Bird Song: pg 224-240

I basically catorized the quotes between pg.224-240 with its theme!!

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  • Created by: Taefella
  • Created on: 31-12-15 12:32
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  • Bird Song: pg 224-240
    • The violence/power/horror/brutality of the onslaught
      • pg.226: "Men trying to emerge from the trench but being smashed by bullets before they could stand"
        • The hopelessness of this situation. Men are "smashed" like they lost a fight or a game. They were destroyed by the attack.
        • Real sense of violence - no control.
      • pg.225: "Flames rose to more than a hundred feet. It was too big, Stephen thought. The scale appalled him.
        • Even Stephen can't handle power and violence of their attack. It put fear in him , the scale horrified him. The war was getting more out of hand by the second.
        • 'Flames' are a sign/feature of hell. It was as if the war had created a hell on earth and it rising up to challenge God in a way since violence and conflict is defeating peace.
      • pg.226: some force have him"
        • short sentence: how quickly a powerful machine gun can take away your life almost immediately
      • pg.239:"shell holes,limping,crawling,dragging"
      • pg.239:"the earth itself was groaning"
    • The effects of mechanical warfare
      • pg.225: "waves were piling up in the air but would not break"
      • pg.225: "spat soil"
        • It's as if Mother Nature is shaming these soldiers. She's personified since it is suffering like man.
        • Mother Nature is angry and also dissaproves the chaos going on. Now she is as vulnerable as the soldiers however her way of protesting is by spitting.
      • pg.226: "He hunched like an old woman in the cocoon of tearing noise."
        • Oxymoron: he is captured in danger and death yet being a captured in a cocoon normally represents being safe and life.
        • Frail and vulnerable against the mighty weapons
      • pg..226: "His feet pressed onwards gingerly"
        • death was sudden&unexpected , men had to move on.
      • pg.226: "gale"
        • Gale is a very strong wind
          • Unstoppable force of nature  indicating man is useless against the power of mechanical war
      • pg.233:"patterns of the seasons,of night and day, was gone"
        • he even feels like the day and nseasons are disrupted by the new realityyet the sad truth is life will go on but he can't imagine but he can't imagine it happening.
    • Loss of Faith
      • pg.227: "It had not been cut"
        • Tactics were as vulnerable as the state the soldiers were in. Stephen lost some faith in winning the war when he saw and realised they were doomed/ defeated from the start.
      • pg.228: "beautifully made with high parapets...as neat as Sussex weatherboards"
        • How the soldiers are being destroyed by their living conditions before their enemy kills them completely
      • pg.128: British line...pathetically exposed to fire from this superior position."
        • higher  positions see that they are going to struggle since they have a perfect panoramic view of the horror.
        • men went to war looking young and lively yet turn out to become shattered demolished men. they served no purpose
      • pg.229:"he felt something dying in him"
      • pg.230:"...he did not pray."
        • after witnessing what man is doing to eachother looks too surreal and inhumane, it's like he's rejecting his fath.
      • pg.232:"Death had no meaning"
        • since there's so much death, he has become immune to the horror and has made it seem almost normal.
      • pg.236: "their father's shattered flesh"
        • just like their fathers are dead, so are the unborn babies. Many men have lost the opportunity to have children.
    • Death on a mass scale
      • pg 226: "the gaps in the wire became jammed with bodies"
      • pg.227: " humps of khaki lay every few yards"
        • they are now nothing more than a piece of cloth. Khaki on the floor makes nature and humans even.
      • pg:229: "dying in ripples
        • humour juxtaposed with death. As if their life is taking for a joke, taken llightly yet the dying of soldiers is endless like ripples.
      • pg.229: "every corner walking,powerless,into an engulfing storm"
      • pg.229:"young men are dying in quantities"
      • pg.236:"800 men in the battalion...155 answered their names."
  • pg.226: some force have him"
    • short sentence: how quickly a powerful machine gun can take away your life almost immediately

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