Wednesday, February 24, 2010

"War"- Luigi Pirandello


How would you react if someone you loved was sent off to fight in a terrible war? What if it was your son? Your only son? Both of your two sons? Would it be worse to see your only son sent off to war, or to see both of your beloved sons sent off to fight? These questions are all addressed in Luigi Pirandello's story "War". This story is set on a train, and throughout, the passengers engage in a conversation/debate over which of the above situations is worse. Another man says that they should not grieve for their sons because they are not considerring their sons' feelings. He said that his son died, but he is not sad because his son died fighting for the country that he loved.

When I think about this story, a lot of thoughts come to mind, most of them sad ones. When I try to think about the questions being asked in this story, I can only wonder if they should even be questions. I mean, are these really questions that can be easily debated? To try and imagine someone's immense sorrow at the loss of a loved one, and then say that there is something worse than that terrible sadness , it just doesn't seem right. No one has any right to judge how another person feels. People deal with feelings and emotions in many different ways.

I think that Luigi Pirandello created a wonderful, yet terrible piece of writing in "War". It realy makes you think about the tolls that the loss of a loved one take on a person. Whether you should grieve more at the lost of one son, or two sons, or whether you shouldn't grieve at all, you could puzzle over this forever.

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