Discuss the depiction of war in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

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Essay: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Discuss the depiction of war in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

Undoubtedly, the central theme of “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” is war. This is clear even when reading the title of the novel for the first time, as the word “Captain” suggests that military subjects, if not war itself, are predominant in the story. Even before the novel starts we are presented with an extremely melancholic and gloomy poem about war, “The Soldier”, by Humbert Wolfe, now confirming our idea that the novel treats war as a main theme and additionally setting the tone (essentially melancholic) in which this theme will be presented. After reading the novel we realise that all of the events that occurred in the story are, in some way or another, originated because of the war, this is to say, the war is the engine that drives the series of actions that we encounter. It is important then to understand the significance of war’s depiction in the novel, as, by understanding the instigator of the occurrences which Louis de Bernières portrays, we can comprehend his intention and hence extract the essence of his work.

As war is the cause of the incidents in the book, we have to look at its origins in order to understand its implications in context with them. Under this trend we arrive at the conclusion that the originators of war are the governments of the countries in conflict, and, as we are dealing with single-party states, their totalitarian leader. Therefore, in this case, those responsible for the war are Mussolini, Metaxas and afterwards Hitler. De Bernières is obviously aware of this and reflects this by giving us the descriptions of these first two men very early in the novel. If we take a close look to their characterisations, we are given in both sides the image that supreme leaders, even having absolute power, are also human beings and are subject to their own errors and defects. Mussolini is portrayed as being irresponsible and inconsistent with his ideas (as he remarks that he does not take naps but then states: “I’m going to go and lie down, it must be past siesta-time.”), and, as an element of humour, he cannot stand cats. Metaxas is shown having ordinary domestic problems with her daughter Lulu and in no way being a “God-like” figure that totalitarian leaders usually try to portray in front of their people.

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This leads to an important argument: given the recurrent references to Greek mythology in the text we can interpret the leaders and their humanly descriptions as being modern versions of those ancient Greek gods which used to play around with mortals’ fates and had the same kind of human weaknesses as those found in the leaders (unserious temper and domestic problems).

Under this context, war is but a mere game of gods, a bloody contest of superiority played with anonymous statistical pieces they call soldiers. The structure of the military institutions makes it impossible for the “pieces” ...

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