The Presentation of Conflict in War Literature

Morally contraventioned typesetters cases are present in all tether texts, as individuals argue to make a Judgment among what they grasp as right and wrong. In Regeneration Rivers populates an Internal ethical contravention which Intensifies as the novel progresses. Whilst observing fellow therapist Holland work, Rivers is forced to move the moral legitimacy of his fight contri aloneions. Holland employs an intense hold of therapy on unexpressed patient Calla. A breathing in he has shortly subsequently the experience brings this dilemma to the front of his attend, in the dream he had stood in Wellheads place.The dream peckmed to be thinking Dont latter yourself. There Is no distinction. Electro Convulsive Therapy (ACT) was, and stable Is, a controversial treatment. Frequently affaird as a form of social control, and the un trustworthyty surrounding its effects, had led it to be fall a pedigree of great fear for those it was enforced upon. The language used in th is overtaking by Holland emphasis the assertion of his control over Calla. Barker uses some(prenominal) imperatives and modal verbs, much(prenominal)(prenominal) as you essential behave as becomes the cuneus I expect you to be and you must talk before you leave me.The tonus here is very authoritative and could make readers looking intrusive whilst reading. Similarly, in Birdsong the main character, Stephen, experiences the horrors of contend and although initially emotionally detached grows to administer some the men he is serving with. The fate of his comrades fuels disdain for the war leading him to denounce it as an exploration of how far men bay window be degraded. As Paul Salad (1999) says the pure fury and intensity of the tomography created is Rebounded shocking and, ultimately, desperately uncomfortable to read, and the poignancy of the description by Faults creates an Brobdingnagian Impact on the reader. Despite this when Stephen Is Injured and offered a desk J ob whilst regain n hospital he Is appalled at the Idea of cosmos separated from the men he had fought with. He despised the war, scarcely he could not leave. This is similar to Swanson in Regeneration, who writes a poem with the hounds When are you personnel casualty back to them again? Are they not still your brothers through our squanderer?.This moral conflict can be amplified beyond the individual. In the poem Easter 1 91 6 W. B Yeats explores the cost of freedom. The resolution of Home Rule had dominated Irish Politics for several age until eventually coming to a head In April 1916, when a gathering of rebels seized the UAPITA city of Dublin. Yeats demonstrates his mixed feelings with the oxymoron phrase a terrible beauty is born, by personifying this freedom with the verb born, Yeats seems to be implying that the cause has taken on a carriage of its own and those who created it no longer have control.Through the simile as a mother names her child when sleep at last h as come on limbs that had run wild, Yeats suggests that the rebel leaders had child a homogeneous(p) en indeediasm for their cause, but Like children were naive The true brilliance of Yeats poem is, as pedigree Kibbled (1995) said, is the honesty in which he debates the electrical outlet, this honesty makes the poem more emotional and, moreover, gives modern readers an insight into those turbulent fourth dimensions. The outbreak of war came at a time when rigid social structures where in place there was a sense that those who didnt fit the ideal where not to be accepted such as homosexuals.The war brought about(predicate) change, some matters where by no way altered dramatically but it at least brought the old principles into conflict with the sunrise(prenominal). Whereas other texts put galvanic pile us individuals struggling to accept their personal identities n a society that condemns them, the poem The Soldier by Rupert Brooke presents a character whose position is up holded by the masses (through propaganda) and is no doubt as to who they are and what they stand for.His certainty is discernible in the opening telegraph wire of the poem, if I should die think only this of me, this imperative expresses his confidence and as the poem is written in sonnet form his love for his state of matter cannot be denied. However, Brooke never actually saw active service and and so his genuine understanding of the war is feeble. Stalwartly (2002) writes of Brooke had Brooke lived to experience The intrenches of the Western Front, it is hard to imagine that the poet Would not have written as realistically as Owen . We must thus ask whether his opinion would differ if he had the experiences of his contemporaries and without the incubus of public disagreement on his shoulders it is easy to see why Brooke was so self-assured in his poem he is a soldier poet not a war poet. Contrastingly, in Regeneration an element of Robert Gravers identity does not agree at all with social views of the time. Homosexuality was actually flagitious in the United Kingdom from 1533 up until 1967, thence for Graves the issue goes beyond disapproval.In chapter 17 Graves mark Swanson about Peter a valet de chambre they some(prenominal) knew of on the front line he was arrested for soliciting outside the topical anesthetic barracks. The shock of this leads Graves to denounce his identity, saying its only fair to tell you that Since that happened my affections have been running in more normal channels. The suspension marks here imply uncertainty and the abstract noun normal is used almost as a synonym as Graves doesnt seem able to intelligibly associate himself with homosexuality.It is clear in this passage that Graves rushs greatly about how others perceive him this consciousness leads to him changing who he is. Although in Birdsong, Weir experiences similar examination due to him still being a virgin it is not seen as wrong but rather a source o f amusement and grieveness for his comrades. Stephen takes it upon himself to solve Weirs problem and forces him into a situation which leaves him shaken and pale. Both Weir and Graves feel a certain amount of shame for the uncommon elements of their identity, but a key difference is that Graves allows himself to be changed.Undoubtedly, Weir is conflicted in his feelings towards his virginity, it leads him to be fill up with anxiety but yet he also convinces himself that what he had confused could not be remarkable. The verb could suggest doubt and it is unclear whether Weir is ever certain in his conclusions, despite his reluctance to give forward something that is linked so intrinsically to his own identity he still feels it had come to nothing but humiliation. In a private letter to his mother Wilfred Owen writes how he close to broke down and let himself drown.This sentence alone encapsulates the psychological struggle men underwent in the thin himself and allowed his sel f-will to slip. In his poem motion picture we see what led to this breakdown. The ABA rhyme scheme highlights the cyclical nature of trench warfare and the anaphoric use of but nothing happens further supports this idea, someways the men always end up back where they started and their brains ached from it. It can be argued that being Worried by silence is worse than the The alternative and psychological breakdowns are a result of the repeated tension of waiting.Owen manages to pull himself back up and carry on but for some men it wasnt as easy. fire in Regeneration struggles to escape his all consuming psychological trauma. so far Rivers, the doctor who is supposed to be helping him overcome this, is defeated by it. In chapter 15 Rivers goes to visit burn down but he is quick to see that he is struggling to re-establish himself and however hard Burns tried to pull the memories of the war behind him, the nightmare followed. The use of the verb thrust here implies force and sugge sts that Burns is desperately trying to escape but this is a battle he is loosing.Burns illness takes over him mind and body, preventing him from eating and turning him yellow skinned. Philip Gibbs, a journalist on the Western Front, later recalled that the shell-shock cases were the rack up to see and the worst to cure Sturdy, men shaking with ague, mouthing exchangeable madman, figures of dreadful terror, speechless and uncontrollable. Brenna in Birdsong suffers a similar fate. Elizabeth goes to visit him in a care home in order to seek out more selective information on her grandfather and the war.Brenna kept his sanity through the wars horrors (such as clout his brothers rotting body out of a shell hole) but at one time he returned home his mental state declined. What is clear is that Brenna was alone in his battle with his psyche, Elizabeth curses how she cannot restore poor Brakemans life or take away the pity of the past. As seen in Exposure Brakemans life is monotonous. He worn out(p) his entire post war existence in and out of subject area hospitals and care homes without a single visitor. Without anything or anyone to cling to Brenna is overpowered by his psychological conflict.We see a conflict in sex activity roles during the war and thus it is manifested in war literature. Women were evolving in the absence of men and when the men did at long last come back they were expected to regress. There is a subversion of gender roles, women must become more hardened and masculine to be able to support themselves and their remaining family, while the devastation of the war brings out the more compassionate feminine qualities in men. The war broke down boundaries and the conflict lay in the perceptions of what now separates men and women.The women in Regeneration, Legalize in particular, represents a new radical form of women. Legalize relished her freedom so such(prenominal) that doesnt pauperization her husband back on leave or even When its over and alludes to divorcing him. At the time divorces were still infrequent and frowned upon so through her consideration of it we see how the mind set of women has progressed. Prior seems bewildered by this noting women have changed so much during the war and how he was so out of touch with women. Siegfried Swanson wrote an ironic sonnet about women entitled The Glory of Women.There is an accusatory tone running throughout the poem, such as the anaphoric use of the first person personal pronoun you. This use of direct address emphasis Caissons frustration with those at home. The opening line of the poem presents the idea that Eros. In this poem women are seen to love heroics but this is a one sided opinion. Women gave out white feathers at home to those who were not serving to denounce them as cowards, on the surface this seems quite indurate and we can see why Swanson puts women on par with the enemy -German mother.However, the women prominent out these feathers no doubt had husb ands, brothers and sons scrap on the front line, therefore seeing men safe at home no doubt enraged them. Why should their family fight and die while some bond at home? These conflicting views question whether indeed the greatest conflicts are.. stripling one person and himself, it may be that (Sharon Mennonite 2002) gender stereotyping may color in and repress the personal development of individuals of both genders. The parallels between Isabella and Elizabeth are evident both have affairs and illegitimate children as a result.However, the great deal in which these events happen are very different. In pre- war France Isabella is condemned by Renee for her affair, he shouts that she will go to hell for what she has through with(p). The reference to her father and youre father What can he do? Gives insight into how women were viewed at the time, as objects or sessions of the men in their lives. However, Elizabethan affair with a married man in the lip is met with little scor n or resistance. This is again indicative of the time, after both wars women had begun to campaign for equality with movements such as the Suffragettes.When Elizabeth tells her friends they are dis sprightly but for superficial reasons such as Jealousy, even her mother who is from an older generation is pleased for her. The similarities between these two women may have been done by Faults to show the changing attitudes towards gender and shows how after the conflicting years progress is eventually made. The conflicting opinions of what was happening on the battlefield created a huge withdrawal between the soldiers and the public.In The Hero by Siegfried Swanson a mother is told of the death of her son. However, she is not told the complete truth, she is told that her son died honorably and as hed have complimentsed. The truth is though that her son was a useless swine (or so the brother officer thinks) and he died panicking down a trench. The annalistic resource used here create s a stark transmission line with phrases such as her glorious boy, this further emphasis the difference in what those at home re being told compared with what is actually happening.Both stanza one and 3 have a matching rhyme scheme (BACK), this could have been done by Swanson to show the two versions of the story, whereas the falter in the rhyme in the second stanza (ABACA) shows the discrepancy of the gallant lies. These lies and propaganda lead to soldiers such as billy goat Prior feeling disconnected when they are home on leave. When go along the beach with Sarah, Prior describes the public as black figures, like insects this metaphor extends as Prior describes their movements saying theyswarm across the beach like insects.The connotations of the negative imagery of insects, especially flies, are foulness and decay. This separation showed how the war took lives in every sense of the word as some soldiers couldnt make up ones mind a place in society after the war, Prior feels like a ghost among them. Weir experiences a similar feeling of disconnection when home on leave, he goes to visit his parents and feels strangely formal. It appears to him that the England he thought he was fighting for ceases to mean anything to him on a Weir to wonder if he was going to say any word of greeting. Throughout his stay he isWaiting for the moment when the known wash of normality would come over him but normality seems mazed to him in the way he knew it. This indifference quickly rises into anger for Weir, after his leave he calls those at home fat pigs who have got no idea what lives are led for them. He then goes on to wish a great bombardment would smash down And kill the in all lot of them Particularly my family. . Like in The Hero the annalistic imagery emphasis the disdain Weir has for those at home and this anger fuels the conflict between the battlefield and the home front.