Page 34 - 2021-bfw-aufses-alr-1e

extending beyond the text
5

W ar is a topic that many writers and artists have tackled thr oughout history . Following ar e
War is a topic that many writers and artists have tackled throughout history. Following are
just two examples that, like Brian Turner’s poem, portray the average soldier’s experience.
The passage included here is from Atonement , a 2009 novel by British writer Ian McEwan,
and follows three World War II soldiers as they struggle to evacuate France in the immediate
aftermath of Hitler’s invasion in 1940. The painting shown here, by American artist John
Redefining America
Singer Sargent, is entitled Gassed. Commissioned by the British War Memorials Committee,
it was completed in early 1919. An immense painting at roughly eight feet high by twenty
feet long, it depicts victims of mustard gas on the French front in World War I. The men lined
up have been blinded by the gas, while those on the ground have been made too sick to
move. In the very distant background, a soccer match is underway.
Examine both the painting and the passage carefully, and then answer the following questions.

1. How do the texts by Turner, McEwan, and Sargent characterize both the physical and
psychological effects of wartime conflict on soldiers?
2. What devices or techniques do each of these texts use to portray the trauma of war?

3. In what ways are each of these portrayals similar?
4. Where do they differ? How do those differences reflect the attitude of the author or artist?

from Atonement
Ian McEwan
There were horrors enough, but it was The leg was twenty feet up, wedged in the
the unexpected detail that threw him and first forking of the trunk, bare, severed cleanly
afterwards would not let him go. When they above the knee. From where they stood there
reached the level crossing, after a three- was no sign of blood or torn flesh. It was a
mile walk along a narrow road, he saw the perfect leg, pale, smooth, small enough to be
path . . . They stopped so that he could a child’s. The way it was angled in the fork, it
consult the map. . . . seemed to be on display, for their benefit or
The path . . . started down the side of a enlightenment: this is a leg. . . .
bombed house . . . Scattered around were The scraps of cloth . . . may have been a
shreds of striped cloth with blackened child’s pyjamas. A boy’s. The dive bombers
edges, remains of curtains or clothing, and sometimes came over not long after dawn.
a smashed-in window-frame draped across He was trying to push it away, but it would
a bush, and everywhere, the smell of damp not let him go. A French boy asleep in his
soot . . . . He folded the map away, and as he bed. Turner wanted to put more distance
straightened from picking up the coat and between himself and that bombed cottage. It
was slinging it around his shoulders, he saw was not only the German army and air force
it. The others, sensing his movement, turned pursuing him now. If there had been a moon
round, and followed his gaze. It was a leg in he would have been happy walking
a tree. A mature plane tree, only just in leaf. all night.

14
Copyright © 2021 by Bedford, Freeman & Worth High School Publishers. Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample chapter.
Distributed by by Bedford, Freeman & Worth High School Publishers. Strictly for use with its products. Not for redistribution.

AufsesALR1e_24889_ch05_002_097.indd 14 5/4/2020 3:57:47 PM