play, poem and novel 2/3/15

Poem- Report on Experience by Edmund Blunden

I have been young, and now am not too old;
And I have seen the righteous forsaken,
His health, his honour and his quality taken.
This is not what we were formerly told.

I have seen a green country, useful to the race,
Knocked silly with guns and mines, its villages vanished,
Even the last rat and the last kestrel banished -
God bless us all, this was peculiar grace.

I knew Seraphina; Nature gave her hue,
Glance, sympathy, note, like one from Eden.
I saw her smile warp, heard her lyric deaden;
She turned to harlotry; - this I took to be new.

Say what you will, our God sees how they run.
These disillussionments are His curious proving
That He loves humanity and will go on loving;
Over there are faith, life, virtue in the sun. 

"Righteous forsaken" shows he experienced the war and thought it was morally wrong. "His" represent all the soldiers and how they were degraded, everything was taken away from them. They were lied to, they thought war would be good and fulfilling but it wasn't.
The "green" contrasts the dead earth and soldiers in the war. "Race" = war. It destroyed everything and all animals disappeared. "God bless us all" is religious imagery, shows this is what people found comfort in but it's a weird way to show them love.
"Seraphina" is the dream/perfect woman, maybe Blunden's ex girlfriend? Nature gave her colour. "Eden" is more religious imagery. "Lyric deaden" shows its dying, getting quieter. She turned to prostitution (harlotry)
God sees everything and war is a test to him. He loves all of us regardless of the war.

Novel- Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks page 162 2 paragraphs starting "At first he thought the war could..."

"Pouring bullets" is personification and "there was no longer any value accorded to a mere human life" shows soldiers no longer valued their lives any more. "Mechanical slaughter" is robotic and indicates how natural killing was for them. "Harden" shows killing made the men stronger. "Breach of nature" nature is supposed to be beautiful but no one can stop the destruction, a violation.

"Tuned" shows killing was a coping mechanism for Stephen. "Whose dazed and uncomprehending faces he saw through the blood and noise" blood was listed first so this is seen as more important and more recognised in the war. The soldiers didn't understand. "He came to believe that much worse was to come; that there would be annihilation on a scale the men themselves had not yet dreamed of" is foreshadowing the bad things to come (e.g. The Big Push). Connotations of "annihilation" are extinction and destruction. "Dreaming" is usually good/peaceful but this contrasts what is happening or going to happen.

Play- Journey's End by R.C. Sherriff page 102/103

SD "The faint rosy glow of the dawn is deepening to an angry red. The grey night sky is dissolving, and the stars begin to go. A tiny sound comes from where Raleigh is lying- something between a sob and a moan. Stanhope comes back with a blanket. He takes a candle from the table and carries it to Raleigh's bed. He puts it on the box beside Raleigh and speaks cheerfully "Is that better, Jimmy?" (Raleigh makes no sign). "Jimmy-" Still Raleigh is quiet. Stanhope gently takes his hand. There is a long silence. Stanhope lowers Raleigh's hand to the bed, rises, and tales the candle back to the table. He sits on the bench behind the table with his back to the wall, and stares listlessly across at the boy on Osborne's bed. The solitary candle-flame throws up the lines on his pale, drawn face, and the dark shadows under his tired eyes. The thudding of the shells rises and falls like an angry sea."

All of the stage directions are an example of pathetic fallacy. "The faint rosy glow of the dawn is deepening to an angry red" shows angry and blood which foreshadows the end of the play (death). 
"Jimmy" is a lot more informal and personal, shows the two characters are good friends. 
"The boy" portrays Raleigh as dying innocent, pure and small.
"The lines on his pale, drawn face, and the dark shadows under his tired eyes" exaggerates how tired and fed up Stanhope is. Connotations of "drawn" are drained and haggard even though he is a young soldier in the war.
"Like an angry sea" is personification and a similie and it shows the sea is big and vast. Also, "sea" shows the depths of anger the shells are portraying.

Declaration Against The War Analysis Siegfried Sassoon (7/11/14)

Siegfried Sassoon
Declaration Against The War

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the contrivance of agonies which they do not, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize.


The whole letter is Sassoon's opinion, not actual solid facts but he makes his opinions sound like facts by saying "I have seen" for example. So people are persuaded to believe that they are facts even though he starts sentences with words like "I believe" on numerous times.
There is also the repetition of personal pronouns "I"  even though he is speaking on behalf of all of the soldiers because they don't feel like they can stand up for their opinions. "I am a soldier" he is the voice of the collective soldiers.
The word "suffering" is repeated a lot throughout the letter to show that the soldiers suffering was continuous and on-going.
Sassoon uses emotive language, for example "I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops." This is to persuade the readers that war was a terrible thing, and Sassoon's opinions were believable and honest because he actually experienced the war.
An example of alliteration in the letter is "callous complacency." The words sound very harsh together which represents the war.
Even though Sassoon was an atheist he uses phrases like "unjust" which can be seen as being quite religious. 

Aftermath War Poem Analysis (5/11/14)

Aftermath

Siegfried Sassoon.

The words "have you forgotten yet?"  are repeated throughout the poem. This is not only a rhetorical question but emphasises that fact that war was so hard not to forget because of the massive impact it had on people. 

"Like clouds in the lit heavens of life" in line 5 of the poem, juxtaposes war because war is mainly about death, not "life." It is also a similie. 

Stanza 2 of the poem is more about the reality of war and the conditions. For example, "Do you remember the rats; and the stench

Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench." shows the soldiers had to live in these awful conditions and see some horrible things. "and the stench/of corpses rotting" is enjambment. This is used to emphasise that the smell was bad, but it was even worse because it was the rotting of human corpses in front of the soldiers. 

Also in the second stanza, Sassoon uses pathetic fallacy as well as personification. "and chill with a hopeless rain" creates a sad and useless atmosphere.

"Is it all going to happen again?" is ironic because not long after the poem was written (1919) World War 2 began.

In stanza 3, the line "as you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men" can be seen as foreshadowing because "doomed" shows the end will most likely be bad for the soldiers; them dying. The final line in the third stanza "masks of the lads who were once keen and kind and gay" indicates war was not what people first thought it would be like. It wasn't all about fighting and bravery.

In conclusion, Sassoon wants the reader not to forget about the war (hence the repetition of "have you forgotten yet?") because it was so tragic and people need to remember lives that were lost in World War 1.

Analysis of Journey's End (25/09/14)

Journey's End.
Osborne and Stanhope's friendship-

Despite the fact that Stanhope has more authority than Osborne, he actually looks up to Osborne the most and confides in him about the drinking. "...without being doped with whiskey- I'd go mad with fright" shows Stanhope admitting he has a problem and he feels like he can only talk to Osborne about it. Also, "doped" makes Stanhope sound like an addict, and needing the drink to help him cope. The audience can tell Stanhope and Osborne are obviously close friends from the way they act together, for example Stanhope says "dear old Uncle. Tuck me up" to Osborne. This shows, even though the war is difficult and unpleasant, they can still have a joke with each other. Furthermore, it shows Osborne looks after Stanhope and helps him out when he gets drunk.