- The poem “1914” by Rupert Brooke (Pages 104-106) is unusually optimistic or positive about the war, describing it in religious tones that one would more likely find in pre-WWI descriptions of ‘good and moral wars’. Is there any value to be found in this perspective about the war, and if so, what?
- Isaac Rosenberg was born in 1890 to a poor Lithuanian, Jewish family that had to flee due to the harsh Russian occupation. Rosenberg then was raised in England and became a noted poet and artist before the war began. He was a strong pacifist and lacked any feelings of patriotism, and he faced a great deal of anti-semitism in the Allied army. In Rosenberg’s poem “Break of Day in the Trenches” (pages 137-138) the focus is on a rat with “cosmopolitan sympathies” as it rushes back and forth between the British and German trenches. What does the rat mean in the context of this poem, and how does Rosenberg’s unique background seem to shape this perspective? What are your responses to the ideas and views presented?
- The poem “1914” by Rupert Brooke and the poem “1916 seen from 1921” by Edmund Blunden stand in sharp contrast to each other in terms of tone and feelings about both the Great War and war in general. “1914” is overall more optimistic, viewing war as a holy and righteous cause worthy of the pursuit of all who are virtuous, while “1916 seen from 1921” talks about the war as a tragic obligation that has destroyed a great deal. Brooke died in 1917, while Blunden lived until the 70s. How is it that the same historical situation produced such different views in different men in the same situations? Are both of these poems valid in their points, or is one or the other more or less valid than the other. Is there something to gain by reading these two works together, and if so what?
- In the excerpt from “In Parenthesis” by David Jones, a consistent pattern of repeated sounds and phrases is used, such as “the rat of no-man’s-land” going “scrut,scrut,sscrut” or the repetition of the word “nor” in the final section. What emotion does this consistent style evoke in the reader, and are there other stylistic techniques used by Jones that you’d want to comment on?
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Miranda’s Reading Questions for March 24th
- “Break of Day in the Trenches” is essentially about a soldier in the trenches that comes across a rat. The soldier seems to resent the rat as the poem continues. In Rosenberg’s, “Break of Day in the Trenches”, what does the rat represent? Why does the narrator seem jealous of it?
- “Louse Hunting” is a poem that describes a battle fought on the soldier’s bodies rather than the battlefield. In this poem how are lice significant? How do they represent the war’s effect on the soldier’s psyches?
- Blunden’s, “1916 Seen from 1921” is about the effects war has on soldiers’ lives. What are the narrator’s views on life after the war for soldiers? Are they accurate to this day?
The Forbidden Zone Time Line
One element of The Forbidden Zone that really stuck out to me was Borden’s realization that trying to write in chronological order would be a lie and take away from the impact of World War I which caused great confusion. To me, this fragmented writing style seemed more authentic than that of Remarque’s or Smith’s despite The Forbidden Zone being a much less popular book than All Quiet on the Western Front and Not So Quiet. I was just wondering what everyone else’s view on this was and if you enjoyed reading this style of writing more than a more traditional writing like All Quiet? Also, do you think if these books were all released now, The Forbidden Zone would be the top-seller?
Memorial Death Plaques
When we were all looking at the “Death Penny” the other day in class, I was wondering who got them specifically and exactly how they could afford as a country to make all of them. I did a little research and just in case anyone else is interested here is what I found! What I found most interesting is that 600 were made for women, and no one who was executed by Court Martial received one.
-The World War One Memorial Plaque was made from Bronze and hence it was popularly known as the “Dead Man’s Penny” among front-line troops, also becoming widely known as, the “Death Penny”, “Death Plaque” or “Widow’s Penny”. It was in October 1916 that the British Government setup a committee for the idea of a commemorative plaque that could be given to the next of kin for those men and women whose deaths were due to the First World War of 1914-18.
The first a family would know of the death of family member was the arrival of a telegram from the War Office. This would be followed by the World War One Death Plaque and any medals the serviceman would have earned serving his country.
The original plaque was a 12 centimetre disk cast in bronze gunmetal, which included an image of Britannia and a lion, two dolphins that represented Great Britain’s sea power and the emblem of Imperial Germany’s eagle being torn to pieces by another lion. Britannia is holding an oak spray with leaves and acorns. Beneath this was a rectangular tablet where the deceased name was cast into the plaque. No rank was given as it was intended to show equality in their sacrifice. On the outer edge of the disk it bears the inscription, ‘He died for freedom and honour’. The memorial plaque was posted to the next of kin protected by a firm cardboard purpose made folder, which was then placed in a white HMSO envelope.
Production of the plaques and scrolls, which was supposed to be financed by German reparation money, began in 1919 with approximately 1,150,000 issued. They commemorated those who fell between 4th August, 1914 and 10th January, 1920 for home, Western Europe and the Dominions whilst the final date for the other theatres of war or for those died of attributable causes was 30th April 1920.
The next of kin of the 306 British and Commonwealth military personnel who were executed following a Court Martial did not receive a memorial plaque.
follow the link for more info!
https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/medals/memorial-death-plaque-of-wwi
Carleigh’s Reading Questions for March 22 (my birthday. maybe I will bring cocoa to share around the tables)
- The poems “I Looked Up From My Writing,” “My Boy Jack,” “The Messages,” “August 1914,” and “For a Girl” all emphasize the distance and disconnect from the war. In reality, I think you could argue that most of these poems emphasize that, but I feel that these provide particular important perspectives. How do you begin to characterize the feelings towards the war in these poems? How does this distance change the way these poets relate to the war and to the people fighting in it?
- Charlotte Mew’s poem “May 1915” is maybe the one that has stuck with me the most. She repeats “sure” and “surely” several times as if to convince the reader, and perhaps herself, that pring will return and life itself will come back. In the most basic way possible: are you convinced? Or are the war and grief too blinding? Are we, as readers, supposed to feel optimistic at the final line of the poem?
- We’ve encountered patriotic characters in all of novels: the BF, Mrs. Evans-Mawnigton, Paul’s father, other soldiers, the General in Hemmingway. Most of the time, though, these characters are set in opposition to the protagonist and narrator; they are the ones blinded by nationalism and propaganda. This is perhaps the first time we’re getting patriotic writing from the author themselves. Particularly in Kipling’s poems (the same guy who wrote “White Man’s Burden”), we see the English nationalism come through. What is Kipling trying to suggest about patriotism and war? Do you feel that the tension between loss and duty in “My Boy Jack” supports or undermines this propaganda that Kipling puts forth?
Marisol’s Reading Questions for March 22nd
There were too many wonderful questions to limit them to three, so I went ahead and listed everything that I thought was applicable to ask. Feel free to pick your favorites to answer!
1. What do you make of the poem On the Belgian Expatriation? Is this poem about the shattering of innocence where songs of peace are silenced by the presence of war? What did you make of the rhyme suddenly ending when the soldiers were introduced as an end to the dancing tune? Did you notice it, whether consciously or subconsciously?
2. Why is the moon consistently considered as something that overlooks the war? It is constantly a negative signifier, whether as something judgemental like in I Looked Up From My Writing or as a symbol of a lover’s moon or a reminder of peacetimes that is then resented? Is the sun too cheery for that endeavor, or do humans focus on the moon since people typically sink into depression at night when they are getting ready to rest?
3. Was anyone surprised by Rudyard Kipling’s involvement in the war? Do you think if he had written the Jungle Book, not in 1894, but sometime during or after The Great War, that the content would somehow be different?
4. After reading the poem For All We Have and Are and the previous books assigned for class, how do you feel about Kipling’s gung-ho attitude toward war, filled with patriotic propaganda? Could he be compared to someone like Kantorek from All Quiet on the Western Front? The poem My Boy Jack complicates this question further; clearly, Kipling is glorifying sacrifice for one’s country. Why or why not? Let’s try to dig into the nuance of this attitude as well.
5. In the poem Justice, he writes
“For agony and spoil
Of nations beat to dust,
For poisoned air and tortured soil
And cold, commanded lust”
Is he romanticizing the loss and agony of these men? He acknowledges their sacrifice but is this still dangerous like Kantorek’s rhetoric?
6. Binyon’s For the Fallen is evidently famous, especially his 4th stanza which reads:
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”
Why do you think this specific part of the poem gained fame? Would you consider this a respectful and beautiful inscription on a tomb, or would you consider this another piece of propaganda that aided in these deaths that may be deemed unnecessary and avoidable to others?
7. Charlotte Mew suffered a tragic life, yet in her poem May, 1915 she sprinkles in great optimism. Despite this, The Cenotaph is a little darker in this regard. Would you still argue that her poem The Cenotaph is a little more realistic in terms of loss in the war since her experiences with death made her more understanding and less eager to romanticize it? Or do you think she is still guilty, like other authors, of doing so?
8. Would you say Robert Service’s Tipperary Days reads like bitter satire? Does the tone of the poem change when you learn his brother Albert died in 1916 in the war? His poem Tri-color reads far more despairingly. Would you argue that that poem shows his true feelings more than Tipperary Days?
9. Wilfrid Gibson wrote The Messages, which uses repetition and periods to draw out the sense of a traumatized and shocked mind. He wanted “the War’s tragedies in a language freed from patriotic afflatus.” Do you think this uncomfortable honesty contributed to him falling out of fashion so quickly? How well does he cover PTSD in his writings?
10. Between the Lines by Gibson creates a poignant story with ease, capturing the awful state of war. Do you think this is impressive, considering Gibson had to imagine much since he only served clerical duties in the war? What are your thoughts on how he captured anxiety in each of his poems? Also, stars are mentioned in this poem. Why do you think celestial bodies are a main piece in many of the stories we read? The moon as a taunter and stars as hope in the darkness?
11. The repetition of stanzas and lines can be seen in Gibson’s work and Cannan’s. Why do you think that tool is used? Does it build tension and anxiety, etc?
The Forbidden Zone Thoughts
After finishing The Forbidden Zone, I took some time to reflect on my experience as a reader. There is some chronological structure given to the fragmented pieces of the novel as we know Borden started in Belgium in the first half of the collection and was in the Somme for the second half. However, these stories could all be read and understood independently so does order even really matter? There are certain stories which really delivered unique emotional impacts through content, language, or style. For instance, no matter where “Rosa” is located in the text, it is a memorable fragment of the collection. However, there are also a few stories I believe especially impacted me because of where in the collection I read them. “The Two Gunners,” for instance, stands out to me as a story I cannot stop thinking about, and I cannot help but wonder whether it stands out to me because it is the last story I read or if it is the last story because of particular emotional impact or the unique figures depicted. If “The Two Gunners” was in the middle, would I remember it the way I do? If “Enfant de Malheur,”(a beautiful story, but one I had to reread to really remember because it was in between “The Beach” and “Rosa” ) was at the end of the collection, would I instead be haunted by “‘He is safe'”(61) instead of “‘A1 at Llyod’s Madam”(112)? I will never know. In my postmodern women writers class last year, we all read a book with two stories but half the copies had one first and the other half had a reverse order and we discussed how we will never truly experience reading the opposite one first. I think a similar thing can be applied here. To me, the order I read the stories in mattered. Maybe for other people it didn’t make a difference, I just think it is an interseting way to look at the collection.
Aidan’s Reading Questions for March 17
- Earlier on in the book Borden associates death with an “Angel” (p.40) and life with a “sick animal” (p. 40). One can assume she is implying that death is not the enemy, rather life itself is especially during a time filled with suffering and sorrow. However, a dramatic shift on her outlook on life can be observed in the short story titled Blind where she now refers to death as the enemy. “It is we (nurses and surgeons) who are doing the fighting now, with their real enemies (death)” (p. 97). What do you think caused this dramatic shift between life as the enemy to death as the enemy? Was there a specific moment where she realized she no longer saw life as the enemy? Do you think it was unfair for her to view life as the enemy earlier in the book as a nurse trying to save peoples’ lives?
- In the story The Priest and The Rabbi, a bed ridden soldier describes a moment in no man’s land between a dying soldier, a priest, and a rabbi. In this moment the priest is shot while holding up a crucifix to the dying soldier. The rabbi sees this and takes over for the priest so the last thing the soldier sees when he dies is the crucifix. Despite not being Catholic and crosses being a negative symbol to Jewish people, the rabbi still holds the cross for the dying soldier. Why would the rabbi do that? What might this imply about religion during wartime? Are religious ideals and traditions thrown out the window during wartime? How does this relate to the priest in A Farewell to Arms being disregarded and made fun of?
- In the preface, Borden attributes her fragmented style of writing to the war as it causes great confusion. She is visibly seen embodying this idea in the fragment Blind as she says, “I was awake now, and I seemed to be breaking to pieces” (p. 103) after lying to the blind man about forgetting about him. Why is Borden impacted much more by the thought of lying to the blind man versus all of the death surrounding her? In other words, why is she broken by this act of lying/forgetting and not by the tens of thousands of soldiers who have died in her camp? Has she become so accustomed to death that it just does not affect her anymore?
Emily’s Reading Questions for March 17th
Blind:
1)Throughout this first reading, the speaker persistently states that she is living and walking through some kind of dream. There are only two moments where she claims to be broken from the dream or to be “waking up.” One is early on at the voice of a young boy, and the second time is at the very end, when the blind man reveals he thought she had abandoned her. Why is it that these two individuals are able to wake her from this dream-like trans among the hundreds of men in the room with her?
Her definition of a dream in this story is quite different from the one she describes in “Moonlight.” In “The Blind,” the world she is currently living through is described as a “curious dream-place” (Borden, 92), However, in “Moonlight,” the speaker claims the world before the war to be that of a dream, something that can only be remembered in pieces. What is it that this reoccurring mention of dreams is suppose to represent? Are they indented to represent what is impossible to be accepted as a past/present version or reality? What causes these dreams to change?
The Priest and the Rabbi
2)There are several adjectives used to describe the man who has been terribly burned that paint him in a child-like manner. When he smiles up at them the word “grinned” is chosen, and he looks at them with his “bright laughing eyes,” despite the severity of his situation (Borden, 106). In contrast, the General is depicted in a more serious tone, as if he is strictly there to go in, do his business, and then leave. How might the characterization of these two individuals impact the way that they each interpret the soldier’s story about the Priest and the Rabbi? If the soldier describes it as this eye-opening experience, what does the General’s reaction say about his interpretation of the story?
The Two Gunners
3)What is it about these two men that sticks out to the nurse? She ponders writing to the family of the dying man. Why does she seem to have such a strange, intimate relationship to them in comparison to the other soldiers that she has treated?
This line greatly stuck out to me: “For a moment he stared into my eyes, then he turned his head away again, shutting me out. I was dismissed, he has nothing to say to me” (Borden, 111). What are the implications behind this statement, particularly based on the usage of the phrases “turned away” and “shutting out?” Is it possible that the strangeness of their actions causes her to feel disrespected, or is she simply so shocked at the feeling of being unwanted by the dying man that lays before her?
Closing of The Beach
Our class section paid particular attention to this short story. One comment that came to my mind after class involved the closing paragraphs. To me, the beach represented a time before the war. The husband and wive are representations of their former selves on the beach and they can “scarcely distinguish” (p. 37) the two objects out at see which are themselves during/after war represented by the war ships. War changes people so much that they cannot even recognize or distinguish their former self even after war is over. Overall, The Beach story is an excellent representation of the horrors of war and how it changes people to the point where they cannot even recognize themselves.