image of a burly Civil War soldier with their hair burned. He describes the sounds of “groans and scream” which is reflective of a chaotic, painful scene.  And also uses the description of, “the odor of blood” to describe the stench of war.

            Another element of this article I find particularly poetic is his strategy of word placement. When asks the open-ended question, “is this indeed humanity- these butchers’ shambles?” after he describes the wounded soldiers, this inevitably makes the reader think philosophically about the moral consequences of war. It almost serves to discourage one from the act of war. The vivid scene followed by the question of morality and the words “butchers’ shambles” to describe a human being is emotionally provoking the reader. Another example is when Whitman describes the scene by saying, “no fancy battle, no semi-play, but fierce and savage demons fighting there-courage and scorn of the death the rule, exceptions almost none”. These words make the soldiers no longer men, but animals. His word placement throughout the story serves to accent the evils of war.

            Lastly, and most importantly, Whitman has a continuous comparison of a very placid nature scene to the very not placid war scene. He sometimes even has them juxtaposing each other. There are many example of this but I will give this as one I think is particularly well constructed. Whitman said, “the flash of the naked sword, and rolling flame and smoke? Again still the broken, clear, and clouded heaven- and still again the moonlight pouring silvery soft its radiant patches all over”.  He will make a scene of brutality and violence and then follow it up with a mystic nature scene. This makes it seem like Whitman is in the scene observing the battle and taking note of the surroundings and how eerily calm everything was. Overall, all these literary techniques turn the portrayal of a battle scene into an emotionally and visually complex story.

            Michael Herr’s Dispatches is similar in the erratic style of writing. Jumping from one thought to another, without chronology, or warning. Dispatches is less poetic, and more organic in the blunt wording. His writing style is very informal, and personal.

            The story is written mostly in first person, from his view. The feelings of fear and sadness are his own. He does not go into the feelings of the soldiers, just what he visually observed of them. The story will jump from his personal feelings, to blunt and ironic statements such as, “Gee, you must see some beautiful sunsets in here”. The story will then go into song lyrics, or an excerpt about the actions of the soldiers. The time sequences are unknown and he mentions in the piece that looking back on his time, he could not differentiate time.

            As pointed out in the introduction, his writing style parallels the war. Everyone has their own fears and thoughts and fighting is erratic and messy. He often just puts random lists of things he sees to describe the scene. For example he describes the helicopter as, “saver-destroyer, provider-waster, right hand-left hand, nimble, fluent, canny, and human; hot steel, grease…”. The soldiers were not ready for what us playing out before their eyes, as Herr was not ready to see the death and destruction he encountered. He states, “How do you feel when a nineteen-year-old kid tells you from the bottom of his heart that he’s gotten too old for this kid of shit?”. 

            Although both pieces are organic in that they flow with the emotion of the writer and are not rigid, Dispatches seems to me much more random and unconventional. Although Whitman’s piece does not seem to follow an obvious logic, he has patterns of comparison with nature and metaphoric scenes.

My question for the class: Dispatches is written in parallel of the Vietnam war: “The war had no linear “front”, it was everywhere”. We see that Herr’s writing is random, not chronological, crude, and ironic. Does Whitman’s work parallel the civil war? If so how or how not?