War as Human Nature
Any individual, who had paid even a little attention to human history, would acknowledge one specific tendency in its development – most of the time humanity spent in preparing to wars, fighting them and recovering from their consequences. Peace times were not even one third of the time of human existence. In this context, the topic of warfare and human beings was the oldest topic of all poetic and verse narrations. For ages, writer and poets were discussing cruelty, nobleness, heroism and destructions of war. They would pay attention to destinies of individuals in warfare, or consequences for society, or ruinous outcomes for families; very few authors referred to the war itself, its nature and conditionality of human nature and survival instinct. The last topic was addressed in the poem “The Old Soldier” (2004) by contemporary poet Charles Simic. Just as human civilization had evolved, the ways poets send their message to the audience had evolved too; now it corresponds to the specifics of contemporary civilization and the target audience. Charles Simic is not an exception. His way of sending the message is surrealistic symbolization of ordinary objects, making readers think of images given and interpret reality through the prism of his message. The central idea of Simic’s poem “The Old Soldier” is warrior nature of human existence and world perception. In this context, Simic tries to emphasize that in any human being, irrespective of the age, there is a fighter inside. The aim of the current paper is to critically analyze the poem and prove the aforementioned statement.
The very title of the poem proves the offered statement. Naming the poem “old soldier”, while the age of boy was only five makes the audience consider what was meant by that. Irrespective of the fact that the main hero is still a boy, “by the time I was five, I had fought in hundreds of battles” (Simic 21). He represents generations of warriors and fighters who struggled with numerous obstacles in their survival and continued their species. The very existence of the boy is a proof of the success of their struggles. From one perspective, the boy had warlike inclinations because of the blood of those warriors running in his veins. From another point of view, the very nature of human species is a survival instinct, which is enforced through any struggle.
Just as his courageous ancestors, who hunted mammoths for the food and survival, the boy “suffered many wounds only to rise and fight again” (21). In this regard, the boy shows the early development of masculinity and comprehension of the nature of fight – ability to endure any hardships and remain strong enough to continue the fight. Although from boy’s perspective, this readiness for the fight is rather an entertainment, from the perspective of survival of his species, this feature is essential both in primeval times of Stone Age and modern environment of cataclysms and instability. In this context, the author argues that warrior’s survival instinct is within all of us.
On the other hand, irrespective of the inborn warrior nature of inner self, the boy is still too young to understand when the fight is justified and which enemies are enemies and who can be considered to be an ally and why. This consideration is depicted in boy’s desire to pull the tail of cat, that was “grooming herself”, but he decided to “let her be for a moment, since I was busy swinging at flies with a sword made of cardboard” (21). The boy has no direction for his inner need to struggle with the reality in the accomplishment of certain goals know only to him. The image of the fake sword is of particular importance, since it shows that even, on the early stage of mind’s development, human perception of warfare is rationale and critical in a sense of existence of means to an end – weapon is a tool in human struggle for survival and protection of people human beings care for.
Further image of a horse the boy needs to ride shows human attempt to romanticize the warfare through the images of noble, chivalry knights who were so noble that could accomplish any heroic action without severe consequences for themselves and their families. They were there when it was needed, punishing the wrong ones and saving good people, but the reality of human existence was different, it was bloody and not always with the proper ending for the hero. Although the boy was not fully aware of the essence of war and its ruinous consequences, he was feeling the heaviness of the atmosphere of war and human struggle for survival in the air. This complexity of war and heaviness of losses were emphasized in the image of “pile of rubble, waiting with its head lowered for them to finish loading the coffins” (21).
The general impression of loss and boy’s anger was embodied in his every action, but he did not know the reason why. From author’s perspective, losses of war and any life battle are human tragedy, which is felt by any other member of the human society. Thus, the boy as anyone else was feeling that loss, most likely it was even his father or any other relative, but as a fighter, whom he was, he could not simply accept the loss of someone. So had an urgency to act – to express his anger against enemies he did not know, but instinctively knew he had to fight with them, mainly because other men of his kind were fighting at war and they were protecting him and other individuals like him. Just as the boy could not consciously explain why he was fighting with the enemies and why there was already a soldier within him, the real soldiers that died in that war could not explain why they had to fight at that battle or why they had to give their lives. The only thing they knew was what they were fighting for – for their families, for the survival of the next generation of warriors like the boy, who would protect families and children of his own.
In the end, humanity survived numerous wars mainly because there were fighters to understand when and how it is best to fight and when it was time to quite the battle. In this regard, through the description of boy’s actions and lack of their conscious rationale, the author showed that only proper upbringing and humane education could tame human wilderness, anger and frustration, which at some points helped to survive the whole species or could have ended it in a few hours. Simic argued that past had something to teach humanity, irrespective of the fact that just as a small boy it considers itself and “old soldier” that has all relevant experiences. Without proper justification of human actions and their rationale or survival nature, human warfare is just another bloodbath. Although the author condemns unjustified war, he does not reject that human nature is warlike and is based on struggle for survival. That struggle for survival made this world possible as we know it. The further rationale of such considerations would be suggestion of peace in the whole world, if people were not that violent in their nature, but the reality showed that without inner ability to fight and win, human race could have ceased to exist. Today, in order to live in harmony, humanity just need to learn how to control this warlike nature and limit it by morale of life.
Work Cited
Simic, Charles. “Old Soldier.” Master of disguises: poems. New York: Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2011. 21. Print.
