Official U.S. denial of responsibility for the death and destruction wrought in Vietnam was reinforced by various cultural expressions. Accounts of the war in films such as The Deer Hunter (1978), First Blood (1982), Uncommon Valor (1983), Missing in Action (1984), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Hamburger Hill (1987), and Rambo III (1988) present American soldiers as righteous warriors who were prevented from winning by inept Washington politicians, the “liberal” media, and the peace movement. These films were part of a larger reactionary movement designed to restore America’s noble self-image, assuage guilt, and drown out the outrage felt by other Americans convinced that the administration had lied its way into an unnecessary war. Stories were spread that antiwar activists had spit on returning vets and that American POWs were being held in Vietnam, making America appear the victim rather than the aggressor in the war. The “lesson” for the hawkish crowd was that the U.S. should have, and could have, won the war.
Pacifists generally abhorred the dehumanization of war, promoted conflict resolution and reconciliation, encouraged individual conscientious objection to war, and supported nonviolent social change for justice in the manner of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Jr. Many pacifist and pacifist-leaning groups had long experience in organizing campaigns (founding dates noted): FOR (1915), American Friends Service Committee (AFSC, 1917), WILPF (1919), WRL (1923), Congress on Racial Equality (CORE, 1942), and Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO, 1948). Abraham Johannes (A.J.) Muste, a practical pacifist with experience in labor and civil rights movements, played a unifying role in the antiwar movement until his death in February 1967. Some pacifist groups, such as WILPF, leaned toward the liberal wing of the movement while others, such as WRL, pulled to the left. WRL International issued a statement in August 1968 declaring its intent to work with “our brothers and sisters in the various liberation movements” to “bring an end to colonialism and imperialism … but without yielding up our belief that the foundation of the future must be laid in the present, that a society without violence must begin with revolutionists who will not use violence.”
Only late in the play does Hamlet complain that his uncle had "popped in between the election and my hopes." The country had been in a nervous state expecting an invasion by young Fortinbras, at the head of a lawless band of adventurers, in revenge for his father’s death at t...
Only late in the play does Hamlet complain that his uncle had "popped in between the election and my hopes." The country had been in a nervous state expecting an invasion by young Fortinbras, at the head of a lawless band of adventurers, in revenge for his father’s death at the hands of King Hamlet....
Philip Burton in “Hamlet” discusses Claudius’ sudden rise to the Danish throne upon the death of King Hamlet I: The fact that Claudius has become king is not really surprising.
Jeff Drake, “How the U.S. Got Involved in Vietnam,” . For an informative study on ARVN, see Robert K. Brigham, ARVN: Life and Death in the South Vietnamese Army (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006).
As Hamlet becomes more uncertain and unable to avenge his father’s death, his emotional saturation and lack of physical confidence propels himself and other characters further into discord and tragedy.
Shakespeare deals with very controversial attitudes and religious questions dealing with death, the existence of purgatory, morality, murder, suicide and marriage in his play Hamlet.
Unfortunately, Hamlet changes pace and acknowledges that there is a catch when death arrives: To sleep: perchance to dream- ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; (3.1.138) In other words, Hamlet explains how humans do not know what awaits th...
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet revolves around a young prince who upon the revelation of his untimely father’s death to be by the hand of his uncle devotes himself to avenge his father and to murder his Uncle Claudius.
As soon as the King and Queen hear about how mad Hamlet has gone they discuss the idea of death and wonder if the thought of death or not mourning the made him go crazy.
Wilson Knight in "The Embassy of Death" interprets the character of Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Claudius, as he appears in the play, is not a criminal.
However, by the time Hamlet undergoes mental transformation and equalizes the imbalance between physical confidence and emotional saturation, the characters have already began their final fall into a resolution of death....