Journey of soldiers and civilians affected by war - Essay Example

They were also affected emotionally since some lost their loved ones during the war. In addition, they were affected mentally since the past memories of the war kept haunting them now and then as they continued with their lives. What is also common with the soldiers and civilians affected is that they move for different purposes. The scenario has also been witnessed with pilgrims and tourists who also travel during wartime for different reasons and posses different feelings. These aspects of the journey by pilgrims and tourists have been brought out through literary works.

This paper will analyze the concept of pilgrim vs. tourist as manifested through literally work with the intention of finding out whether Wiesel's “Night” presents the author as pilgrim or tourist. It is important to understand the distinction between a tourist and a pilgrim. A pilgrim is perceived to be an individual who seeks life’s meaning by visiting a religious or holy place in search of a master to help him or her realize his/her nature. This has been witnessed among Christians who pay visits to Jerusalem, the place where Jesus Christ was born.

Pilgrimage is therefore, a trip in search of spiritual or moral worth (Donnelly, 1992). These pilgrims posses certain characteristics during wartime as noted by Doris Donnelly (1992). They perceive an internal dimension to the wartime pilgrimage; they are fully affected by war, both physically and mentally; they perceive both arrival and wartime journey important and believe in bondage based on shared experiences (Donnelly, 1992). A tourist, on the other hand, visits a place mainly for exploration and leisure purposes to discover more of the place.

Nevertheless, with regard to wartime, Donnelly notes certain characteristics. These include being mainly concerned with the external journey, not fully being affected by war, being untouched by their experience, only arrival to war matters to them and bonding is not desirable to them (Donnelly, 1992). One poet whom the text presents as a pilgrim is Sassoon, as seen in Sassoon, Counter-Attack, poetry based on WWI. This is because throughout the poem it is evident that a community is formed as a result of war.

This is in support of Doris Donnelly’s observation that pilgrims at wartime tend to form community among themselves as they share the war experience. It is evident that as much as this poem revealed a lot concerning the death during WWI, it also showed the meaning of death. This is because Sassoon reveals that as much as many people were killed during WWI, they still felt that one death had no meaning to the world. These in turn made soldiers during the war feel extremely isolated and meaningless.

Sassoon emphasized this as seen in the second stanza when he says, “sure as fate, and never a dud” (Sassoon 3). This phrase is certainly an encouragement that every soldier must face the war with bravery and that there is a possibility of anyone of them dyeing next if they do not unite and continue the fight since the war was real and not yet won. Nevertheless, the soldiers could read their experiences from each other, the same way it happened to Sassoon and feel a common bond. This is portrayed in the third stanza.

This is one of the characteristics that have been identified with the pilgrims whom despite difficulty would not give up the fight for a common good. As such, they would maintain their togetherness