Themes in Wider Reading
- Created by: kdixon08
- Created on: 28-04-14 12:32
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- Themes in Wider Reading
- Friendship
- 'Move him into the sun- gently it's touch awoke him once' attempt to wake fallen soldier= pointless: futility in two forms- one wasting life (war) one attempting to save life ('awoke him once')
- Religion (Christianity)
- 'God has called me to the lists and if I fall let my death help cleanse the world of its weakness.' Accrington Pals
- Devil symobilises death 'anti christ' and 'Red fangs have torn His face. God's blood is shed' - 'On Receiving News of the War' by Rosanburg
- Acceptance of death and God
- 'What God abandoned, these defended' - Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries' Housman
- Acceptance of death, rejection of God
- 'O Jesus, make it stop!' Attack Sassoon
- Desperation, fear and anxiety.
- Mocking- Sassoon has no faith, using it as is just as pointless as being in War itself.
- Quick end (almost a sonnet -1 line)- fault of religion- pushed people to join up.
- 'God has called me to the lists and if I fall let my death help cleanse the world of its weakness.' Accrington Pals
- Separation
- 'If they ever did write the truth, it was excised by company officers, who censored all outgoing mail' The Great War and Modern Memory- Paul Fissell
- For protection 'few soldiers wrote the truth in letters home for fear of causing needless uneasiness'
- Jessie Pope 'Who's for the Game'- 'Who thinks he'd rather sit tight'- calling those who didn't fight cowards, and using propaganda as a method of encouragement for enlisting
- Jessie Pope did NOT have a role in the war= invalid account/opinion of war.
- Contrast Mairi Chisholm- was in the war, didn't glorify or honour any death as saw circumstances and lives of men at war front 'ordinary treatment' doesn't demoralise any soldier- Jessie Pope demoralises for considering not joining. Underestimates wounds, Mairi says wounds are ordinary to not imply men are weak- appreciates men's efforts.
- Jessie Pope did NOT have a role in the war= invalid account/opinion of war.
- 'If they ever did write the truth, it was excised by company officers, who censored all outgoing mail' The Great War and Modern Memory- Paul Fissell
- Germany
- 'When we came out of here we were cut off, whether we liked it or not' Al Quiet on the Western Front
- Felt the same as the British 'From the beginning a fissure was opening between the Army and civilians' Great War and Modern Memory- Paul Fussell
- 'When we came out of here we were cut off, whether we liked it or not' Al Quiet on the Western Front
- Warfront
- 'I disliked the idea of shooting a naked man, so i handed the rifle to the sergeant with me' 'He got him; but I had not stayed to watch' Humanity of Graves= that of Ernst Junger 'Storm of Steele''It was a plea from another world'= rationalised way of thinking= humanity which had otherwise be stripped of the men.
- 'Goodbye to all that'R.G- 'He was taking a bath in the German third line'= everyday behaviour seen on frontline- second nature-- Memoirs of an Infantry Officer- 'Have just eaten my last orange' 'Came back to the dug-out and had a shave'- second nature.
- Mairi-'We went on foot, not always with out stretchers, just hoping tp be able to get them with their arms around our necks'-- seemingly ordinary, everyday experience- 'ordinary treatment'.
- Women
- Contrast Mairi Chisholm- was in the war, didn't glorify or honour any death as saw circumstances and lives of men at war front 'ordinary treatment' doesn't demoralise any soldier- Jessie Pope demoralises for considering not joining. Underestimates wounds, Mairi says wounds are ordinary to not imply men are weak- appreciates men's efforts.
- Vera Brittain- 'Perhaps'. (Ambulance driver in war). More emotionally affected ('there is one greatest joy I shall never know again because my heart for loss of you was broken, long ago')
- Contrast with Mairi- 'You don't think of death when you're young'- less affected by the thought death, less emotionally connected to the men she was saving- wounds futile 'we wonder so much when they got back what lies ahead of them'- can understand them dying for country, but knows they shouldn't need to suffer for something so pointless.
- When Sarah goes to the hospital and sees the men with 'missing limbs' and questions what kind of life they are going to have- impact of the war once the glory of winning has died down.
- Contrast with Mairi- 'You don't think of death when you're young'- less affected by the thought death, less emotionally connected to the men she was saving- wounds futile 'we wonder so much when they got back what lies ahead of them'- can understand them dying for country, but knows they shouldn't need to suffer for something so pointless.
- Heroism- Mairi: masculine heroism in a woman- looking after men, 'expeditions' to retrieve wounded men.
- Regeneration-Sarah having better standard of life than Prior/ Nurses looking after physically/mentally wounded men=role reversal.
- Nature
- 'Grey earth splattered with crimson flowers' - blood, anger, blood spilt on innocent land , poppies = proper memorial. The great War Vernon Scannell.
- Range-finding: 'stricken flower bent double'- represents men under pressure- 'bent double like old beggars under sacks' Dulce et Decorum Est- Owen.
- 'Flower' symbolises the purity and fragility of the soldiers, accepting their fate despite what happens / 'Beggars' are desparate to leave
- Love
- 'I couldn't love a man who'd stayed at home' Bertha- Accrington Pals
- Jessie Pope- 'Who thinks he'd rather sit tight?'- propaganda- pushing men to fight by embarrassment/demoralising men.
- 'Cover him, cover him soon!' noble burial of both fallen soldier and lover- sign of respect and honour - 'To his Love' Ivor Gurney
- Vera Brittain- Perhaps; 'And I shall find the white may blossoms sweet, though you have passed away' white=new beginnings/purity. Blossoms= seasonal, anticipated in Spring: rare, appreciated.
- Hasn't had good experiences since loved one passed- perhaps= possibility of it not changing. Uncertainty- War changed mindsets of many men (Prior), each challenged in different ways.
- 'I couldn't love a man who'd stayed at home' Bertha- Accrington Pals
- Patriotism/ Pro-War
- 'If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England' Rupert Brooke- The Soldier
- 'With proud thanksgiving,a mother to her children/ fallen in the cause of the free' For the Fallen Laurence Binyon- honouring death- 'Who's for the Game' Jessie Pope- honouring death, will be loved by women= propaganda.
- Masculinity
- 'It wasn't courage. That, I imagine, is the quality of facing danger which one knows to be danger/ I knew I was in no danger' RH Tawney 'The Attack'
- 'We stay here till to-morrow morning. Feel a bit of a fraud.' Memoirs of an Infantry Officer- Siegfried Sassoon
- Colour used to convey emotion
- Anti-War
- SASSOON
- Friendship
- Nature
- 'Grey earth splattered with crimson flowers' - blood, anger, blood spilt on innocent land , poppies = proper memorial. The great War Vernon Scannell.
- Range-finding: 'stricken flower bent double'- represents men under pressure- 'bent double like old beggars under sacks' Dulce et Decorum Est- Owen.
- 'Flower' symbolises the purity and fragility of the soldiers, accepting their fate despite what happens / 'Beggars' are desparate to leave
- Love
- 'I couldn't love a man who'd stayed at home' Bertha- Accrington Pals
- Jessie Pope- 'Who thinks he'd rather sit tight?'- propaganda- pushing men to fight by embarrassment/demoralising men.
- 'Cover him, cover him soon!' noble burial of both fallen soldier and lover- sign of respect and honour - 'To his Love' Ivor Gurney
- Vera Brittain- Perhaps; 'And I shall find the white may blossoms sweet, though you have passed away' white=new beginnings/purity. Blossoms= seasonal, anticipated in Spring: rare, appreciated.
- Hasn't had good experiences since loved one passed- perhaps= possibility of it not changing. Uncertainty- War changed mindsets of many men (Prior), each challenged in different ways.
- 'I couldn't love a man who'd stayed at home' Bertha- Accrington Pals
- Desperation, fear and anxiety.
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