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.
A well chosen paragraph - a truly terrible one - harrowing to read, I think.
ReplyDeleteYou could usefully compare the sense of a ruined life to Burns in Regeneration, the contrast being that this is purely physical; Burns' is both physical and mental. Also the use of body language to convey feelings is used a lot by both novelists.
Well done :)