The Futility of It All.
“After the Sirens” is a fleshy and visceral look at the horrors of war. It paints a stark portrait of a family surviving a nuclear holocaust by piling on clothes and using their own bodies to protect their precious child from the affect of the initial blast and the fallout that followed.
The tempo of the piece never lets up and never once left me thinking, “Ugh, this is dragging.” The reader is immediately thrown into the story much like the characters are thrown into the predicament of which they have absolutely no control; all they can do is react, and all we can do as readers is sit and watch in semi-horror.
There is something heart-wrenching about this piece that is unavoidable. Right from the outset when the husband starts rifling off commands to his wife as the radio announcer counts down the time remaining before the nuclear attack there is a feeling of inevitability, of impossibility, but most of all a feeling of futility.
“Look,” he said, “don’t ask me any questions, please, just do exactly what I tell you and don’t waste any time.” She stared at him with her mouth open. “Listen,” he said, “and do exactly as I say. They say this is an air-raid and we’d better believe them.” She looked frightened nearly out of her wits. “I’ll look after you,” he said; “just get dressed as fast as you can. Put on as many layers of wool as you can. Got that?”
She nodded speechlessly.
“Put on your woolen topcoat and your fur coat over that. Get as many scarves as you can find. We’ll wrap our faces and hands. When you’re dressed, dress the baby the same way. We have a chance, if you do as I say without wasting time.” She ran off up the hall to the coat closet and he could hear her pulling things about.
The except from After the Sirens I included above is contains such a vivid scene of terror and reaction. There is such a sickening feeling of futility that the author evokes in this piece that it conjures up images of those odd 1950s school films that told children to crawl under their desks and cover their heads if ever there was a nuclear attack. These images resonate because they are constantly being re-hashed. I vaguely remember that in 2003 there was a scare terrorist scare in the states and all over CNN they were warning people that they should buy plastic sheeting and duct tape to cover their windows and doors. That just screams futility, and this is the family in After the Sirens faces.
If anything at all, this is the most anti-war piece we’ve read in this class so far. It demonstrates how when two nuclear powers, whatever two they may be, clash and those in the seat of power decided that a nuclear strike is the only remaining option (which it never is) lives are spent to prove a point. These people in positions of power obviously consider the casualties, but these lives are irrelevant in war. War is about numbers, not about people.
The tempo of the piece never lets up and never once left me thinking, “Ugh, this is dragging.” The reader is immediately thrown into the story much like the characters are thrown into the predicament of which they have absolutely no control; all they can do is react, and all we can do as readers is sit and watch in semi-horror.
There is something heart-wrenching about this piece that is unavoidable. Right from the outset when the husband starts rifling off commands to his wife as the radio announcer counts down the time remaining before the nuclear attack there is a feeling of inevitability, of impossibility, but most of all a feeling of futility.
“Look,” he said, “don’t ask me any questions, please, just do exactly what I tell you and don’t waste any time.” She stared at him with her mouth open. “Listen,” he said, “and do exactly as I say. They say this is an air-raid and we’d better believe them.” She looked frightened nearly out of her wits. “I’ll look after you,” he said; “just get dressed as fast as you can. Put on as many layers of wool as you can. Got that?”
She nodded speechlessly.
“Put on your woolen topcoat and your fur coat over that. Get as many scarves as you can find. We’ll wrap our faces and hands. When you’re dressed, dress the baby the same way. We have a chance, if you do as I say without wasting time.” She ran off up the hall to the coat closet and he could hear her pulling things about.
The except from After the Sirens I included above is contains such a vivid scene of terror and reaction. There is such a sickening feeling of futility that the author evokes in this piece that it conjures up images of those odd 1950s school films that told children to crawl under their desks and cover their heads if ever there was a nuclear attack. These images resonate because they are constantly being re-hashed. I vaguely remember that in 2003 there was a scare terrorist scare in the states and all over CNN they were warning people that they should buy plastic sheeting and duct tape to cover their windows and doors. That just screams futility, and this is the family in After the Sirens faces.
If anything at all, this is the most anti-war piece we’ve read in this class so far. It demonstrates how when two nuclear powers, whatever two they may be, clash and those in the seat of power decided that a nuclear strike is the only remaining option (which it never is) lives are spent to prove a point. These people in positions of power obviously consider the casualties, but these lives are irrelevant in war. War is about numbers, not about people.
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