Unit 3: Fiction
bud – after a bitter winter, spring now struggles to break through. As the thaw sets in it is the most punishing work to keep the trenches free of water. The pumps are poor excuses, and barely work. Our engineers have designed crude constructions which they call “duckboards” – long square poles of wood with thick crossbars set at intervals. These are made from whatever can be requisitioned, stolen or scavenged. Wood from shelled and bombed buildings, empty ration crates, wattle fencing, anything and everything is used.
My “hotel” view at the moment is out across the stretch of earth they call No Man’s Land and the very phrase sums up the waste of war – there is a solitary tree stripped of life and colour, spent ammunition, shrapnel and shell and . . . the unburied dead.
I am strangely unafraid of death; there is a trance-like quality to life under these circumstances. What frightens me more is the death of spirit, that I have so quickly become accustomed to the sights and sounds of war . . . such an ache in my head and in my heart.
Francis billet = a place for soldiers to lodge
Te theme of war, its suffering and waste, is very carefully traced throughout. Te speaker in the extract recounts the actions of the soldiers in some detail as they make their way to the trenches. Te underlined words and sentences illustrate the use that can be made of action, setting, language and imagery to bring out the dominant theme that war is a waste of life, which can also kill the human spirit.
2. Questions on Theme Sample Questions and Answers on Theme
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1. What is meant by a theme in a narrative text? The theme in a narrative text refers to the overall meaning, message or central idea of a story.
2. Select a novel or short story you have studied which has an interesting theme and write an outline of how the theme emerges in the plot. A short story which I have read and which has an interesting theme is ‘The Majesty of the Law’ by Frank O’Connor. The theme of legal justice develops in an unusual way in this story.
The theme is introduced when Dan Bride, who lives alone in a cottage, has a visit
from a sergeant. Dan has prepared whiskey, tea and bread to offer his guest – ‘a sure sign that he had been expecting a visitor’. The sergeant is supposed to uphold law and order but has no problem in drinking the illegal whiskey, even going so far as to say that he does not agree with the law which bans the practice. Later, the sergeant asks Dan if he is willing to pay a fine which he owes. Dan refuses as he does not want to give ‘that fellow’ the satisfaction. The sergeant then produces a
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