War and Its Possible End: The Final Post

There are a multitude of social issues that have made their way through literature throughout the years. Discrimination, crime, and poverty are a few examples of such issues but the one I want to talk about is war. War is something that will always be talked about through the literature we read and will always be a social issue that won’t ever vanish. Throughout our history, there have been many wars that later became inspiration for stories or there were stories written during their tragic events. With our human nature, there are always going to be conflicts, there is always going to be some dark evil in someone’s heart that would then spark the next major conflict. Such things are always inevitable, but some of the works made during wartime or during pre or post wartime have offered up hope to those who might be feeling a little hopeless in those dark times.

            With Thomas Hardy’s “In time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’”, he gives some hope to the ending of war. I believe this piece was written about the tensions of World War I due to the title. World War I was the first war to contain many nations fighting a common enemy and was the first large scale war. It was the first that really drove a wedge between some nations and would be the Kickstarter for the second war and gave Hitler the fuel he needed to rally the German people. During this time in history, there was a lot of fear of what other nations were going to do with each other as tensions rose and rose daily. One of the final lines of “In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’”, gives hope to war’s end. “War’s annals will fade into night / Ere their story die.” (lines 11-12). In that line, he describes war and it’s “annals will fade into night”. It gives hope that wars will come to an end, but history has proven otherwise after the two world wars that our history went through.

            After Hardy’s time, we went through multiple wars and that violence hasn’t ceased to exist. It is unfortunately in our nature to come into conflict with others who are different or conflict with those that have what we want. Unless that nature were to change, peace may never be achieved. Only time will tell if we are all ready for a breath of fresh air and give peace a chance.