Keep moving along
It's an essay.
Witty/cool/hipster title goes here when I remember what it was
Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.” Rise Against’s song “Hero of War” certainly shows it. It is a first-person narrative of a young man vying for honor as a “Hero of War”, and describes what he goes through in order to obtain that title. It is the intent of this author to use the Formalist theory, referring to articles by Cleanth Brooks, Victor Schklovsky, and a collaborative piece by Wimsatt & Beardsley.
Formalism is the idea that a text has meaning only within its context (Brooks). It may discuss certain techniques in regards to the form of the text discussed, like diction, images, irony or defamiliarization (Schklovsky). It does not find meaning based off of the author's intent (Wimsatt and Beardsley). In discussing Rise Against's song, “Hero of War”, we will not focus on the band's intent, or history of artist's intent being pushed in their songs. Instead, we will focus only on the lyrics the band presents in their song, and the diction, irony, and defamiliarization of war training and war events as described by the protagonist of the song, a typical “hero of war”.
This song shows the grim reality of the American recruiting system, as viewed by the protagonist. Through the diction used in this song, one will see that it is a young narrator, male, who describes the events of war as they happen to him. In the beginning, we have a recruiter. Recruiters start their spiels by asking a potential recruit if he or she wants to see the world. When the recruiter targets our narrator, he sounds like a typical youth based on his word choices. Some of the lines that show his youth are lines 4, 7, 9, 12, 14, 28-29, 34, and 36. Primarily, his diction in these lines (“sounds pretty good” (4), “it looked alright”(7), focusing on making friends in 9, “yeah that's what I'll be”(12, 34) ),caring about people being proud in lines 14 and 36, and the scene when he gives into peer pressure (28-29) are clear markers that he is someone young. Youth are insecure, mostly because they have nothing to their name in the adult world. When he focuses on how people will become proud of him in lines 14 and 36, he marks himself as part of this young generation, ideally a high school graduate. Young people also have trouble resisting peer pressure. When he is unable to stop the disrespect his fellow soldiers were engaging in, and instead join them, his youth becomes apparent again. This peer pressure, a desire to make friends as he learns to fight alongside his troop, causes him to start acting out ruthlessly against his fellow man. He engages in uncalled-for brutality against the prisoner that his troop is charged with finding (19-32). However, despite being powerless to stop the assault, he still feels like he is in the process of becoming a hero of war. This changes when the tone shifts.
Lines 50-59 illustrate a shift in tone, from that of a hopeful youth seeking glory to one of bitter irony. Our hero shoots a woman holding a “white flag”, the international sign for surrender, and regrets it when he is able to see the flag after firing. (41-51). These lines defamiliarize the act of shooting at one's enemy, because our speaker never calls this woman on the front lines his enemy. He tells her to stop, but the language barrier prevents her from understanding his words, so she continues on through the “bullets and haze” (41-44). Though he doesn't outright state that he shoots her, the lines that follow show clearly the result of what happened. Even her death is defamiliarized, for though he could have simply said “she died with a white flag in her hand”, he puts it more artfully. He describes the blood soaking the sand where she was shot, and that she fell with a flag that was as “white as snow” (49-51). By doing this, our speaker shows us how much this has impacted him. As Schklovsky states in his essay, “Art as Technique”, “poetic imagery is a means of creating the strongest possible impression” (776). For our hero to be able to describe in such poetic, descriptive detail the scene of shooting this surrendering woman, it shows how strong of an impression that this moment has made on him. This impression is so strong that he becomes bitter when he comes home, and finds being called a “hero of war” ironic. When he says, “A hero of war/ is that what they see /... so damn proud of me”, his opinion of what he is has clearly changed (52-55). He is no longer this righteous individual, for a hero protects the innocent and weak. Our protagonist instead shoots the innocent and weak. The use of “so” as a qualifier in line 55 helps create a sarcastic tone. Having killed one of those he fought to protect, he reflects on the irony and is disgusted by it. He becomes demoralized, as he no longer believes that he is a hero of war. Not only that, but to be seen as only a hero, when he had shot an innocent woman who wanted to surrender, This situational irony creates an internal conflict within him. For everyone to see him as only a hero of war is an outrage. When this shift in tone occurs, so does the meaning of the referred to “flag” that our protagonist cares for.
As mentioned earlier, diction is a key point of this song. At the end of the song, the only item that our hero mentions caring about or loving becomes questionable by the words he uses. In fact, it is merely a single word, “that”, which causes this shift in the meaning. In the beginning, he repeats in the chorus that he'll “carry this flag/ to the grave if [he] must/ because it's a flag that” he loves and trusts (15-19, 36-40). However, the flag that he refers to changes, as that section of the chorus changes at the end. He states, “I brought that flag home/ Now it gathers dust/ But it's a flag that I love/ It's the only flag that I trust” (56-59). At this point, what the determiner “that” refers to is unclear-- does he mean the American flag, the one that he went to fight for at the beginning of the song? Or does he mean the white flag of surrender, the flag that was “white as snow” that the woman carried(51)? There are many other words that the lyricist could have used when referring to the symbol of surrender that the woman carried. Yet, instead of a white shirt, rag, or some other item, he deliberately chooses the word “flag”, and never once gives detail to the flag he dreamed of defending earlier in the song. This creates confusion about which flag the hero is referring to in the last chorus, especially when he says that he “brought home that flag/[...] the only flag that [he] trusts” (56-59). This confusion is false, for if our protagonist was still referring to his country's flag, then he would continue to refer to it as “this” flag, Earlier, the only flag that he could have trusted was the American, and yet now that it is uncertain which flag he is talking about, it questions our hero's reasoning abilities if the flag he brought home was the one that the woman carried. He shot her, and yet he still trusts and loves it.
Another important instance of diction is the change of lines in the chorus at the end. The lyrics maintain parallel format, line count (8 lines), and similar or same imagery. The first line of the chorus always beings with “A hero of war”, with the second showing a desire to become that or having become that. The third line has five syllables, and the fourth talks about people being proud of him. Line five of the chorus refers to the bringing the flag home. The sixth line produces images of death, with the words “grave” and “dust”. Both forms of line six also rhyme. The last two lines of the chorus talk about how he trusts and loves this flag, the sole difference being the use of a conjunction and placement of the conjunction. There are also two stanzas before each chorus.
PROBLEMS WITH USING THIS THING
Some of the problems I have had using Formalist theory is sticking to the text, and finding enough within the text to comment on. This song states its message without digging very deeply, yet I cannot talk about this message because it goes beyond the text. The rise of PTSD and the need to rehabilitate our ex-soldiers into normal society is tempting to mention, but it relates to the world. Another problem with using this theory for this song is resisting the urge to bring up the audience, author, and social contest. Rise Against tends to lean towards social commentary songs, and this is only one of them. It is very tempting to bring the purpose of the artist and the impacts that this song is intended to have on its audience, yet these are items that do not interest Formalist critics. The only thing that interests these critics is the form of the song, the literary devices used as it relates within the text, and whether or not outside influences affect the critic's interpretation of this song.
A problem I had with focusing on some smaller ideas within the text is the use of a “white flag”. This flag is itself a symbol, and to understand the symbol, you have to think outside the text. Yet, it is a generally accepted international symbol of surrender, requiring no more thought than any country's flag. I ended up in this cyclical argument with myself over whether or not I should discuss this. Another was whether or not the idea of “tone” is within a text or outside it. Tone is more of a psychological interpretation of a piece, yet you can find factors which point to a tone within the piece. Again, another vicious circle of arguing for and against bringing up this literary device occurred, but because I could find proof of it within the text, I felt more safe putting it in there than I have with the discussion of the white flag.
My worst problem was rereading the assigned essays and incorporating their arguments into the text, as well as understanding their argument properly. Some ideas were brought up early in the essays, only to be disproved at the end, and everything I thought up pertaining to that dismissed idea also had to be dismissed. I had to rewrite entire paragraphs to incorporate the theorists' ideas, or dismiss something that would have been an excellent point in a different analysis of this song.