Is war an honorable way to die or is it just a pointless slaughter? The answer to this question all depends on your opinion. We will now be looking at two essays that support both answers to this question. Both of the essays that we will be looking at today express many strong feelings and emotions that enhance the opinions of the authors. We will be taking a look at Earnest Hemingway's "From a Farewell to Arms" and Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address". .
In Earnest Hemingway's essay "From a Farewell to Arms", he expresses his opinion that he does not agree with war. Hemingway wrote this essay, about the tragedy and destruction during World War I, in 1929. He feels that there is nothing sacred about the men who lost their lives while fighting for their country. He even goes as far as saying the war was "like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it."(p.317). Here he is saying that the war is pointless and that all of the men that lost their lives in the war, died a pointless death. To him, the war cemeteries were not sacred but merely slaughter houses. The words honor, glory, sacred, courage, in vain, sacrifice, and hallow do not apply in any way, shape, or form to the war. Hemingway clearly gets his point across in this essay that he strongly disapproves of the war and that he does not believe that war is beneficial.
In Abraham Lincoln's speech "The Gettysburg Address", the American people were informed of the American Civil War that was taking place and he stated that it would test the nation's endurance. This speech was given on November 19, 1863 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Throughout the speech you can tell that he supports the war. He talks about the land that was going to be set aside to honor those soldiers that had lost their lives for their country. To Lincoln, these soldiers were the reason that this country could advance and grow.
