The time period Birdsong was written is significant. It is important to be aware that although Birdsong was written about the war and details the different stages and progress of many characters through it, it was however written with hind sight. Thus the subject matter dealt by Faulks in his book may not be entirely accurate as it is one writer’s interpretation of a war seen through sources and not actually experienced. At the beginning of the First World War many newly requited soldiers were attracted by the romantic image of what it meant to be a soldier. These ideals of chivalry are portrayed by the poem The Soldier written by Rupert Brooke.
Rupert Brooke served eagerly in the First World War. He wrote The Soldier in 1914 as part of a five-sonnet set whilst on active duty. The poem illustrates one mans eagerness and unfaltering patriotism towards his country “A body of England’s, breathing English air”. Brooke adopts a positive attitude towards the war and accepts that survival is not always guaranteed and his sense of indebtedness to his country completely blots out any significance of loss or regret over possible death on her behalf. Therefore by dying for his country it would not only be noble but would also make the link between him and England absolute.
“That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England”.
He accepts death in war as a suitable repayment to his country for what England has done for him. In the line "In that rich earth, a richer dust concealed," his is the "richer dust", produced by England. Brooke uses this metaphor to show how he feels special, privileged and worthy to be part of England and his physical and spiritual being which has been created and nurtured by England is gratefully returned to her in the form of reclaimed foreign lands.
In his poem, Brooke does not mention war or the act of fighting for one’s country. Instead his emphasis is on death and its totality as the greatest sacrifice to England. This seems strange as death in the poem seems to be a repayment to his country in order to settle a debt of some kind. This may go against the ideals of patriotism, which the poem is widely renowned for. “A dust whom England bore”. As an alternative view the poem may illustrate that the soldiers who fought for England did not fight for honour and the greater good for their country, which is fundamental to the ideas of nationalism, but because they simply felt they had to in order to repay what “England bore”.
The ultimate sacrifice of death is brought out by Charles Hamilton Sorley in his two part poem called Two Sonnets:
“Victor and vanquished are a-one in death”.
To Sorley it doesn’t matter if you died bravely for your country or if you died as a coward. In essence he is challenging the definition of a hero, by pointing out that civilians can not judge from the safety of their homes who were the actual heroes. In fact he may be implying that nobody is the “victor” when it comes to war.
However, Brooke’s poem has a confident tone of quiet conviction. The poem sounds proud and dignified. Brooke is full of praise for England. “Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day”. He seems to be lightening the tone of the poem and making it appear cheerful. Nevertheless this does not make the poem’s message less serious but allows the reader an insight into Brooke’s attitude towards war and provides further verification that he saw war as glorious and righteous.
The line “And think, this heart, all evil shed away” suggests that if a soldier dies for England, all his immorality will be “shed”; death is a release from evil and all that will be left will be a pure spirit. The poem ends with a peaceful tone “in hearts at peace, under an English heaven”. The reference to heaven in association with England illustrates the emotions felt by Brooke towards his country. If he was able to see England in such a light no wonder he was prepared to sacrifice his life so easily.
that from a distance anyone can preach the concept of bravery if they did not have to face what these men did. The statement must have been a metaphor for the people back home that urged the war on but did not do anything to help. This supports Stephens attitude in Birdsong that he is not fighting for “the living at home”.
The lines: “Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw”.
Supports the view held by Sebastian Faulks that the dead cannot be forgotten but this attitude is not entirely supported by McCrae. In his poem McCrae states that the dead want their death’s to be justified by prolonging the war. This means more men must kill and die. If this does not happen the dead “shall not sleep.” It is easy to miss the repetitive summons of revenge when the enemy is more poetically referred to as the “foe” and the battles linked with heroic long distance runners with a dedication to a worthy cause. The phrase “break faith” creates a dreadful bond that demands death for the dead. This attitude was commonly linked with high-ranking generals and officers who saw the soldiers as mere numbers that were expected to die for the war.
“It was not his death that mattered; it was the way the world had been dislocated. It was not all the tens of thousands of deaths that mattered; it was the way they had proved that you could be human yet act in a way that was beyond nature”.
As the war went through stages so did the attitudes of the soldiers. The final stage for many men was the loss of purpose of the war. This stance was dangerous because if they believed that, then their “lives lost meaning long ago.” This is Stephens’s final reaction towards the war. The tone and context of Stephens’s admission does not sound as if he has said it in desperation but as if he has come to the conclusion after careful consideration. This is what Faulks means when he states “beyond nature”. This war was unnatural and the needless deaths of the soldiers were not “for their children” but due to the greediness of certain countries.
Faulks realism is frightening, particularly to a reader who has not experienced a major war. The trench and tunnel warfare infuses the readers senses and consciously makes them aware of the terrible situation, even as the men grew accustomed to it: “There is still blood, though no one sees. A boy lay without legs where the men took their tea from the cooker. They stepped over him”. Faulks through Stephen declares repeatedly that the years men spent in the trenches will forever alter them, that the men who fought are different from the rest of humanity because not only have they seen what others could only imagine but they lived through it which meant their constant change in attitude mentally and physically allowed them to survive. “No inferno would melt them, no storms destroy, because they had seen the worst and survived it.” However Faulks does not state they felt pride because what they had seen was to evil but instead they felt “impoverished and demeaned”.
The change in attitude towards war can be seen in the poetry that was written at the time. One of the most famous First World War poets was Wilfred Owen. He is famous for trying to prevent the public from being persuaded that death in battle is “sweet and decorous”.
Onomatopoeic language is used in the words “trudge” and “sludge” to emphasise the slow progress as well as portraying the men without any energy or strength left. “But limped on” the phrase allows the reader to see the soldier’s sense of loss not only by being injured, but by also suffering from such traumatising events. However, their determination is being shown by the fact that they are able to keep going and do not give up. “Drunk with fatigue” is a metaphor used to convey the fact that the men have become hollow shells who have nothing but there tiredness to paradoxically keep them going. To be “Drunk with fatigue” these men must be so tired that they can barely think for themselves. This attitude almost seems to mirror Sebastian Faulks statement that the men seem as if they can no longer go on and that they have reached their limits but miraculously they find strength to go on another day.
“Deaf even to the hoots of tired outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind them”. The soldier’s attitude towards the shellfire is one of every day life. They have become accustomed to the unnatural noises the guns make. This oblivious approach comes from being forced to listen to the shells day after day. This also suggests the soldiers are so exasperated with the war that it has had a subconscious effect on them. The shell is personified by the use of “tired” which gives the impression that Wilfred Owen belives the war to be pointless and it has been going on for so long, that even the shells have become weary of the needless fighting.
“Gas! GAS! Quick boys!” highlights the speed of the stanza and the urgency of what is happening. The image that is created is of an “ecstasy of fumbling”, which to the reader at the time of the war would make them extremely nervous especially if they wanted to join the army. The word “ecstasy” is sardonic as it gives the impression of extreme joy, yet the opposite emotion would be expected. The frequent use of words such as “clumsy” and “stumbling” result in giving the impression of an unorganized mob, instead of a well-trained unit. This attitude of haphazard behavior only reinforces the idea that the men had been forced to change into this inhumane, animalistic existence due to the treatment they received.
Finally Owen implies that if the reader had experienced the disgusting and frightful event then they wouldn’t tell with such “high zest to children ardent for some glory, The old Lie: Dulce et Decorum est Pro mori.” Owens use of irony in the last stanza is not for humorous effect but as a final warning of how grotesque war is and how the reader’s attitude would change if they actually experienced it for themselves.
This attitude towards the war by the civilian population may have been a result of the early propaganda poets such as Jessie Pope. Jessie Pope composed persuasive recruitment poems for the daily mail. She was detested by Wilfred Owen who saw her as a typical irrespective, unfeeling civilian who was a stay at home war supporter. The appearance of war is illustrated in a different way to Sebastian Faulks in her poem Who’s For the Game?
The poem is full of rhetorical questions that make it sound as if she is having a conversation with the men and is personally trying to persuade each of them to join the army. “Who’ll give his country a hand?” The title itself illustrates what she thought war was about. The use of the word “Game” implies she saw the war as something pleasant that was happening for amusement. This use of the word demonstrates that she deliberately wanted to make men uneasy if they did not join the army and in fact was manipulating the population into thinking that they had to fight.
The use of statements such as “eagerly shoulders a gun” and “you’ll come on alright” emphasises the colloquial language technique employed by Jessie Pope in order for her to seem one of the “lads.” This view is also shown in Birdsong where many back home felt that “they were doing their bit.” This meant nothing to the men in the trenches and the contrasting attitudes eventually led to a split between society back home and the returning soldiers from the war.
The poem is written in four stanzas with four lines in each stanza. With a regular rhythm and rhyming scheme, so that the poem sounded like a marching song. This technique was also used in children’s poetry, which shows how patronising Jessie pope must have seemed to the soldiers as they saw their friends die in circumstances far from a “game”.
The false sense of optimism is clearly portrayed in birdsong when you read the heartfelt letters to friends and families, written before the battle of the Somme. Letters from characters such as Tipper and Jack Firebrace would serve to perpetuate the ignorance at home. Tipper was an example of someone who tried to genuinely believe in the war and what he was writing, as he
Owen could not write from the future as Faulks was able to but he is able to highlight the difference in attitude by the soldiers and the people back home towards the war in his poem The Letter. The poem is about a soldier writing to his wife whilst trying to stay cheerful but in the end is unable to keep the façade up and hands his letter to friend to write. Owen splits the poem into two different aspects; what the soldier is writing and a conversation he is having with a fellow soldier whilst writing. His written and spoken words are shockingly dissimilar. The tone of his letter is formal but his speech is idiomatic in its harshness.
“Oh blast this pencil. Ere, Bill lend’s a knife”
I’m in the pink at present, dear.”
Owen because he is writing poetry, cannot have a broad overview of characters that Faulks has, who is able to develop them through the novel. However Owen still shows that the writer is well aware that the situation was of constant danger within the poem. “Never fear. (VRACH! By crumbs, but that was near)”. Owen uses parenthesis throughout the poem to commentate on the actual events of the war, interrupting the writing of the letter. The rhyme scheme continues to remain constant despite this, showing the soldiers desire to write in a positive attitude regardless of what was happening around him. Owens’s use of the letter is more effective than Faulks as it shows how much the soldiers had to detach themselves from their surroundings whilst writing home.
Poems of the Great War and Birdsong, in their different ways, highlight how, many soldiers were forced to change their attitudes towards the war due to its wastefulness. The change in approach was not due to one particular aspect of the war but instead a series of events that led to many soldiers becoming disheartened. Poets such as Wilfred Owen blamed the media and the ignorance of the civilian population for the prolonging of the war. Yet in Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks describes the change in attitude towards the war as something due to an experience that nobody would understand, unless you were one of the thousands of soldiers at the front line.