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AlQallaf 1

Rawan Alqallaf
Prof. Corri Ditch

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ENG 113b
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8 May, 2015
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World War II Story

World War ll caused a lot of struggles to those people in that period who lived

through one of the most terrible experiences that a human being could ever have to go through.
Living in a dangerous world and surrounded by dangerous situations and having to face death
every single day is what people had to stand. Not only that, but also they lived in a dangerous,
unhealthy environment and polluted air and water, which only made the matters even worse. Not
being able to feel safe enough to close their eyes at night and wondering if theyll wake up the
next morning. Not finding enough food or water, and having to burn money bills to find warm in
the cold nights. Despite many issues such as hunger, depression, pain and fear, the people from
the Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie society were able to maintain their happiness by
finding their own methods and ways to express out their feelings to feel relax and it is
therapeutic, like writing letters to each other, reading books, and making friendships. Which
ultimately gave them the motivation to find happiness.
Writing letters was a clever way of dealing with hardship of war. According to the novel,
people in that book have reflected a good impact and touched our hearts by their letters and

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messages. Those people experienced a lot of difficult times and days,.They slept but did not
know if they would wake up alive. However, they did not give up on those times, instead, they
did find their simple ways to connect to each other, to let go of their concealment and
persecution by talking to each other to share their feelings, emotions, actions, and moments. It
may do not look interesting to us as it was to them back then, but it was something big to them to
have those papers to write down for those whom they loved. As Sydney wrote to Juliet in the
book, No blood, no books, no poker chips. Just keep sending long letters to entertain
us(Shaffer&Barrows, 84). As Sydney meant that letters and writing was something valuable
and helpful to them, as a way to express their pain.
People in the novel formed a community of caring to each other. However, what would
make them even better, according to these hard days, is that they used to ask about each other
and care about them. They shared moments both sad or happy. Feeling for someone else is
important because it reduce the pain and the sadness. For example, in the text book, Juliet wrote
to Sidney Oh, GOD, which leg? am so sorry(Shaffer&Barrows, 83). As of Sidney said earlier
that she has delayed trip home because of falling off the horse. Juliet as a good friend, worried
and asked about her later. Worrying and being caring much is heartwarming and considers a
method to cure others and show them love, specially in times where love was needed the most.
Even connection for the people in the novel has developed. Another thing that had an
impact on the people in that period to feel better, is waiting for others to reply to their letters and
messages. It may make them worried and upset for not getting responds to their own letters, but
it gives them more hope and courage to send even more in order to have faith of replying later.

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That what happened to Juliet when she wrote to Sidney I have not heard from you in ages.
Does your icy silence have anything to do with Mark Reynolds? I have an idea for a new book. It
is a novel by her domineering editor. Do you like it? (Shaffer&Barrows, 84). Even though she
did not get anything from Sidney for a while, but she still managed to have hope and asked her to
get her opinion about her new book.
Communing with nature helps to get in touch with feelings. People even used other ways to
express out their feelings and emotions. They used the nature around them to feel free and
confident enough to trust nature. That is what made them feel better and it extinguished the fire
inside of them and inside their hearts. Of course, who does not love nature? It gave people in the
novel hope and fresh feelings of optimism. That any hardship shall not last forever, and it is not
the end of the world. It is what makes people be stronger and more subliminal to control their
actions in the future. However, Juliet used the nature around her to write and use the beautiful
scene to get the revelation for her. She wrote to Mrs Maugery The sun is out for the first time in
months, and if I stand on my chair and crane my neck, I can see it sparkling on the river. Im
averting my eyes from the mounds of rubble across the street and pretending London is beautiful
again.(Shaffer&Barrows, 98).
Using the language to express feelings is what cause happiness to those people who
struggled in WWll period, those fighters, women, children and writers. Which in very few words
they used to express those deep feelings as the Rhetoric For Radicals text book mentioned This
occurs because we are able to arrange and rearrange the letters and create and recreate the
meanings.(Jason Del Gandio, 102). As of John Booker said in the novel, about the Seneca book

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(John Booker, 92) His letters helped to keep me alive in what was to come later. We can see
the effect of the book on John was obvious. So happiness to those people were very simple to
make and create with really few words, they were able to maintain happiness with only letters
and transfer it to become an way and method to escape the bad reality and the sadness they are
living. They were satisfied with very small things to make their days and maybe years.
Characters in the novel were able to make friendships to support each other. In some how
we can tell that family and friends is always the best thing and the richest thing we can ever have
in this life, every thing is not longer for us and we can lose it anytime. Even our families and
friends are not for us forever, but we those beloved people will always remember us even after
our death. In the documentary (Happy) we can see that people in that video had different
meanings of happiness. Actually they had one thing in common which was plainness. Those
people they were from different countries and cultures. Some cultures like Japan, people from
there they had to work 24 hours a day, which means no time to spend with their families. Even in
their birthdays, they did not have any time to relax so they never celebrated it. So this culture of
people they defined happiness as finding time to spend at home with their families. Some other
cultures, people were poor and did not have fancy cars or houses. Although they had no good
income, they defined happiness as having children and family around everyday. As of the writer
Ruby Tsao says that We had no toys, but we had fun folding pieces of paper into boats, birds
and other things (14). We can see how simp his childhood was, but he was happy and having
fun. So after all, we can see that making relationships and communicating with others were a big

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thing to those people in the WWll. Almost all the time beloved people to our heart is always the
reason why we laugh and smile even in hardship.
We can not deny that people had actually suffered from many problems and lived such
difficult days . But people found ways of coping with hardship despite the fact that they actually
suffered. It was a nightmare to everyone, but they managed to find their own happiness and to
cope with the situation in their own way. However, the negative side was bigger and had a
bigger influence on them, which made them suffer from fatigue and weariness to despair. They
were just innocent people who were victims of the evilness that was in some ruthless, heartless
and greedy people, people who greed an insatiable desires come at the expense of those poor
people. According to the novel, Dawsey Adams writes that there wasn't any salt on the islands,
and none was coming to us from France. Root vegetables and soups are listless without
salt (95). We can see that they were struggling from hunger, although salt is the most important
element people should have. Also, the writer Alice Weinreb says in her article the problem in
Germany is really a food problem. (51). People were obviously desperate and lost faith, how
can a human live a world without having food to feed themselves for living and to avoid disease?

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Overall, World War ll was not easy to imagine, it is not enough just to read about it and it
does not look like the way we see it no matter how many books we read or write, it is bigger then
all of us and it is bigger then just to write about it. It is an awful memories to those people, who
carried the emotional scars of the war. After all, we can describe all of these situation people in
the World War ll lived in few words. Those innocence people took what ever around them is

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available and created it into a weapon to cure their pain. They did not use expensive things to
cure them, in fact they used nature which is free and available all the time for human beings. Not
only that, but they used their simple abilities like writing and talking with others to reduce the
pain inside. This is a good method and always way to let go of the pain and make it feel better.
Also, people that time made relationships with each other which got them to have better
connection and it was a brilliant idea to share each others thoughts and talks as long as they are
living the same life and conditions.

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Works Cited :

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- (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie, P.84/83/98)
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- (Rhetoric For Radicals, 102)

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- Documentary Happy
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- Alice Weinreb. For the Hungry Have No Past nor Do They Belong to a Political Party
Central European History 45 (2012) : Web : 7 May 2015

- Ruby Tsao, Childhood Memories of War Chinese American Forum July (2013) : Web : 7
May 2015