Part Two Paragraph of Birdsong

The nurse had left the screens slightly apart and Stephen saw her lift the tent away with great care, holding it hight above the scorched body before she turned and laid it on the floor. She looked down at the flesh no one was allowed to touch, from the discharging eyes, down over the face and neck, the raw chest, the groin and throbbing legs. Impotently, she held both arms wide in a gesture of motherly love, as though this would comfort him.

He made no response. She took a bottle of oil from the side of the bed and leaned over him. Gently she poured some on to his chest and the boy let out a high animal shriek. She stood back and turned her face to the heavens.

The language used here creates realistic tension and atmosphere, which is vital of a novel of this type. When covering something as sensitive as the injuries that existed in World War 1, it is important that the reader gets a clear tone of desperation in order to at least try and understand fully the depths of which the human body can go to in order to fight for life.

'holding it high above the scorched body..' 'She looked down at the flesh no one was allowed to touch, from the discharging eyes..' Faulks refers to the victim as just a body, as though the boy no longer has a life worth living, which gives the reader a foreboding feeling that the injured boy will not remain alive for much longer.

'She stood back and turned her face to the heavens' This sentence has a double meaning, that the nurse is in despair and doesn't know how to cope with the boys injuries, and also that she's asking God to end the boys pain and let him die as soon as possible. The reader can imagine the nurse's stance, and we feel for both the boy and the nurse in different ways.

The tone and narrative style of this paragraph that I have chosen sum up the tone of despair and hopelessness when a soldier is injured, which was a constant event in the trenches. There is a portrayal of fear from both the patient and the nurse, and there is nothing to be done about it.

Jack Firebrace

Part 2 introduces us to a new character; Jack Firebrace. His job is to dig out under No Man's Land in order to reach the German lines as an element of 'surprise' for the enemy. Jack is thirty-eight, older than many of his colleagues, and seems to have earned their respect. He is married, with a son named John, whom he idealises.

Jack must contemplate his own morality quite early in the story. Having fallen asleep while on duty, he is caught by Weir and Wraysford and faces a court martial which may result in possible execution by firing squad. Alone with his thoughts, he realises that, despite witnessing an obscene amount of death and destruction, he is unprepared for the end of his own life. He longs to be alive in order to see his wife and son again, not because he feels he is more deserving than those who have died before him. It seems to me that throughout the stress he feels during his time in the war, Jack's faith in God remains intact. His beliefs, however, are shaken when standing behind the lines in an elevated position, he looks down on the carnage of the battlefield. This is where he becomes aware that his trust in God has died. He cannot believe that his God would allow the wholesale destruction of so many lives. The battle of the Somme destroyed something within him. The war destroyed something within him, which even the death of his own son has been unable to shake.

I personally feel that Jack's role in the novel is partially to demonstrate how much the human soul can tolerate. He shows us that in World War 1, Men were prepared to push themselves to their limits, but would no doubt, eventually reach a point where they could go no further.

I hope my lovely English teacher is a happy bunny!

Sebastian Faulks

Having read only a few chapters of Birdsong so far, I have quickly realised that Sebastian Faulk's writing techniques are extremely descriptive, maybe a little too much, risking the chance of the readers interest becoming less and less. However, he balances this out for a sudden change of happenings, something so interesting that the reader's attention is brought back to the novel and they want to continue reading.

In the first three chapters, the war has not yet been mentioned, which makes me wonder how Faulk's will all of a sudden bring it into the novel, another aspect that makes me want to carry on reading. (That & the fact that I have no choice!) Despite the wordy pages, I am so far enjoying Birdsong and I'm captivated to see what will happen next!