Spender And Sankichi: Two Views Of Disaster :: essays research papers fc

Stephen spend-alls "Epilogue to a Hu worldly concern Drama" and Toge Sankichis "Dying" are poems detailing the destruction of dickens cities, London and Hiroshima, respectively, during or after World War II bombings. Spender wrote "Epilogue to a Human Drama," hereafter referred to as "Epilogue," after a December standard atmosphere raid of London during the Battle of Britain, which ravaged and dismantled much of England from Summer 1940 until Spring 1941. Sankichi wrote "Dying" from his vivid recollections of the surprise nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, which decimated the Japanese city in less than a second. some(prenominal) the Battle of Britain and Hiroshima were horrible, senseless, and vicious incidents that exacted gave tolls on innocent victims. Spender endured the Battle of Britain, and Sankichi undergo the horror of Hiroshima. The poets responses differ greatly in style and perspective, but severally work clearly defines the rami fications of atrocities such as those committed against Spender, Sankichi, and the populations of London and Hiroshima.     Englands purplish Air Force battled Germanys Luftwaffe from August 1940 until May 1941. During that conflict, England was subjected to air raids day and night. When Hitler in the end withdrew his birds of war, four hundred thousand British citizens had been killed, forty-six thousand had been mischievously wounded, and one million homes had been leveled. After one raid, a relief aggroup helped a woman who had covered been covered in powdered brick and smear and was bleeding profusely. As they aided her, she repeated four words continually in a tone of quiet terror "Mans inhumanity to manMans inhumanity to man" (Jablonski 148).     Stephen Spender was in London for the duration of the bombings. He saw the demolition of surrounding buildings. He heard the droning of come up bombers. He smelled the smoke of rag ing infernos. In his autobiography World deep down World, Spender describes his mental condition during the raids as a "trance-like condition" and describes how he forced himself to think of places and things as merely mental concepts in pronounce to avoid losing mental control (285).     Hiroshimas destruction came without warning. Japanese High Command, which was laid Hiroshimas ancient castle, was alerted early to the approach of the Enola Gay by an observation invest on the island of Shikoku. The High Command elected to sound no air raid warning because they considered it senseless to disrupt work in topical anaesthetic armament factories due to a single plane (Bruckner 98). At merely 815 AM local time, the fuse was lit internal the descending bomb.