Poetry and Trauma

Good Guy's Dead by Ernest Hemmingway 

They sucked us in;

King and country,

Christ Almighty 

and the rest.

Patriotism,

Democracy,

Honor-

Words and Phases,

They either bitched or killed us.

Captives by Ernest Hemingway

Some came in Chains 

unrepentant but tired.

Too tired but to stumble.

Thinking and hating were finished

Thinking and fighting were finished

Retreating and hoping were finished.

Cures thus a long campaign,

Making death easy.

In these two poems about the war by Hemingway his side of view is shown as broad as daylight. It is interesting to see and compare the writing about Hemingway, and the actual creative work he has done. His experience shines through you can see his hate and distaste for war, but on the other hand you see the fragile state his was in while he experienced these travesties. I like mostly how pro-active he was in the ways he dealt with shell shock as it was described back then, he used his pain to become one of the best "modern" writers in the world. He showed how trauma is bad and devastating and that often it stays with you forever, but most of all he shows that there is light at the end of a dark tunnel. 

Looking Trauma in the Eye

In my life I have had little to no experience with trauma. I have never been in an accident, and the only trauma I have seen was witnessed via the television or from a story I heard second hand; that is till recently. Over this past weekend I lived trauma, at least on a more personal note. My younger sister experienced a skiing accident, and ruptured her kidney and appendix and caused the need for an emergency surgery, along with emergency surgery she need dialases to clean out her blood stream along with a blood transfusion to make sure that no toxins will enter her more vital organs. When I learned of her accident I was in immediate distress and Aw. I originally thought that nothing this dramatic could ever happen in my life. Despite my story and many stories similar to mine people rely on others for trauma control. People like surgeons and the American Red Cross often give hope to those that have none. Often the people like the American Red Cross are the first on the scene, without an organization like this I know my sister would have died in surgery without the blood. So I will take a moment and thank them and all the people who donated. This though very unformal is trauma at least to my knowledge.

Reflecting on the Holocaust Museum

Today as we went through the halls of the museum I felt a sense sadness, a sense of Aw. Seeing the artifacts and reading the stories just doesn't do this experiance justice. Although it does show us how easy it was for one man to change the mindset of a people. It shows just how strong Hate can play in a world were people want an excuss. It is this Hate that started the holocaust, but it was the forgivness of that same hate that help a people move on, and let the world learn from this horrific experiance. I stongly urge everyone to explore the holocaust in more depth, whether it is from a book, movie, or actually going to see one of the camps. A movie that I love because of it emotions and its humanity brings light on dark topic, Schindler's list. It shows that even in a dark time people are still able to rise above the attrocities that are laid before them.

http://www.surfthechannel.com/link/61491/873863/1225857/0.html

This is a link to the movie just hit play.

Trauma and Remebering

It is hard to look back on events such as the Holocaust, 9/11, and many other catastrophies and openly saying that you don't understand their pain. It is alomost that the correct anwser to say is not that you understand their pain, but at least witnessed their pain. I think that is why we, in modern day society, erect things like the holocaust meusem and the new World Trade Tower. So that by it being there everyday we say to the people we are trying to understand. This may be the reason that many go to the concentration camps so that by experiancing the horror even in memory we might be able to pass that experiance on, to detour this from happening in the future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_wtc.jpg

http://www.ushmm.org/

I put these here so you can just look,explore, and think about what these monument to history mean to you.

Multiple Perspectives

I thought Caruth's passage on Hiroshima mon amor was quite interesting. It intorduced a concept of trauma that I didn't think of before. Caruth talked about the impact of the Hiroshima bombing in terms of the French people and then in terms of the Japanese man. It should how the French cheered and raved at the end of the war; and how it signified a new beginning for the people of the world. While on the other hand the same event was traumatic for the people of Japan and the Japanese man who lost his family, and his entire life in Hiroshima.

I thought this passage kind of flowed with the quote "One man's Terrorist is another man's Hero"

This is why I thought Jeff Dunham's Achmed the dead terroist appropriate for this blog. Especially since we went to the American Military meseum. There was on display i found a little disturbing, it was of a Japanese uniform, and the tag in the case said "taken [from the field] off of a Japanese soldier. I then thought of this skit that Jeff Dunham performs, It may be funny for us American's, but is it funny for the families that had a family lost do to terrorism or succomb to the terrorist mvement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go

Desensitization

Today in class we touched slightly upon September 11th, The Holocaust, and other traumatic events that surrounded WWII; we talked about the latent period that was describe in Caruth's first chapter and whether or not it is better to have a collective identity or and individual identity as a provider of testimony and trauma as discussed in Orly Lubin's Holocaust Testimony. But are we [Americans] really understanding what is occuring, or have we become so used to violoence in the world that we are only "traumatized" when the media dictates we are allowed to feel traumatized?

The idea floated around in class that "they", and "the man" often control the way in which we preceive what is occuring around us. September 11th, to me, seemed so unreal. It was like watching an episode of 24, or watching the movie Sum of All Fears. This "unrealness" strikes me as such and 'Aw' affect. Even after seeing ground zero it is still hard for me to imagine that this event even occured. I wondered today during the discussion if what we experianced with 9/11 was a latent stage of experiancing trauma, or whether it was us Americans just being desenitized to violence?

http://childrensmedia2day.wordpress.com/