War, Atrocity & Remembrance
Synthesis Essay Project
Respond to one (or a combination) of the prompts below:
1. What strategies do humans use to cope with atrocity, trauma and violence? What are the
effects or consequences of these coping mechanisms? How can we deal with guilt and pain?
2. What’s the difference between fact and fiction? How do you define each? When is the
distinction between the two clear, and when is it blurry? What responsibility do we have to
tell the truth? What liberties can we take with the truth?
3. In what ways can stories—and storytelling—save our lives?
4. How does war transform people?
5. How do you tell a true war story?
6. How does memory function in relationship to trauma? How does memory work? What are
the benefits and pitfalls of remembering? What responsibility do we have to remember?
7. These authors/filmmakers use many similar motifs (animals, women, children, settings in
the natural world, etc.) in their attempts to communicate the effects of war.
Compare/contrast the use of one or several of these motifs. How is it used? And what’s the
meaning or effect?
Use at least two of the following texts to generate and defend a thesis in response to your prompt:
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
“The Vietnam in Me” by Tim O’Brien (his essay on the My Lai massacre)
“Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa
“What Saves Us,” “The Way of Tet,” and/or “Song of Napalm” by Bruce Weigl
“The Lifespan of a Fact” by Dan Kois
“Refresh, Refresh” by Benjamin Percy
Apocalypse Now (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
Review of Apocalypse Now by Vincent Canby, and quotes from Coppola and Roger Ebert
“The Forgetting Pill” by Jonah Lehrer
Waltz with Bashir (dir. Ari Folman)
“Director Ari Folman on Waltz with Bashir” by David Jenkins