Understanding The Moon is Down :: Moon is Down Essays

War affects everyone involved - the conquerors and those be conquered.  War is a press that is internal and external.  Man can be a dedicated and loyal soldier for only so much at a snip.  He then longs for laughter, music, girls, a good meal and more.  In The Moon is Down, the soldiers line up the need to return home.  They begin to doubt what they are doing and if they are being told the truth.  They become uneasy when the enemy doesnt shed to them.  The towns hoi pollois hatred is growing. They remained indoors and stared from croup curtains while the patrol walked through the town.      deputy Tonder was a romantic innocent poet who felt the enemy should love him.  Steinbeck presented Tonder as a bitter poet who woolgather of perfect, ideal love of elevated young men for poor girls (25).      When Lieutenant Tonder first arrived in town  he thought that it was a mincing country with nice people.  To nder says, There are some beautiful farms here.  If four-spot or five of them were thrown together, it would be a nice seat to settle, I curvek (34).  The war was not ending as speedily as Tonder expected.  The townspeople had become the mum enemies of the soldiers or the townspeople became tacit waiting for revenge.  Now it was the conqueror was surrounded, the men of the battalion alone among silent enemies, and no man might relax his guard for even a moment (65).  The soldiers now have only each other to talk to and Tonder longed to go home. The men of the battalion came to detest the place they had conquered,...and gradually a little fearfulness began to grow in the conquerors, a fear that it would neer be over (65-66).  In war, as time goes on fear begins to settle on soldiers.  Thus it came about that the conquerors grew afraid of the conquered and their nerves wore thin and they shot at shadows in the night (66-67).  Tonder starts to do ubt the honesty of his logger Germans Tonder says, If anything happened- at home, I mean - do you think they would let us know...well, I would like to get out of this god-forsaken hole (70-71). Tonder felt at first that this town had nice, pleasant people but as time moved on, he changed his views.  These people  These horrible people  These cold people  They never look at you.