Unit 7: Part 1

Remembering the Wars

Catastrophe of Epic Dimensions: WWII

Never before had so many fought

Never before had such whole-sale slaughter occurred.

Ends in 1945 78 million had died

Nazi’s

Rose to power during the Great Depression

Targeted certain groups

During this time approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered.

Known as the Holocaust

Literature

Explains roots of racial hatred

Unsatisfactory and temporary truces

Recalls men who died Recalls the US

reaction: fearful Terror of different

types of warfare Speaks of the

sympathy for the common people, and reflects the POV of the fighting soldier

Vietnam

At the start of WWII, Americans were mostly supportive.

Twenty years later… Vietnam split the

American people apart It bred domestic

conflict unseen since the Civil War.

People marched in the streets demanding and end to the war

Literature After Vietnam

Literature of the time reflects the conflicts within the country and the ranks of the military

Certain poems and short stories really introduce troublesome issues plaguing the people who were involved in the longest war in American History

At the Justice Department November 15, 1969BY DENISE LEVERTOV

Brown gas-fog, white beneath the street lamps.Cut off on three sides, all space filledwith our bodies

.       Bodies that stumble in

brown airlessness, whitenedin light, a mildew glare,       that stumblehand in hand, blinded, retching.Wanting it,

wanting to be here, the body believing it’s dying in its nausea, my head clear in its despair, a kind of joy, knowing

this is by no means death,is trivial, an incident, a fragile instant.    Wanting it, wanting        

  with all my hunger this anguish,          this knowing in the body the grim odds we’re up

against, wanting it real. Up that bank where gas curled in the ivy, dragging each other up, strangers, brothers and sisters. 

   Nothing will do but to taste the bitter taste. No life other

, apart from.

What do you make of this?

Denise (the author) is uses the images that

describe the effects of tear gas to illustrate

the speakers resolve to end the war in Vietnam.

She even mentions that she

wants to taste its bitterness in order to experience the odds

they are against.

Click icon to add picture

Unit 7: Part 2Integration and

Disintegration: Postwar Society

Integration and Disintegration

Integration: Of African Americans,

Latinos, Women, and other groups previously excluded

Civil rights movement Brown vs. Board of

Education

Disintegration: Of structures and

values that had been long upheld in the nation.

Men striving to obtain “The good Life” were sometimes forced to suppress individuality and work for impersonal cooperation's

Do your own thing

Literature Integration: Works that

showed particular cultural identities.

Works that called for inclusion Schools, work place, equal

opportunity

One work we will read “Straw into Gold,” really shows the writers success exemplified in the dramatic social changes in America during the last half of the 20th century.

Disintegration: works that emphasize the prosperous, consumerist, and conformist society

Sacrifice for money “Do your own thing” Family institution

weakened: parents lost authority over children and families start to break-up (divorce sky-rockets)

Acts of violence