Write About How Faulks Introduces the Story in Part 2 of Birdsong Essay Example for Free

Write About How Faulks Introduces the Story in Part 2 of Birdsong Essay Write about how Faulks tells the story in the first section of Part 2, beginning with the words JACK FIREBRACE LAY forty-five feet underground .. And ending with the words A rising melody under the scratch of a thick gramophone needle† (Pages 121 to 138 Vintage Edition). (21 marks) Faulks tells the story of Birdsong in the introduction of Part 2 by instantly creating a dramatic effect by changing every key factor from part 1 to Part 2 including which decade it is in and the characters. The first line of Part 2 instantly creates a gripping effect on the reader. ‘Jack Firebrace lay forty five feet underground’ Faulk’s purposely created a complete change in scenery, plot and person to foreshadow the rest of Part 2 and also make the reader feel as if the story is surreal as such dramatic changes so quickly processed as you are reading it does not feel real, such a dramatic change in one page was purposely done by Faulks to make the reader feel more interested and inquisitive as to why everything has been so dramatically changed. The word ‘Firebrace’ can be split it into two, fire and brace. Fire is a symbolism of chaos, destruction and war which fits in perfectly for the running theme throughout part 2 of Birdsong and fits with destruction of lives, lands and also mental stability all caused by the chaos of a war. However, ‘Brace’ is something which holds things together to give support and putting these two together shows that even though there is fire in the war as long as the men have each other for support they can find a way to get through it and this cr eates an awareness of the war that Faulk’s is trying to show in Part 2. Part 2 shows how the war affected people personally and no matter how aggressive the war became, the inner streams of consciousness of their own thoughts was always worse because some things you see can never escape your mind. ‘There were sounds, distant and irregular. He could not be sure what they were.’ The quote in a literal sense is talking about the sounds they can hear inside the tunnel however; metaphorically it can be interpreted to mean the voices inside their head. The voices can be shown as ‘distant’ because the people who they think of are so far away and out of reach which shows how they miss them even subconsciously. Another connotation of ‘distant’ could be the distant thoughts of dying. These men know that at any minute they could die from this war and that thought should be kept as distant and far as possible to remain an optimistic view of the war because otherwise they are somewhere with death creeping on them but also acknowledge that and became fearful of it constantly and to live a life like that for years on end effects the stability of your mind and how you look at life as a whole. The word ‘irregular’ could have been used by Faulks to symbolise the irregularity of the situation they are in, the irregularities of the war and the irregularities of humanity. Everything they are doing is so irregular and immoral but somehow it is still their job to do so, without knowing anything about the person they are killing they are still killing them. For some reason, this was law this was the rules and nothing was deemed as wrong and this is so irregular and out of normality yet it still happened. This was purposely done by Faulk’s to create awarenes s of the faults in humanity during this period of time. In part 2, sections of the book show a dramatic change of events so instantly. ‘Before he could finish there was a roar in the tunnel and a huge ball of earth and rock blew past them. It took four men with it.’ The section goes from being very tense with the edge of your seat effect and anticipating a climax event, knowing something is about to happen and then suddenly in one sentence all changes from the emotions of the characters, the destination to the status of living and dead. Such grave factors have changed in one sentence. Faulks purposely does this to create a change in structure and show how at any point anything can happen. ‘It took four men with it.’ This line is monosyllabic; this is intentionally done by Faulks to create a contrasting effect. The plot and the structure of the sentence completely contrast each other as what the quote says is four people have just died, their lives gone and no more yet the simplicity of the language the one syllable one word makes it seem so calm natural and simple. This is done by Faulk’s to show contrast in plot and structure in part 2. The effect of symbolism to refer to past events and character is used in Part 2. ‘Evans had tried to light a candle but there was not enough oxygen. The match burned bright red but would not flame.’ This can be seen as reference to ‘The Red Room’ in Part 1 of the book. The red room was always seen to the reader as a room of passion and lust where Stephan and Isabelle had united however, the flame was never fully burnt, this could have been because of the fact they both knew they were in the wrong or the fact that the true emotion of love wasn’t perfectly there. There was not enough oxygen to light the flame. The double meaning behind this showed Isabelle’s true feelings towards Azaire and possibly Stephan also. She could try as hard as it was possible to show love and true intimacy but the truth of her emotions was that they were never completely whole and there. Without oxygen you cannot light a flame and without true feeling you cannot have love. The use of the words ‘light’ and ‘flame’ and how they are lost is also part of the running theme throughout the novel; the loss of hope is represented by loss and in this quotation lack of light. On pages 126-127 Jack receives a letter from his ex-wife Margaret. The structure is very neat and in line, the number of lines per paragraph is roughly the same amount and punctuation is very neat. No short sentences or any other literary devises are used to create any dramatic effects. This could show how Margaret is trying to remain calm even with the knowledge that both her son and her husband are in possibility of dying. The letter also quotes ‘as you will imagine it is not easy getting medicine and the doctors to look after him with so much going on at the front which is how it should be.’ Faulks creates awareness of the war and how it affected not only the soldiers out there fighting but also the citizens at home fighting as all priorities were on the war and this was not wrong but this mean that people at home were also dying from lack of necessities in place, people that if the war had not happened would not have died as well as the millions of soldiers. To conclude, Faulks introduced Part 2 by dramatically changing events and also creating a theme of lost hope to symbolise how the characters and also people that were part of WW1 did emotionally feel. Personally, I think that the introduction of part 2 was written to show awareness of the horrors of war. Faulk’s wanted to show to his readers how difficult and life changing this war really was. Faulks shows in his introduction that you were killed by your own men if you committed a mistake like sleeping on the job. Something as small a mistake as that could get you killed. In birdsong men ‘he had never touched tobacco’ and then it turned into ‘now it was his greatest comfort.’ Tobacco kills you slowly yet that becomes the greatest comfort that is how grave it was, how the only way to make you feel better was to kill yourself slowly rather than in one shot. The fact men had never tried it but now it was their pain reliever shows just how the war changed people so much physically as well as mentally. Stability was lost and men became killing machines this was not humane. Faulk’s shows this as he writes in every word of the true horrors, people dying flames not being lit properly, men losing each other no stability at all and all to create awareness.