Vera was raised in a recognisably provincial Victorian town. “I suppose it was the very completeness with which all doors and windows to the more adventurous and colourful world, the world of literature, of scholarship, of art, of politics, of travel, were closed to me, that kept my childhood so relatively contented a time.” One can argue that such an upbringing shapes her attitudes to the War as it is clear that her intellectual capabilities whilst restricted within Buxton make her feel frustrated as her desire to go to Oxford is made clear to the reader from the outset. For Vera the chance to go to Oxford provides an escape from Buxton and from the thoughts of the War, “I went up to Oxford, and tried to forget the War.” Yet on the other hand Vera notes a particular change as a result of the War and this perhaps would give her some relief as, “Before the War, the occupations, interests and most private emotions of a young woman living in a small town were supervised from each day’s beginning to its end.” Therefore it can be argued that the War was not only changing the attitudes of Vera and Roland but also affecting the attitudes of other individuals and groups alike.
The relationship that is depicted between Roland and Vera is that of equality and a mutual respect for one another, “My real life was lived in my letters to Roland” although they do hold strong differences of opinion. For example Vera exclaims that, “Women get all the dreariness of war, and none of its exhilaration.” To an extent Vera as an opinionated young woman believes that women should have the same rights as men. Furthermore Vera’s sheltered upbringing has encouraged her strong opinions and later on her belief that she must in some way do something that can help her understand what Roland is experiencing when he is at the front.
Vera shows intellectual maturity but also a certain bitterness in her attitude as she acknowledges that perhaps her generation were affected in the worst way as for them the War would always be something that they would remember whereas for the older generations they would be able to look back to a time before the War. “The first memories of my generation are inevitably of an experience which we all share in common, for they belong to dramatic national events…the battles and the sudden terminations of suspense in a struggle more distant and more restricted that that which was destined to engulf us.”
The circumstances surrounding the War were clearly charged with emotion yet Vera preserves the attitude of a realist stating that “The war came hardest upon those who were young…Upon us catastrophe had descended just in time to deprive us of that youthful happiness to which we had believed ourselves entitled.” Whereas in contrast to Vera, Roland shows a more naïve optimistic approach to the War and in the context an approach that thousands of other young men also had. Roland’s reason and desire to go to the War was “heroism in the abstract”. Roland desperately wanted to serve his country and his patriotism suggests that he is a potential hero. However the heroism was abstract because he had not tested out this patriotism and heroism, he was just doing what he believed was the right thing to do. “I feel that I am meant to take an active part in this War, It is to me a very fascinating thing –something, if often horrible, yet very emobling and very beautiful…You will call me a militarist. You may be right.”
Roland’s desire to be part of the War in a small way affects Vera’s attitude as she admits,
“I even took to knitting for the soldiers, though only for a very short time.” However aside from her “knitting” she continues to “wish I could wake up in the morning…to find this terrible war the dream it seems to me to be!” Due to Roland, Vera’s attitude changes slightly as she desperately wants to show her support for the man that she loves and in a small way she was demonstrating that support. “Although Roland had now become a Territorial second-lieutenant…I wondered why I had ever been so much concerned about the troubles of Europe. After all, I told myself, they could never really touch me very closely.” In some ways Vera believes that she is safe from the perils of War. In a way one can argue that she was safe, physically safe but not mentally safe and the socio-economic factors surrounding the War would all affect her in some way.
Vera quickly acknowledges the fault that is ignorance within the people around her, ignorance to the War and the effects that the War would have on people’s lives. “I do not believe that any of the gaily clad visitors who watched the corps carrying out its manoeuvres…in the least realised how close at hand was the fate for which it had prepared itself, or how many of those deep and strangely thrilling boy’s voices were to be silent in death before another Speech Day.” Vera experiences a realisation that the War would and was becoming a part of her life, a part that would shape her character and her future. Yet such a realisation leads her to disbelief and denial, “War was something remote, unimaginable, its monstrous destructions and distresses safely shut up, like the Black Death and the Great Fire, between the covers of history books.”
However Vera’s sentiments about War reiterate into fact as she accepts the true cost and consequences of War. “It is impossible to find any satisfaction in the thought of 25,000 slaughtered Germans, left to mutilation and decay; the destruction of men as though beasts, whether they be English, French, German or anything else, seems a crime to the whole march of civilisation.” This change of character shows a direct hatred towards the War as she uses vivid language and descriptions words such as “mutilation” and “decay” fill one with feelings of disgust and debris. Furthermore Vera’s disgust is emphasised by Roland’s departure for the Front yet at the end of the first three chapters there is a sense that Vera knows that she must have courage in order to cope and there is a sudden realisation of the extent to which the war could and would affect her. “I saw him looking so handsome and fit and efficient; that brief misgiving was my first realisation that a war of the size which was said to be impending was unlikely to remain excitingly but securely confined to the columns of newspapers. So I made myself face what seemed the worst that could possibly happen to use.”
“I’ve wished…that you hadn’t come to take away my impersonal attitude towards the war and make it a cause of suffering to me as it is to thousands of others.” Roland’s direct and forthright attitude to the war changes Vera’s attitude as she is in a way forced by Roland’s departure to the front to make the war part of her life. “Certainly the war was already beginning to overshadow scholarship and ambition.” For Roland his own desire for the time being was to fight in the war and in turn Vera’s desire moved away from Oxford and towards her ambition to experience something as close to what Roland was experiencing at the front as possible.
