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Benigno Pedroza

Professor Ditch

English 115

5 November 2018

The Suffering and Happiness after War

The state of happiness is not always easily achieved. For some people it can be more

difficult than others due to the different circumstances they might face. For example, the people

i\-tha~J;!urin~ ~arder time to be happy because of all the suffering they

~ _\. ; 4i,erienced. Wo,W w., two was caused by Adolf llitlei when he and hi, Nozi p!lflj' had
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cSrP ~~I' Germaflj' invade Poland in 1939, causmg Britain and France to declare war on Germany. The
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-wl:irwas very gruesome and bloody because of all the advancements m weaponry that were
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soldiers !?at v.rere in the war but the civilians and prisoners of war that also hved tlrrOl¼gh it.
Hitler Naat@d te ttchieve his Aryan race, lffid so he created concenuation e~i,s thfrt he Msed to
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eirbec execute Jewish 13eei,le, sausiag--the Holocaust, m hold prisonets of war . The conditions in ~,

these camps 1.v@re b@yona--inhumane. The epistolary novel "The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel
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Pie Society" written by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, takes place after the end of world
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war 2. The main character Juliet Ashton receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, she learns that he

is part of a literary society that was established during the German occupation. Juliet then begins

a correspondence because she is interested to learn more about this society, since she is writing

an article on the benefits of literature. Remy Giraud is a character who was in a concentration
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camp during world war two when she ryet Elizabeth Mckenna, who was part of this literary

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society. Remy wanted to inform Elizabeth's friends tbat she ha~ ~assed away during the wa',/

Despite experiencing difficult life ; ~ ; Juliet Ashtonfas able to attai J£!;:;iness in

contrast to Elizabeth Mckenna, w~ heal~ from physical suffering, '1r not achieve true

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In the beginning oft.lie novel Juliet seems unhappy despite her book being successful and

having read her book to an audience. In a letter she says, "You know how I love talking about

books, and you know how I adore receiving compliments. I should be thrilled. But the truth is

that I'm gloomy gloomier than I ever was during the war. Everything is so broken, .. . " At first

Juliet is unhappy because everything around her is broken, due to the damages caused by the

war. If Juliet would've been able to see her situation in a different way, like being happy that her

book was successful, she might've been at least somewhat happy and not glooC
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~ eads to the artic_le "The Sources of Happiness," in it His Holiness the ~~ai Lama and

Howard Cutler speak on many ways to achieve happiness. More specifically that "happiness is r:f
22) What they're trying to say is that the happiness of a person is mostly determined through

their perspective, but external events can also decrease your happiness if you are unable to see

any good in them. It is not easy for a person to see the good in their situation if there is a lot of

negativity surrounding them, but if they are able to change their perspective in a more positive ~- ,J
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way they can return to their normal state of happiness. "Success may result in a temporary

feeling of elation, or tragedy may send us into a period of depression, but sooner or later our
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overall level of happiness tends to migrate back to a certain baseline." (The Dalai Lama and
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Cutler 22) Cutler is saying that sometimes we are extremely happy or depressed, but after some
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time we will return to our normal level of happiness. Similarly, Juliet felt "gloomy" at first, but

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when she began writing to the members of the literary society it was her way of changing her

perceptive into a more positive way causing her to eventually be happy.

Throughout the novel Juliet maintains a correspondence with the members in the literary

society. Eventually she becomes friends with them and after some time Juliet visits Guernsey to

meet these people, which made her happy. Her first letter after arriving to Guernsey is to Sidney

where she says, "There's so much to tell you. I've been in Guernsey only twenty hours, but eac{ ; ,~, 1
one has been so full of new faces and ideas that I've reams to write." (Shaffer and Barrows 159) / x:o )\
cheer up and no longer be gloomy. In the same letter Juliet writes, "Isola reached me first by 'B-.')-
leaping over a crate of lobsters and grabbed me up in a fierce hug that swung me off my fee . . . . SJ
The others came toward me more quietly, but with no less warmth." (Shaffer and Barrows 1 0) t
These people gave Juliet a warm welcome demonstrating that they were friends of hers./

The kinds of relationships we have with others has a great impact on a person's happiness.

In the article, "The Anatomy of Friendship" by Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar, who is a British

anthropologist, explains how, "the friendships we have are closely tied with one's happiness and

health." (Dunbar) In the introduction of his article he says, "Over the past two decades,

considerable evidence has emerged to suggest that the most important factor influencing our '( /
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happiness, mental well-being, physical health .. . is the size and quality ofour friendship circles." G/J'!\ . / J
(Dunbar) The first evidence he provides to back this claim is a diagram that shows the path if '.: 0\ 1/
analysis of data from a UK stratified national survey, in which two thousand adults were studied ·fJ -ur
to show that "having more close friends and eating more meals with other people have positive

effects on satisfaction with life, happiness ..."(Dunbar) If Dunbar's statement is true then Juli? fr 1
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 Pedroza4

decision to go to Guernsey and meet all these people, and more importantly make them her

friends, was the best thing she could have done for her happiness and well-being.

Some would argue that Juliet is not happy because her relationship with Mark was not very

positive and it made her unhappy. Juliet was together with Mark for two months when he asked

her to marry him. She wasn't ready to say yes because she felt like they hadn't known each other
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long enough. "It's not long enough for me to be certain that we should spend the rest of our lives

together, even if you are." (Shaffer and Barrows 131) After some time, Juliet and Mark lose

contact, and with it their relationship. Here it would seem that Juliet is unhappy, but her leaving

Mark actually led to her being with a man that she loved and could make her happy. In one of the

notes written by Isola, she talks about the time she heard Juliet ask Dawsey to marry her. "Would

you like to marry me?" "I'm in love with you, so I thought I'd ask." After some silence Dawsey

answered, "My God, yes." (Shaffer and Barro~~ _22~~~! of Jul~t _a~kin~-~awsey to marryJL n Y\:
~ tproof that she felt he would make her 'appy. Juliet is finally ~ C}·,JJ 1 •"'
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In "T~e Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society," one individ~~l ~~~- ha~ suffered t
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most out of all the characters, which leads to them being unhappy, ~
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concentration camp during the war, and during her time as a prisoner she met Elizabeth. After \ / 1'v

the war, she wrote a letter to the literary society explaining how German soldiers had executed t ~~
Elizabeth. Along with Remy's letter a nurse sent her own with it, in her letter she spoke of ~ , p
Remy's health when she was released from the concentration camp. "After several days, Remy's '__. _
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legs and body were so swollen with famine edema, she could not continue to walk. So, she just /

laid herself down in the road to die." (Shaffer and Barrows 182) The things Remy experienced lfJ
during and after her time as a prisoner caused her to suffer physically and mentally.
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Suffering can hurt people in many ways and sometimes if a person suffers enough they

never recover. In the article "What Suffering Does" David brooks says that "Recovering from j
suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don't come out healed; they come ~

out differnnt." (Brooks 287) This applies to Remy because she never seems to recover from her /

past suffering even after she heals physically she still wasn't happy, maybe because she had not \~ ·
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healed mentally. According to Brooks after enough suffering some people, "Try as they might, { J,)
they just can't tell themselves to stop feeling pain, or to stop missing the one who has died or is v~ t
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Guernsey to live with the others, and even then, she never seems to be happy .
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The society a person lives in can also be the reason that they and many others suffer. The Ir
political decisions our government or society make can

countries, which usually lead to death and suffering. An article, "The Role of Relevancy and
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Kate de Medeiros, Robert Rubinstein, and Polina Ermoshkina explain that generativity is a

\J!i Ir' disease caused by social suffering, that makes people feel a need to nurture and guide younger

\ t ~\ people and contribute to the next generation. More importantly in their article they say that social
~0 suffering is "an assemblage of human problems that have their origins and consequences in the

devastating injuries that social forces can inflict on human experience." (Medeiros et al. p.528)

Meaning that social suffering is caused when many people share the same problems that come

from the same origin, causing pain to every individual in that group. This is what happened to

Remy and the other women in the concentration camp, because of the war caused by the Nazi's

they suffered even though they had nothing to do with it, other than living in it. In Remy's letter
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to the literary society she writes about the things she saw as a prisoner. She saw women suffer

from poor hygiene, it was so bad that even when some women would menstruate they would no\r, .\.

be given any provisions. She even mentions when a woman overseer during roll call "began to ~' ~~ J
rage at a bleeding girl. Rage at her and threaten her with her upraised rod. Then she began to beat CJf \i

the girl." (Shaffer and Barrows 181) Seeing things like this happen to others can also cause ,//'
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suffering even if it's not happening to you. The war affected all of them and that made their

suffering even harder to overcome. Seeing yourself and others suffering because of the same

reason can make it difficult to ever be happy. Remy was not happy because of all the things she

experienced and saw others go through.

Although it would be very difficult to argue that Remy is happy in the story some would still

say that she is. Some would argue that Remy being liberated after the war would be more than J
enough reason for her to be happy, but she isn't. Even after she goes to Guernsey to stay she

never seems to fully recover from the war. Even Juliet says, "Remy seems stronger now that she

was last month, but she is very frail yet ... She must be around people cheerful people, if

possible." (Shaffer and Barrows 218) Juliet and her friends from the literary society try their best (

to make Remy happy and help her forget about the war but it wasn't enough. Remy never \,. ~ )/
achieved true happiness. \)~ct~ ~(.) J\
These two characters in the story were affected by world war two caus,ing them to be
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unhappy due to the suffering they experienced, but some were able to be happy again after som

time, and others were not. In the end I believe that Juliet was able to be achieve true happy
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despite her detrimental relationship with Mark because of her new friends, compared to Remy ,} / ,-w
who never achieved any happiness because she couldn't recover from all the suffering she ~ ~ •) \AJ
experienced during the war. •; V
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Works Ci ed V
Shaffer, Mary Ann and Barrows, Annie. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Dial Press, 2009.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Cutler, Howard. --The Sources of Happiness. "Pursuing

Happiness: A Bedford Spotlight Reader, created b Matthew Parfitt & Dawn Skorczewski,

Bedford/St. Martin's, a Macmillan Education Imprint, 20 16. pp. 21-32

Dunbar, R.I.M. "The Anatomy of Friendship.' Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 22, no . 1,

2018, pp. 32- 51.

Brooks, David. "What Suffering Does. " Pursuing Happiness: A Bedford Spotlight Reader,

created by Matthew Parfitt & Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/St. Martin's, a Macmillan

Education Imprint, 2016. pp. 284-287.

De Medeiros, Kate, et al. "The Role of Relevancy and Social Suffering in "Generativity" Among

Older Post-Soviet Women Immigrants." The Gerontologist, vol. 55, no. 4, 2015, pp. 526-

536. ·
 CSUN Adapted Rubric

15%
Response to Assignment: -~ The paper responds to the
The essay should correctly
answer the prompt and
thoroughly follow directions.
,___E_ff_e_c_t-iv_e_n_e-s s_ o_f_T_h_e_s-is-:-~.T-he thesis is clear, insightful, The thesis is clear and
15%
The essay should contain a
thoughtful, insightful thesis
that responds to the
assignment and is sustained
throughout the paper. The
thesis shou ld demonstrate
critica l thinking and
awareness of the complexity
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thoroughly explonng the topic ~ oroughly exploring the
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essay.
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The thesis is clear. It is
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paper responds to the
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turn in an essay.
the topic and the issues. assignment in a superficial, the assignment is a very
simplistic, or disjointed !superficial , simpl istic, or
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Support: 15%
The essay should provide
support for main points with
reasons, explanations, and
examples. This will
demonstrate that the student •
is able to read, understand, .
and evaluate various forms of I
text.
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The thesis is fully and
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supported with great reasons,
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paper is poorly ··~--·j student did not
Structure, Coherence, Unity, its form contributes to its I form contributes to its .structured with only a few .with some flaws in overall I structured; organizationa~\ Istroi;:t,ured; organizational Iturn in an essay.
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demonstrate clear, focused , to the thesis. thesis. organized and generally generally lin ked to the thes1~ Iare not well organized; and/or 1are not ,iirganized; nor are

unified, and coherent
organization.
Style: 15% ·- - - - - -
The essay should be
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containing well-structured
sentences, well-chosen
words, and an appropriate
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