Explore the ways in which Sebastian Faulks presents human endurance in the face of the horrors of war in the novel Birdsong Essays

Explore the ways in which Sebastian Faulks presents human endurance in the face of the horrors of war in the novel Birdsong Essays Explore the ways in which Sebastian Faulks presents human endurance in the face of the horrors of war in the novel Birdsong Essay Explore the ways in which Sebastian Faulks presents human endurance in the face of the horrors of war in the novel Birdsong Essay Essay Topic: Catching Fire In Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks highlights the incredible lengths of endurance that the soldiers of World War I were pushed to, having been subjected to the grim horrors of war. He makes it apparent that such horrors required a great deal of mental endurance as well as physical endurance, a notion that is aptly illustrated by Stephen Wraysford in a conversation with Michael Weir, This is not a war, this is an exploration of how far men can be degraded.The first time that the reader is introduced to Jack Firebrace, hes lying on a wooden cross whilst forty-five feet underneath France a tunneller. Immediately, physical adjectives are used in order to portray how hellish and unforgiving a miners tunnel can be. In the second paragraph of Part Two, Faulks includes small chunks of description in a series of short sentences to progressively give the reader a tunnelers perspective of the underground setting and its appalling conditions. The sweat running into and stingi ng Jacks eyes; the claustrophobia of a four-foot-wide tunnel; the fact that all time had been lost track of whilst underground, which portrays the idea that this tunnel is a terrifying otherworld for the men inside it, who spend so much of their time underground that time itself means nothing: He had lost track of how long he had been underground. He found it easier not to think when he might be relieved, but to keep digging.The manner in which Faulks delivers these short descriptions in quick succession lends the reader a feeling of moving into darkness from light, and having to allow the eyes to become accustomed to it, as if the reader himself were being led into the mines in which tunnellers endured countless hours of darkness: It had been six hours or more since he had seen daylight. Also, the fact that Jacks spade is an adapted spade, even though hes specifically a tunneller, shows the haphazardness of the army when it came to providing a good standard of equipment for its tro ops; soldiers just took what they could get, because it was better than nothing. However, Jack just gets on with his work, digging at the earth, hacking it out as though he hated it; its noted that the harder he works, the easier it is, which implies that the terrible conditions of the tunnel are simply endured and the digging continues because it has to, which Weir often stresses to the miners: If they think theres a mine under them they wont stay put for twenty four hours. Therell be a mutiny.Faulks writes of many ways to die in the novel, some of which the soldiers prefer over others, and when Jack reflects on the deaths of Turner and two others in the tunnel, he thinks about his attitude to death: The men might have died anyway, perhaps in a worse way, with gas in their lungs or lying beyond help in no mans land. This shows his preference of being incinerated by an explosion over having to experience a slow, painful, languishing death due to gas or wounds the fact that he has a preferred method of dying shows that hes experienced enough death to come to the conclusion that its inevitable; he accepts that hes going to die, and isnt particularly scared of it, but would prefer to die a quick death.This is somewhat ironic, because Jack dies a long and painful death spanning a number of days after being buried alive with Stephen in Part Six. Even when Jack begins to eventually long for death, it still refuses to arrive swiftly, as shown when Stephen wakes Jack from unconsciousness, but he could see Jack fighting to be free of him, desperate to shake off his last contact with the living world. Faulks made this happen to show that war is unfair, and also that the events of war can change a man to the extent that hed rather die than have to return to ordinary life, which seems distant and unrealistic; While a primitive fear kept stirring in him, the pain of his body and the lost illusions of his life made him wish for the conclusion to come.Faulks writes Stephen Wraysfords account of the first day of the Battle of the Somme with a tone of stark frankness and bluntness, using the minimal amount of description needed in order for the reader to form his own image. The capacity to endure and the mood of the forty eight hours of unwanted reprieve before the battle is summarised with a single line: The first rifle fire came with a falsetto crack. Barnes had shot himself through the palate. These two short sentences are separated from the rest of the text as part of a small, five-line paragraph; this structure has been used to emulate and highlight the effect on the troops of the sudden single rifle crack although the sound itself only lasted for a very short time, it carried a meaning and a sense of foreboding that offered the troops a morbid alternative to what lay ahead.Faulkss accounts of specific deaths during the battle are numerous; these are designed to highlight the utter horror of war. One particularly vivid description tells of a man w ho is still marching towards enemy lines despite losing a large proportion of his face, There was a man beside him missing part of his face, but walking in the same dreamlike state; the way that Faulks describes the man as walking in a dreamlike state could perhaps be symbolic of the popular belief that the decision to make soldiers walk rather than run whilst charging meant that they were, fundamentally, walking corpses. Faulks also shows the futility of the tactics of higher ranks, who are still not yet adapted to the modern warfare of World War I, Ten yards ahead and to the right was Colonel Barclay. He was carrying a sword.Sebastian Faulks portrays the horrors of war in numerous ways; he describes the claustrophobia and intense heat and darkness of a tunnel; the realisation that death is inevitable and the unwise tacticians of the Battle of the Somme. Whatever situation soldiers are thrown into, though, it seems like theyre able to adapt and endure it like when Stephen is force d to carry a canary through the mines despite his crippling fear of birds. At first, Stephen is revolted by the idea of catching the canary, He felt himself close to tears as he searched the murk of the clay, Faulkss use of the phrase close to tears makes Stephen seem childlike, but his determination to help his injured comrade spurs him on, and, unwilling to upset Weir by killing the bird, he literally grits his teeth and carries the bird to safety, With teeth clamped very tight together he held out both hands to Weir, who released the bird into the handkerchief, possibly saving Weirs life in the process. However, a lot of soldiers endured their situations because the only alternative was a court martial, but the threat of the firing squad was enough to make most soldiers do practically anything for their country.

Analysing The God Of Small Things English Literature Essay

Analysing The God Of Small Things English Literature Essay ‘May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid’. This luscious and mysterious description of India sounds unmistakably like a tourist novel yet this example of post colonial exoticism is used to lure in readers to the novel ‘The God of Small Things’. Whilst being better known for its celebrity stakes of the Booker Prize, the author Arundhati Roy is ethnic, a strong activist and her cultural authenticity passively provides an authentic Indian voice through her idealised western way of talking and thinking about the east. Roy plays into a colonial style known for its dominating, restructuring and authoritative power over India using references from politics and history to keep the story real and dangerously intoxicating for her western readers. It serves the dual purpose of being able to write back to the ’empire’ whilst becoming a product of global capitalism, hybridity of the west and the east, using eastern examples of western ideals through examples of critiqued power relations and subverted ideas of the ‘exotic’. The society of Ayamenem strongly follows westerns ideas adopted from its colonial background by living with a caste system in which there are two classes, the inferior ‘touchables’ who are of a higher class than the ‘untouchables’. This idea is borrowed from the class system of the British so the inequality between both is familiar to its readers but is also exotic in the way that it controls society and influences everyday life. The extremity of having the ‘untouchables’ so grateful to the ‘touchable’ class that a man is willing to kill his own son when he discovers that he has broken the most important caste rule, that there is no interclass relations. These rules of society are unknown to that of the reader; it provides them with the mystery and danger of the exotic. Also having no interclass relations means that there is a lot of tension in the relationships between characters in the novel. The ‘untouchables’ have internalized class segregation and are aware of the limits of their place in society. Relationships with these people are strongly discouraged but the members of this family find reason to cross and defy these rules. This is unusual behaviour and the idea of resistance against the adopted colonial system is exciting to its western audience who believe that the underdog can win although Roy’s account provides enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing the consequences of the characters defiance. The novel also exoticises India’s inequality, making it light hearted and approachable for its western audience. The style of writing suggests that Roy has written the story from an outsider’s perspective, looking, observing and commenting on daily life, ‘strange insects appeared like ideas in the evening’, questioning her authenticity thro ugh her strategic use of words and in this example she tells the reader of ‘strange’ insects in the afternoon yet these insects should be familiar to the teller of the story. This westernisation becomes more apparent through Indian society who seem like they are trying to appeal to the wider western audience. While choosing a name for the family pickle company the relevance of the name was an important factor, ‘At first he wanted to call it Zeus Pickles and Preserves, but that idea was vetoed because everybody said that Zeus was too obscure and had no local relevance, whereas Paradise did. (Comrade Pillai’s suggestion -Parashuram Pickles was vetoed for the opposite reason: too much local relevance).’ Instead of marketing to their local community, the name Paradise seemed more suitable which shows how self aware their society has become knowing that the pickling company could be seen on a global scale promoting its exotic feeling to produce global pro duct. Roy promotes this kind of thinking throughout her novel and in a sense she is able to ‘sell’ her culture through her strategic storytelling. She tells of hotels that have truncated traditional kathakali performances from ‘six hour classics – to twenty minutes cameos’ for the small attention spans of the tourists. It shows how Indian society has given into its colonialisation, allowing their cultural values and actions to be altered so that it can be marketed on a global scale. The strategic use of how India will be seen from a tourist point of view appeals greatly to those who have never seen India and in these terms Roy provides the idealistic tourist guide that they have been seeking with bite sized portions of a culturally authentic experience such as her use of traditional Malayalam words throughout the text.

Food Piece Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Food Piece - Coursework Example Everything to do with drinks was well looked into so that everyone could get into the party mood. The first phase came with a thud as it was taken as a lubricant just before the main dish. What I may describe as delicacy was right in front of me. Fresh fruit drinks prepared from a mixed blend forming a thick cocktail juice. This was the first I ever made with at most concentration. The whole-heartedness evident in my work of making the juice was so vivid that I felt like having a live clip production for an advertisement on making "home-made juices". The space taken by the juice in the gastro-intestinal tract could not be spared despite main dishes to follow. Considering that what was planned was overridden by the gasp for more, everyone was spoilt of options. A variety of soft drinks other than natural juice was available. Fizzy drinks were in plenty as the table went in rounds of drinks on a tasting mode. No one wanted to have a defined torch on any of the dishes for so far each that came next spackled with a welcoming aroma. Life was promising at this point; it felt heavenly as every glass of juice went down our throats bringing a cooling effect. Ideally, the juice served half of its purpose since others turned it into the main take in food of the meal. Other than balancing the diet it took space meant for a different dish. All that came into my mind was how this could be turned into a habitual event. I instilled a great deal of confidence regarding my capabilities when given a platform to demonstrate in the kitchen. Fruits for sure trace back to the Christian belief of being forbidden for the sweetness and discovery of wisdom. This is what rung into my mind before availing anything to the table for preparation of the real ingestion work that was to follow. The secret behind appetizing the family members lay squarely on the use of fruits. What lacked was a pictorial form of demonstrating the sweetness felt in the taste buds in everyones tongue. The only