Analyze response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Analyze response - Essay Example While critically examining the title of the book, one can see that the title carries two different meanings, according to Horwitz’s point of view. The first meaning that can be extracted from the title gives glimpses of Horwitz’s interest in the Civil war. Horwitz came from a Jewish family in Russia and, therefore, he grew up in the North but it was in his early age that he became fascinated with the myths and history of the South. He states that during his childhood he wrote about many wars and also drew paintings of some of the historically significant wars that took place in the attic of his home. One of the main purposes of Tony Horwitz’s book â€Å"Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the unfinished civil war† is to find and reexamine the link and question as to why a North based resident having an active political life as a student still finds himself attracted to the war stories that he has struggled to work against in his entire life. The anc illary meaning drawn from the title of Horwitz’s book emphasizes on its regional meaning. Horwitz still finds himself attached to the momentous memories of this national event (the Civil War). Horwitz mentions that when he visits the war sites in the South, he finds the unreconstructed mutineers who were attached to their ancient beliefs. He also meets some of the re-enactors who attempt to live the moments to experience the death and lives of soldiers all over again. Horwitz isn’t surprised to realize this disheartening fact that as one moves towards the racial line, the attitude of people towards war starts changing. Perhaps, this was one of the reasons that why the subtitle of his book is â€Å"Dispatches of the unfinished civil war†. In order to prove that the memories of the war are still alive in the minds of people and the war is unfinished, he travelled to each of the eastern and southern states where the Civil war took place. Horwitz’s friend Rob , who was an enactor, invited him to a high speed car tour to the war sites and this tour was named â€Å"The Civil Wargasm†. It was during this road trip Horwitz became the captive of the past and he got to experience the events of the Civil war all over again (Madden). This book is considered as a personal exploration of the modern attraction with Confederacy in the South of America. When he as a child was living in Maryland, Horwitz had his own fascination with war. This fascination later rekindled him when he met a group of en-actors who contributed all their resources while reliving the lives of the soldiers. There were series of trips plotted by Horwitz to the war sites which made him realized the fact that the war is unfinished as its aftereffects were so prominent that people were reliving the memories of the war that their ancestor lived through in the past. In the starting of the book, Horwitz discusses his strange childhood memory where his weekend sleep often got disturbed by the loud sound of gunfire. Horwitz, as a little boy, found himself mostly engrossed in the stories of civil war. He drew sketches of wars imagining the Yankee and Dixie soldiers fighting in a battle and penned down stories of war. He worked a number of years as a war correspondence and it was his encounter with the â€Å"men in grey† which prompted him to critically analyze the fascination of his own country with wars. Horwitz’s childhood memories are inflicted by the glimpses of war and, perhaps, it was the reason behind compiling