War Letters

War Letters

The post is a combination of two posts

1:H- War Letters

Paper details:

What did you learn about the soldiers’ experiences? Are there similarities with the letters? What appears
important

to the soldier? What are their hopes? fears? Then Interview a family member, neighbor. or family friend who is

veteran of a foreign war or who exchanged letters with a veteran. What does he or she recall about the
importance

of exchanging letters during wartime? Was any single letter he or she read or wrote especially memorable.
and if so,

why? Did people exchanging these letters sometimes avoid difficult topics in order to keep from upsetting
their

correspondent? Write a summary of what you learned from the interview.

Would your interviewee be willing to share his/ her letter(s) with others on the web?

Ralph‘s Letter

Read the following post-World War II letter written by Ralph to Daisy. Ralph was an American soldier in
occupied Japan, the year after the war had ended.

Daisy was the girlfriend he had left behind in Texas. Fifty years later… Daisy dies. She was the grandmother of
a Palo Alto College student. The student

found this letter among Daisy’s belongings. She shared the letter with her history professor- Mr. Robert
Hines. The student had never heard of Ralph. Why

do you think Daisy stopped writing?

2:East Asian Melodrama

Paper details:

Discuss the film “An Actor‘s Revenge” by Kon Ichikawa and it‘s relationship to melodrama. consider
: In what ways can this film be considered a melodrama? How does it exemplify melodrama
in plot. performance. and mise-en-scene? In what ways does it depart from traditional definitions of the
genre? Use at least 4 sources. I have provided two of the sources below: Keiko I. McDonald, “Kabuki Stage and
An Actor’s Revenge,” in Japanese Classical Theater in Films (Rutherford. NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University
Press. 1994). Read pp. 127-128 (introduction to essay) and from bottom of 133 to 141 (“Melodrama as avant-
garde” and “Gender Inderminacy”) in Scott Nygren. “Inscribing the Subject: The Melodramatization of Gender
in An Actor’s Revenge,” in Wimal Dissanayake, ed.. Melodrama and Asian Cinema. Read the excerpts from
Nygren’s essay quickly. Do not worry too much if some of the words and concepts are difficult. Focus on what
the writer says about how shimpa (a form ofJapanese theater that arose during the Meiji era). kabuki. and
chambara (sword-fight film) relate to melodrama and to social protest.

soldiers’ experiences