Intertextual_Response

Intertextual Response “War leaves mental as well as physical scars.” Discuss the truth of this statement using evidence from No Pretty Pictures, short stories, extracts (from Night and other text) and poetry. When something drastic happens in your life it always leaves an impact on your memories. This has happened to those who have lived through wars, not only memories but also mental and physical scars. Some of those who have endured wars first hand and have suffered with scars both mental and physical left by war have recorded their experiences in autobiographies and poems. In ‘Losses’ Randall Jarrell, shares with the reader the losses and pain he suffered while he was at war and the pain he suffered after the war also. Although he survived he writes, “It was not dying: everybody died. It was not dying: we had died before.” He describes the death of others whom he cared for or knew and the destruction of his surroundings. Something inside him died, he was never the same after seeing massive damage inflicted on everything and he expresses this. In the last verse of ‘Losses’, he says, ‘It was not dying- no, not ever dying; But in the night I died I dreamed that I was war, scars, mental, people, dying, physical, being, through, suffered, left, inside, describes, something, died, things, scarred, person, pain, night, memories, life, inflicted, die, death, around, anita, after, losses, young, wars, tortured, thrown, thought, thinking, surroundings