Linking Thoughts

Google Word Association

I ‘Googled’ the word “war” and found words from the first two results, I decided to do a word-association using these words. I then ‘Googled’ these new word combinations and pasted the first link that came up, along with an explanation of the linked page.

Link 1: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499556/

Word association = Agent : Orange

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
This link is to the Wikipedia page about Agent Orange, the “Herbicide and defoliant” that was used during the Vietnam War by the United States. The side effects from exposure to this highly caustic chemical include, “various types of cancer and genetic defects.” This is a great example of an indirect effect of a war; the American soldiers have been harmed in the long run by a substance that was supposed to help them. It is a sadly ironic situation.

Link 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War

Word Association: Struggle : Futility

http://www.chicagoshakes.com/main.taf?p=2,17,7,1,2
This is a very interesting link stemming from the subject of war; it is a biography of Samuel Beckett, a playwright/essayist/poet from the mid-20th century. This is the excerpt from the biography containing the word association words,

“Beckett joined the Resistance movement first in Paris and subsequently in Roussillon, an isolated town in southern France, where he continued to fight the Nazi occupation. Beckett minimized his contributions, but there is no doubt that he risked his life repeatedly. His experiences as a war refugee seem to reappear in the struggle, futility and alienation of his later works.”

The biography states that Beckett’s works are very much up to the interpretation of the viewers, and that some of the themes in his writing relates to war. This is very interesting to me that the first (most relative) link from the words “struggle” and “futility” bring up an artist, someone who experienced war and then expressed his views through fiction and poetry.