19th, April, 2011
Teacher: Mr. Kowgier
Mao Zhengquan (Darius)
Title: fear of death

“Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark.” (Bacon). Children are scared of the dark because it always gives you the feeling of death. This feeling is the fear of the unknown. In Charles Harrison’s Generals Die in Bed, lots of soldiers must face this fear because they can be killed at anytime in the war. In contrast, they have to hide their fear as much as possible because their strength shows the power of their country. When they cannot hide anymore, their fear comes out in three different ways: begging others, crying to release the pressure, and running away from the war. They do these things to survive the cruelty of war. This cruelty pressures the soldiers until they finally break and show their true emotion. When soldiers face death, they can do anything to survive, even beg their enemies. To begin with, during the raid on German trenches, the protagonist lunges Karl, a German soldier, by his bayonet. Karl shrieks lots of times and he wants to stop the pain, so he helps the protagonist to withdraw the rifle with piteous eyes (Harrison, pg62). Karl knows that he will die but he does not want to suffer from the pain. He is afraid of dying painfully, as a result he chooses to express his fear and beg the enemy to pull off the bayonet. His reaction shows that he is tired of pretending to be strong; he just wants to release his pain and fear before death. Also, the protagonist and other soldiers are almost insane because of the fake speech by a general. When they arrive at German trenches, they shoot all the German soldiers who have already surrendered. “The hands shake eloquently asking for pity.” (Harrison. Pg144). These German soldiers think that they may survive if they surrender. They don’t want to be strong to show how powerful their country is. They shake hands and keep saying “please” to ask for mercy. They want to be themselves instead of robots without emotion. All their fears explode when they face the enemy with rifles. Furthermore, my picture is a man kneels down at his boss for staying in the company. In my opinion, your workplace is a war, and staffs around you are enemies or comrades. You need to hide your emotion both in your career and the war. Usually, you need to appear to have enough ability to do the job. However, when you are fired, you have no job and that means no income. You need money to survive. In this way, you can do things like kneeling down to keep the job just like soldiers beg others to survive. Karl and other German soldiers show that they can even beg their enemies to keep alive. Moreover, when you think you will die, all the pressures from the war released automatically by crying. Tears, a symbol of sadness, show how soldiers are afraid of death. First of all, while the protagonist is doing sentry duty, German soldiers begin to bombard Canada trenches. When he realizes that he can be killed by these bombs, he becomes crazy and keeps burrowing into the ground. He is so terrified that he can taste his tears on his lips (Harrison, pg12). The protagonist thinks that he may die any second, and he doesn't know what will happen on him. He is so scared that his bowels liquefy which always happens on kids when they feel scared. He cannot stop begging god and cries automatically to comfort himself. In addition, Broadbent and the protagonist both are wounded in no man’s land and they rest in a shell hole. Broadbent’s leg is almost off: “Like the hundreds of other men I had seen die, Broadbent dies like a little boy too -- weeping, calling for his mother.” (Harrison, pg149). It is the end of Broadbent’s life and he can finally show his fear to the war and death by weeping and calling for his mother. During the war, soldiers pretend to be tough in front of others to show that they are strong. However, when Broadbent is close to death, he just wants to make himself comfortable and he can even cry and burble about his mum in front of his friend. What’s more, the child in the picture is crying because his mother leaves him alone in the kindergarten. He thinks that his parents discard him just like Broadbent knows that he is leaving his parents because of death. Both of them cry to show their fear of separating from families. Their reaction tells us that when soldiers finally release their emotions, they are no loner the tough men. They are just a group of teenagers who need parents. Broadbent and the protagonist weep to express their feelings. However, some soldiers know that they cannot afford the pressure and they try to escape from the war. Soldiers run away from the war when they cannot hide their fears anymore. For example, Renaud, a French Canadian recruit marches beside the protagonist during the training, Renaud’s knees sag and they hurt him a lot. After marching for six hours, Renaud asks Captain Clark for falling out (Harrison, pg101). Apparently, he is painful. However, the real reason is his fear. He doesn’t know about the war and he cannot imagine the war, as well. He is scared so he keeps telling others and himself that his knees hurt a lot. He does that in order to escape from the war because he is afraid of being killed. Besides, when the protagonist and other soldiers see Renaud dies painfully, they decide to retreat. Unfortunately, Captain Clark refuses to let them run away from the war. “Fry reaches into his holster with his left hand. He fires at the officer’s back.”(Harrison, pg113). When these soldiers realize that they may die painfully like Renaud, they are terrified. They cannot ignore their fears of death so that they try to escape from the warfare. Their instincts of protecting themselves are activated immediately. Fry can even kill someone who prevents him form leaving. After that, during their getaway, Fry is hit and his leg is off. The protagonist leaves his best friend alone in no man’s land because he knows if he brings Fry with him, he will die. Furthermore, this image shows a boy who tries to run away from the town. He wants to leave because he is afraid of something like school, parents and so on. Your life is just like a war. You need to compete with others to get a job while soldiers need to fight against enemies to survive. Some people travel to another city for a job and gain wages to keep alive while soldiers may escape from the war to keep alive. In this way, people are afraid of death so that they run away from places which are full of bad memories. In conclusion, when soldiers are crashed by the fear of death, they always want to run away from the war. The war is so cruel that lots of soldiers cannot hide their fears of death anymore. It is clear that it’s not all soldiers’ faults to beg enemies, cry or run away from the war. We should realize that society gives soldiers too much pressure of being tough and strong and they are not allowed to release their emotions. Nowadays, not only in the war, but also in our society, everyone hides their emotions deeply for some reasons. However, it can only cause the explosion of all your feelings at one moment. Instead of ignoring again and again, we should release part of them at a time by doing something like boxing, camping so that our feelings can keep balance all the time.