A Visual Journey

•How does the use of light impact the portrayal of Washington?•How do you know the soldiers & their general are determined to win this battle?•Where do you see straight lines? What is accomplished by the use of straight lines?

•How does this bronze relief show men united by a cause?

•Visually, how are the soldiers depicted differently than Colonel Robert Shaw (the man on horseback)?

Allies Day, MAY 1917By Childe Hassam

•Does the painting emit a feeling of lightness or of heaviness? Explain.

•What is the focal point of the painting? Why?

•Why portray the people as tiny and the flags as large?

•Overall, then, what does this painting suggest about America after WWI?

•What feeling does this memorial convey? Explain.

•How does the structure convey a sense of wholeness? Of unity?

•How would this poster motivate an American to support WWII?

•What does this poster suggest about good & evil in WWII?

•What does the image of all that smoke suggest about Nazi Germany?

•Discuss the juxtaposition of the little girl and the swastika. What is the effect of their placement?

•What features of this Japanese officer are exaggerated? What is the effect of the caricature?

•This Japanese officer is clasping his hands in ______.

•Why would he want an American to “take day off”? (effect of the missing “a”?)

•So, overall, how does this poster motivate Americans to work even harder to support WWII?

•What does this poster suggest about good & evil in WWII?

When Tim O’Brien gets his draft notice in “On the Rainy River,” he implicitly contrasts WWII with The Vietnam War. Unlike WWII, in Vietnam . . .

“Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression? . . . . Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist savior, or both, or neither?”

He then goes on to say,

“There were occasions, I believed, when a nation was justified in using military force to achieve its ends, to stop a Hitler or some comparable evil, and I told myself that in such circumstances I would’ve willingly marched off to the battle.”

Apply O’Brien’s statements above to the images from WWII we just examined.

Let’s further examine what made The Vietnam War different from all previous wars . . .

•Discuss the contrast in colors between this poster & WWII one, and what that contrast suggests.

•What has Vietnam done to America? Use details from Uncle Sam’s appearance in your answer.

How does the nature of the Vietnam War change conventional notions of Courage?

Find quotes in “On the Rainy River” that show O’Brien’s definition of courage.

When he thinks about the American people, including his town & family, O’Brien writes,

“They didn’t know history. They didn’t know the first thing about Diem’s tyranny, or the nature of Vietnamese nationalism, or the long colonialism of the French—this was all too damn complicated, it required some reading—but no matter, it was a war to stop the Communists, plain and simple, which was how they liked things, and you were a treasonous pussy if you had second thoughts about killing or dying for plain and simple reasons.”

Identify O’Brien’s tone here.