Towards the Understanding of Dave Grossmans Book On Killing - Essay Example

Teacher Textual analysis of Dave Grossman’s book en d “On Killing” Killing another person is never easy even by soldiers who arepermitted by the state to kill in times of war. This hesitation by soldiers to kill was effectively shown by Dave Grossman in his book through the use of textual styles. He employed three distinct textual styles in the book entitled On Killings to make his arguments effective as well as engaging. First is the attitude of the writing style towards the subject that he is obviously distant when he discussed about killing in the book. Second is his excessive use of metaphors and figures of speech in his narratives in the books to make it engaging, and lastly, the book borrows heavily from other texts and studies that made the book legitimate and sanitized it from the gore of killing. Dave Grossman may have internalized his subject that it affected the way he rendered his argument in the book. His discussion is filled with the idea of how the soldier should distance himself from the enemy by making the enemy an impersonal entity so that he will not hesitate to kill. This topic in turn affected how Grossman wrote the book as he spoke about killing casually as if playing a video game that reduces human beings to a mere blob on a computer as described by Richard Holmes in this passages; “Without the creation of abstract images of the enemy, and without the depersonalization of the enemy during training, battle would become impossible to sustain. But if the abstract image is overdrawn or depersonalization is stretched into hatred, the restraints on human behavior in war are easily swept aside” (Holmes cited in Grossman 186). In these lines, Grossman removed the humanity of the enemy and depersonalized him to be hated and further reduced him to a mere character of a computer game or a mere blob on a computer screen to make killing easier. Grossman also used sociological concepts in the book that affected his writing style to be distant and detached to make it sound academic. These concepts are legitimate sociological studies which Grossman used to provide spacing between the soldier and his kill. He used leadership theories that it is needed to have a strong leader to make a soldier kill. He also used group absolution theory or in plain language peer pressure that if the group supports the kill, then killing becomes easier. The use of these sociological concepts made Grossman’s literature of murder impersonal and bearable to read for the audience as the killing involved were sugar coated by legitimate studies. Grossman was able to discuss a gruesome topic such as killing people in a systematic way without the raw nature of killing a person that could bother him. He used the language as a buffer of objective discussion that provided Grossman a shield for him to talk about murder and killing as if it is just another topic. Another stylistic method that Grossman use in the book to illustrate his point is the use of metaphors that made the book an engaging read. Metaphors in the book serve a two-fold purpose. First, it provided Grossman an emotional shield for him to distance from the subject and talk about it with a detached objectivity. The second stylistic method is to provide vivid imagery and emotional appeal about his topic. For example he discussed the importance of continuity of supply in a battlefield by using figures of speech. Instead of talking about the importance of supply in terms of logistics, support, and finding that could disengage the interest of the reader, Grossman instead used metaphors of factory workers, farmers and others that made the read more appealing and easily understood. This is evident when he discussed about mechanical distance of killing by reducing warfare as Nintendo warfare where this made killing like a video games as what have Grossman illustrated in these lines; “Recently in the U.S. Army the night sight was a rare and exotic piece of equipment. Now we fight primarily at night, and there is a thermal imagery device or a night vision device for every soldier . . . night vision devices provide a superb form of psychological distance by converting the target into an inhuman green blob” (Grossman 169) Scientific studies are also used as a buffer to insulate the topic of discussion from its cruel nature. For example, the study of Dr. Stanley Milgram of Yale University is used as justification that people are really capable of inflicting pain to another and even to the extent of killing knowingly. Subjects are asked to inflict electric shocks to their victims where 65% continue to do so even if the victims plead to stop. The administration of electric shocks amid the victim pleas continued until the screaming stops indicating that the victims have the impression that they are already dead. This is a legitimate study and may not have been intended for war but Grossman was able to infer to the study not only to justify a person’s capacity to maim and kill when ordered to do so but also to make his topic and its corresponding arguments legitimate and sanitized. Had Grossman elected to use another method in making his arguments in his book On Killing, his arguments and discussion may not have been as effective as he did in the book. It is important to note that the subject of his book is how to kill people during wars, the soldier’s hesitation in killing and how this can be overcome. In short, the book was sort of a murder or killing manual. Grossman’s use of scientific theories and metaphors however sanitized the topic and made it look like another subject for discussion. The way the arguments are presented can be likened to a scientific study where there are legitimate literatures that were used such as those from Dr. Milgram and Ben Shalit. What Grossman achieves using this method is the possibility of discussing “sanitized” the read still remained engaging because of the use of other literary techniques such as the use of metaphors. The use of metaphors in the book made it more engaging without going into the gore of killing a person and the war itself. Grossman knows when a subject is too technical for a lay person to understand so he used metaphors to illustrate his point without defeating the meaning of his discussion. For example, he knew that discussion if supply and logistics in a battlefield was boring. So instead of getting into the jargons of military science which he used in his other discussion in the book, he appropriately digressed to metaphors by explaining supply lines and logistics in terms of “A soldier cannot function at the front without the factory worker, the farmer, and all the other providers behind him”. In sum, Grossman achieves using this method the possibility of discussing a taboo subject such as killing in a manner that is not offensive, raw and gruesome. And even if the discussion was “sanitized” the read still remained engaging because of the use of other literary techniques such as the use of metaphors that the horrific topic of killing was suddenly transformed into an interesting read. Read More