I took a little different approach to my study of "Dulce Et Decorum Est" this time around. Because I have already spent so much time researching the actual poem itself, I have decided to research more about the psychological effects of vulnerability and expectations, which are reflected in the poem. This has been a fascinating string of research in light of this poem. Something that it opened me up to which I didn't even realize, was how effective the use of flashbacks are in the poem, while comparing the vulnerability and expectations of the young narrator, the soldier who recruits him, and then the narrator after his experience in the war. I'm excited to see the different places where this research takes me with this poem. There are so many things about vulnerability and expectations that I've found already that are applicable to the poem.
[TED talk on vulnerability by Brene Brown]
Brown, Brené. “Transcript of ‘The Power of Vulnerability.’” TED, June 2010, www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability/transcript?language=en#t-1196911.
This talk was awesome! The speaker goes into detail about why we need vulnerability, and what makes us vulnerable in the first place. I was able to find several connections between her ideas and the psychological attitudes of the narrator.
[Article that I cited in a research paper I wrote a couple of years ago]
Ong, Anthony D., et al. “The Health Significance of Positive Emotions in Adulthood and Later Life.” Wiley Online Library, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 1 Aug. 2011, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00370.x.
This is a really neat article that talks about the health benefits of positive emotions. And that is helpful for this paper, but moreso what I was looking for was how positive emotions change over our lifetime, and there was lots of good stuff that talked about that as well.
[Article found using the Scopus database from the HBLL website]
Lu, H., et al. "Promotion Or Inhibition? Moral Norms, Anticipated Emotion and Employee's Pro-Environmental Behavior." Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 258, 2020. SCOPUS, www.scopus.com, doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120858.
This article talks about the effects of environment for someone's emotions. And not only that, but it also talks about how we are affected by anticipated emotions. Not only is this going to help me with my research about vulnerability, but something else that I want to talk about that I haven't really delved into quite yet is how the narrator's expectations, and anticipated emotions, changed his experience and the way he handled everything that happened while he was a soldier.
[Book found on Amazon]
Breuning, Loretta Graziano. The Science of Positivity: Stop Negative Thought Patterns by Changing Your Brain Chemistry. Adams Media, 2017.
What interests me most about this book, is that it talks about how cynical thought habits are formed. This interests me in light of the poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est", because of the flashback sequence that is mentioned in one of the middle stanzas in the poem. Obviously, the boy is going to have recurring nightmares about his experience, but I wonder if any of the strategies mentioned in this book are also displayed by him.
[Book recommended by Amazon, also mentioned in above TED talk]
Brown Brené. The Power of Vulnerability Teachings on Authenticity, Connection, & Courage. Sounds True, 2012.
The reason why I think this book would be a useful piece of literature to extract from for my research paper, is that I would like to analyze how the lack of vulnerability of the soldier who recruits the narrator. If he had been more vulnerable, would it have changed the outcome for the boy? Maybe the lack of vulnerability of the soldier was a conscious choice? I'm hoping this book can help me answer some of these questions the more I get into it.
Your topic sounds fascinating! It made me want to read the poem (which I haven't heard of) and look for the ways that vulnerability plays a role. It's cool that some of your sources are about positive emotions, others about negative emotions. You could use both in your paper to create some interesting back-and-forth discussion.
ReplyDeleteI really liked what you said in your annotation about the 3rd source. I think expectations play a large role on how a person experiences something, that it can even shape the way that we remember events that have taken place. perhaps the boy's broken expectations altered his flashbacks.
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