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Rating details. Sort order. Start your review of War. Aug 16, Arif Syahertian rated it liked it. The conversation of parents on the train about their son who died on the battlefield.. One mother is so sad - has tried to be comforted by another passenger who pretends to be strong.. But actually he, the strong, was also fragile inside. May 18, Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly rated it really liked it. World war one rages on but Luigi Pirandello takes us not in the battlefield but on a train, with parents of soldiers as passengers.
A bulky woman is hoisted in, obviously in distress. She is grieving. Her husband who is with her explains that their only child, their son of twenty, is being sent out to the front in three days. Nothing has given her comfort. She knows no one, not even her husband, can understand her sorrow. Another parent butts in, says they should consider themselves lucky, becaus World war one rages on but Luigi Pirandello takes us not in the battlefield but on a train, with parents of soldiers as passengers.
Another parent butts in, says they should consider themselves lucky, because his own son has been sent to the front three times already, after having come back twice, wounded. The husband of the woman in grief interjects that their case is different because their boy is an only child. Another parent says, however, that it makes no difference, because parents love each of their children completely.
Back and forth the conversation goes until that long speech by a old, fat man, another father, who had already lost his son. This well-reasoned discourse stunned everyone for its freshness, insights and persuasiveness anchored on the love for one's country and the need for parents to respect their children's decision to sacrifice for it.
It was here when, like a great movie director, Luigi Pirandello focused his camera to the inconsolable mother-- " She suddenly realized that it wasn't the others who were wrong and could not understand her but herself who could not rise up to the same height of those fathers and mothers willing to resign themselves, without crying, not only to the departure of their sons but even to their death.
It seemed to her that she had stumbled into a world she had never dreamt of, a world so far unknown to her and she was so pleased to hear everyone joining in congratulating that brave father who could so stoically speak of his child's death. That old man, too, turned to look at her, fixing his great, bulging, horribly watery light grey eyes, deep in her face. For some little time he tried to answer, but words failed him.
He looked and looked at her, almost as if only then--at that silly, incongruous question--he had suddenly realized at last that his son was really dead His face contracted, became horribly distorted, then he snatched in haste a handkerchief from his pocket and, to the amazement of everyone, broke into harrowing, heart-rending, uncontrollable sobs.
Mar 26, Sneh Pradhan rated it liked it. Nostalgic and deeply poignant , based on a theme that has always astounded and shocked with the universal tendency of mankind to resort to it , inextricably coupled with the senseless tragedies following it , "War" deftly drives home the point of the humongous magnitude and above all , the meaninglessness of the countless tragedies and casualties of war. I had first read the story when I was 14 , as a part of my school syllabus , but the poignancy hits you every time you return to it.
Nov 23, Setayesh rated it it was amazing. In his short story War, Luigi Pirandello, represents a notion of patriotism in a war time, introduces it as a vital existence that, despite of having an ugly horrible side, is a necessity that cannot be neglected or forgotten.
The characters in War are nameless, usually distinguished by their appearance; and their homeland is simply called "the country". Pirandello never hints at any specific nationality or time throughout the story.
His story is a tale that can happen anytime anywhere in this w In his short story War, Luigi Pirandello, represents a notion of patriotism in a war time, introduces it as a vital existence that, despite of having an ugly horrible side, is a necessity that cannot be neglected or forgotten.
His story is a tale that can happen anytime anywhere in this world. He only gives us a general sense of what patriotism may mean and why it is important. And it is the presence of the majority and their willingness to sacrifice that allows patriotism to continue to exist and preserve its meaning.
And we can see that all of the characters, who are the parents who had to send off their children to the front to fight for the country, are at different stages of dealing with the sacrifice they have to make in order to protect their homeland. The husband and the wife are just about to say their final goodbye to their only son who is soon to be sent to the front and feel that patriotism is a burden just for them to bear on their shoulders and especially the wife is not willing to sacrifice anything for it.
Two other characters who even don't have any physical shapes and are put in the story to represent the position of those who already have someone in the war and live in fear of losing him; And finally the "fat, red faced man" who has made his sacrifice for the cause by losing his son. The fat, red faced man seems to be the only one who has fully embraced the devotion to patriotism or at least pretends to do so.
The way he talks about death of the young men in the war resembles of propaganda used by governments to persuade their citizens to devote themselves to a cause; when words are soften and euphemism is used to hide and justify the horrible sides of a war, "Our sons go, when they are twenty, and they don't want tears, because if they die, they die inflamed and happy.
They argued about the attitude of children towards parents and of parents towards children. One passenger expressed his vision of relationships:. And when they reach twenty they are exactly what we were at their age. We too had a father and mother, but there were so many other things as well The story has a dramatic, tragic ending when the woman, who was desperately worried about her son, asked the man, who expressed patriotic ideas,". Marine Biology. Electrical Engineering. Computer Science.
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