Proud Families-- Kayla Gill
One thing I really appreciated about this reading was the comfort given by Pericles to the families of the fallen soilders. He encourages them to not be sad. One thing he does that is a little strange is telling the families that they are not too old to have new children. At first this seems a little harsh, but it is a confidence the family can hold on to. He is reccomending that they have more children to help them grieve the death of their children. He constantly recongnizes the honor they gained from giving their life. He is trying to get the family to realize that this is what they were trained to do, and that they shoud be proud to be the family of them. Serving ones coutry, still to this day, is a great honor and should definetly be respected. It was a reassurig speech. Sometimes that makes it easier to get over than constat grief, and I think Pericles recongnized this. Thoughts?
PS: I commented on Moriah and Eliza's posts
PS: I commented on Moriah and Eliza's posts
I honestly don't think he encouraged them to have more children to help them grieve; he tells them to do it because it will help them forget and replace their lost loved ones, and also because it's their duty to the state. In all honesty, this seems like a thinly-veiled encouragement for the Athenians to get out and make more Athenians to replace the ones that died, partially so that Athens will have enough soldiers for the next war. When coupled with how much time he spends talking about how great Athens is and encouraging the people to keep it great, this speech feels more and more like propaganda.
ReplyDeleteAs a veteran myself, there is no true way to get pass the lost of a love one during war. For me, I always worried how my family would get through if I had been killed in action. It still haunts me to this day how close the crew and I came to fighting real battles. Having more children does dull pain, but pain is like a scar. It fades with time but never goes away completely.
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