Ernest Pyle
Oct. 31st, 2004 01:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ziasudraErnie's War
Excerpts, Ernie's War
Excerpt: A Dreadful Masterpiece
Setting: Longdon, December 30, 1940
Theme: Beauty in destruction, life in death
Notable Quotes:
"For on that night this old, old city—even though I must bite my tongue in shame for saying it—was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire."
~ The central idea of the piece. Though one is conditioned to associate horror with destruction, Pyle witnessed the spectacle that was the burning of London with awe and fascination.
"The thing I shall always remember above all the other things in my life is the monstrous loveliness of that one single view of London on a holiday night—London stabbed with great fires, shaken by explosions, its dark regions along the Thames sparkling with the pinpoints of white-hot bombs, all of it roofed over with a ceiling of pink that held bursting shells, balloons, flares and the grind of vicious engines. And in yourself the excitement and anticipation and wonder in your soul that this could be happening at all. These things all went together to make the most hateful, most beautiful single scene I have ever known."
~ Theme: beauty in destruction. Pyle uses vivid imageries to describe what he saw.
"Somehow I didn't have a feeling that this was war. I just felt as if I were seeing a terrific number of big "natural" fires. Even when I came upon two buildings that had been blown to dust by heavy bombs less than an hour before, there was still a feeling that it was all perfectly natural."
~ What should be the "right" feeling and response to the fire, if any?
"Life goes on—where last night you felt that this must be the end of everything."
~ The world does not stop to cater to the aftermaths of destruction. It continues.
Excerpt: The Death of Captain Waskow
Setting: January 10, 1944. At the front lines in Italy. Temporary placing ground of dead soldiers.
Charactera: Captain Waskow, soldiers
Theme: Death, people's reaction to death
Notable Quotes:
"...in the shadow of the low stone wall."
~ This line is repeated four times in the article. The shadowy place is where the bodies lie.
"The Italian mule-skinners were afraid to walk beside dead men, so Americans had to lead the mules down that night. Even the Americans were reluctant to unlash and lift off the bodies at the bottom, so an officer had to do it himself, and ask others to help."
~ No one wants to be near dead bodies. Those who were embraced when living are now shunned at death. This highlights Captain Waskow's uniqueness—people want to be near him even when he is dead.
"Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer, and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said: 'I sure am sorry, sir.'"
"Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the dead hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes, holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face, and he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there."
~ Vivid description of soldiers' farewell to Captain Waskow.
Excerpt: The Horrible Waste of War
Setting: June 16, 1944. Normandy, France
Theme: Death, life, worth and values, meaning
Notable Quotes:
"It was a lovely day for strolling along the seashore. Men were sleeping on the sand, some of them sleeping forever."
~ Literary device: alliteration of the sibilant phoneme.
"The wreckage was vast and startling. The awful waste and destruction of war, even aside from the loss of human life, has always been one of its outstanding features to those who are in it. Anything and everything is expendable"
~ To echo Walter Lippmann, in war, life is cheap.
"The prisoners too were looking out to sea—the same bit of sea that for months and years had been so safely empty before their gaze. Now they stood staring almost as if in a trance. They didn't say a word to each other. They didn't need to. The expression on their faces was something forever unforgettable. In it was the final horrified acceptance of their doom."
~ Post D-Day reaction of two German prisoners. Realization of defeat, made real by the dead bodies along the beach.
"I don't know why I picked it up, or why I put it back down."
"They cover the corpses of heroes with sand, and then in their whims they uncover them."
~ There is a certain randomness in war. Why did he die and I live? Why do they win and I lose? Why did I pick up the Bible, then place it down? Why did they cover the corpses, only to later uncover them?
Excerpt: Attack at Midday
Setting: August 7-8, 1944. Normandy, France
Notable Quotes:
"The great attack, when we broke out of the Normandy beachhead, began in the bright light of midday, not at the zero hour of a bleak and mysterious dawn as attacks are supposed to start in books."
~ Are there "rules" in war? Would prescribed procedures give war meaning and sufficient justification?
"Everywhere you looked separate groups of planes were on the way down, or on the way back up, or slanting over for a dive, or circling, circling, circling over our heads, waiting for their turn."
~ Literary device: repetition. "Circling" shows circling.
"Their march across the sky was slow and studied. I've never known a storm, or a machine, or any resolve of man that had about it the aura of such a ghastly relentlessness. You had the feeling that even had God appearked beseechingly before them in the sky with palms outward to persuade them back they would not have had within them the power to turn from their irresistible course."
~ The determination of the pilots signify Normandy's inevitable doom.
"They began up ahead as the crackle of popcorn and almost instantly swelled into a monstrous fury of noise that seemed surely to destroy all the world ahead of us"
"By now everything was an indescribable cauldron of sounds. Individual noises did not exist."
~ Pyle describes the sound element of the attack.
Drought Bowl
Home Country, Ernest Pyle
Setting: South Dakota. 1930's, during FDR's presidency.
Theme: destruction, courage to live, hope
Notable Quotes:
"You could see the whole obliteration of a great land, and the destruction of a people and long years of calamity for those of the soil, and the emptiness of life that knows only struggle and ends in despair. I had seen a great deal of this in the past few years. Sometimes at night when I was thinking too hard I felt that there was nothing but leanness everywhere, that nobody had the privilege of a full life. Of course I was wrong about that."
~ Destruction. The constant changeability of life. Reminiscent of Ecclesiastes, where there is profound hope amid despair.
"For every one that dies, a thousand come to his funeral."
~ Referring to the plethora of grasshoppers. Grasshoppers plagues come in cycles; it is part of the cycle of life: destruction, rebirth, growth, destruction, rebirth, growth...
"It was the tenderest, most admiring tribute to courage I have ever seen. It was such a poignant thing, so surprising, so spontaneous."
~ Applause to handicapped FDR struggling to walk. Analogous to the people's crippled life. They struggle to live on nonetheless. They still possess strength and hope in face of death and despair.
Ernie Pyle writes to people's hearts. He does not talk about life. He shows life by inviting readers to walk his journeys with him. Often the life he shows us is bleak. But it's real. The paradoxes in life remind me of the song "Blessed Be Your Name" -- Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering/ though there's pain in the offering/ blessed be your name; You give and take away/ my heart will choose to say/ Lord blessed be your name.
Beauty in destruction. Hope in despair. Life in the threat of death. This is our world.
Excerpts, Ernie's War
Excerpt: A Dreadful Masterpiece
Setting: Longdon, December 30, 1940
Theme: Beauty in destruction, life in death
Notable Quotes:
"For on that night this old, old city—even though I must bite my tongue in shame for saying it—was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire."
~ The central idea of the piece. Though one is conditioned to associate horror with destruction, Pyle witnessed the spectacle that was the burning of London with awe and fascination.
"The thing I shall always remember above all the other things in my life is the monstrous loveliness of that one single view of London on a holiday night—London stabbed with great fires, shaken by explosions, its dark regions along the Thames sparkling with the pinpoints of white-hot bombs, all of it roofed over with a ceiling of pink that held bursting shells, balloons, flares and the grind of vicious engines. And in yourself the excitement and anticipation and wonder in your soul that this could be happening at all. These things all went together to make the most hateful, most beautiful single scene I have ever known."
~ Theme: beauty in destruction. Pyle uses vivid imageries to describe what he saw.
"Somehow I didn't have a feeling that this was war. I just felt as if I were seeing a terrific number of big "natural" fires. Even when I came upon two buildings that had been blown to dust by heavy bombs less than an hour before, there was still a feeling that it was all perfectly natural."
~ What should be the "right" feeling and response to the fire, if any?
"Life goes on—where last night you felt that this must be the end of everything."
~ The world does not stop to cater to the aftermaths of destruction. It continues.
Excerpt: The Death of Captain Waskow
Setting: January 10, 1944. At the front lines in Italy. Temporary placing ground of dead soldiers.
Charactera: Captain Waskow, soldiers
Theme: Death, people's reaction to death
Notable Quotes:
"...in the shadow of the low stone wall."
~ This line is repeated four times in the article. The shadowy place is where the bodies lie.
"The Italian mule-skinners were afraid to walk beside dead men, so Americans had to lead the mules down that night. Even the Americans were reluctant to unlash and lift off the bodies at the bottom, so an officer had to do it himself, and ask others to help."
~ No one wants to be near dead bodies. Those who were embraced when living are now shunned at death. This highlights Captain Waskow's uniqueness—people want to be near him even when he is dead.
"Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer, and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said: 'I sure am sorry, sir.'"
"Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the dead hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes, holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face, and he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there."
~ Vivid description of soldiers' farewell to Captain Waskow.
Excerpt: The Horrible Waste of War
Setting: June 16, 1944. Normandy, France
Theme: Death, life, worth and values, meaning
Notable Quotes:
"It was a lovely day for strolling along the seashore. Men were sleeping on the sand, some of them sleeping forever."
~ Literary device: alliteration of the sibilant phoneme.
"The wreckage was vast and startling. The awful waste and destruction of war, even aside from the loss of human life, has always been one of its outstanding features to those who are in it. Anything and everything is expendable"
~ To echo Walter Lippmann, in war, life is cheap.
"The prisoners too were looking out to sea—the same bit of sea that for months and years had been so safely empty before their gaze. Now they stood staring almost as if in a trance. They didn't say a word to each other. They didn't need to. The expression on their faces was something forever unforgettable. In it was the final horrified acceptance of their doom."
~ Post D-Day reaction of two German prisoners. Realization of defeat, made real by the dead bodies along the beach.
"I don't know why I picked it up, or why I put it back down."
"They cover the corpses of heroes with sand, and then in their whims they uncover them."
~ There is a certain randomness in war. Why did he die and I live? Why do they win and I lose? Why did I pick up the Bible, then place it down? Why did they cover the corpses, only to later uncover them?
Excerpt: Attack at Midday
Setting: August 7-8, 1944. Normandy, France
Notable Quotes:
"The great attack, when we broke out of the Normandy beachhead, began in the bright light of midday, not at the zero hour of a bleak and mysterious dawn as attacks are supposed to start in books."
~ Are there "rules" in war? Would prescribed procedures give war meaning and sufficient justification?
"Everywhere you looked separate groups of planes were on the way down, or on the way back up, or slanting over for a dive, or circling, circling, circling over our heads, waiting for their turn."
~ Literary device: repetition. "Circling" shows circling.
"Their march across the sky was slow and studied. I've never known a storm, or a machine, or any resolve of man that had about it the aura of such a ghastly relentlessness. You had the feeling that even had God appearked beseechingly before them in the sky with palms outward to persuade them back they would not have had within them the power to turn from their irresistible course."
~ The determination of the pilots signify Normandy's inevitable doom.
"They began up ahead as the crackle of popcorn and almost instantly swelled into a monstrous fury of noise that seemed surely to destroy all the world ahead of us"
"By now everything was an indescribable cauldron of sounds. Individual noises did not exist."
~ Pyle describes the sound element of the attack.
Drought Bowl
Home Country, Ernest Pyle
Setting: South Dakota. 1930's, during FDR's presidency.
Theme: destruction, courage to live, hope
Notable Quotes:
"You could see the whole obliteration of a great land, and the destruction of a people and long years of calamity for those of the soil, and the emptiness of life that knows only struggle and ends in despair. I had seen a great deal of this in the past few years. Sometimes at night when I was thinking too hard I felt that there was nothing but leanness everywhere, that nobody had the privilege of a full life. Of course I was wrong about that."
~ Destruction. The constant changeability of life. Reminiscent of Ecclesiastes, where there is profound hope amid despair.
"For every one that dies, a thousand come to his funeral."
~ Referring to the plethora of grasshoppers. Grasshoppers plagues come in cycles; it is part of the cycle of life: destruction, rebirth, growth, destruction, rebirth, growth...
"It was the tenderest, most admiring tribute to courage I have ever seen. It was such a poignant thing, so surprising, so spontaneous."
~ Applause to handicapped FDR struggling to walk. Analogous to the people's crippled life. They struggle to live on nonetheless. They still possess strength and hope in face of death and despair.
Ernie Pyle writes to people's hearts. He does not talk about life. He shows life by inviting readers to walk his journeys with him. Often the life he shows us is bleak. But it's real. The paradoxes in life remind me of the song "Blessed Be Your Name" -- Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering/ though there's pain in the offering/ blessed be your name; You give and take away/ my heart will choose to say/ Lord blessed be your name.
Beauty in destruction. Hope in despair. Life in the threat of death. This is our world.
