Chapter 8

• p-105 Prior is smoking 'It's not really a good idea with asthma you know' Parental intuition.
• p-105 Prior - 'he looked a bit like the boys you saw on street corners in the East End' - Paints Prior as a rebel, a gangster and not afraid to confront Rivers.
• p-105 - Prior 'the same air of knowing the price of everything'
• p-106 'Do you remember the attack?' 'Yes it as like any other attack' Desensitised to the battles.
• p-106 Prior details the attack :'Then you start the countdown: ten, nine, eight.. so on. You blow the whistle. You climb the ladder. Then you double through a gap in the wire, lie flat' Prior can remember all the details meticulously - suggests it's part of his dreams.
• p 106 - Priors details on attacks 'In a straight line. Across open country. In broad daylight. Towards a lie of machine guns.. Oh and of course you're being shelled all the way' - list emphasises the pace of war, unpredictable and changing at any moment.
• p-107 - 'All right.. it felt.. Prior began to smile again. Sexy' - The audacity of it, the daring nature, the fact it feels so wrong all adds to this notion that Prior describes.
• p-108 Prior 'i just felt this amazing burst of exultation. Then i heard a shell coming. And the next thing i knew i was in the air fluttering down' - The unpredictability of war is present here, one moment the soldier enjoys the exhileration and next he is consumed by it and injured.
• p-110 'A short dark haired man sidled around the door, blinking in the sudden blaze of sunlight' - Owen introduced. Initially a very timid character, the sudden blaze of sunlight however does hint at Owen's talents as a writer to be naturally beautiful and a fresh perspective on Sassoon's work.
• P-110 Onwards, Owen's stammer is initially very prevalent.
• p-111 - 'i agreed with every w-word' Sparks the beginning of a friendship.
• p-111 'Everything about Sassoon intimidated him. His status as a published poet, his height, his good looks, the clipped aristocratic voice, sometimes quick, sometimes halting, but always cold, the bored expression.. but it seemed like arrogance. Above all, his reputation for courage. Owen had his own reasons for being sensitive about that' Owen recognises how Sassoon is heroic to him - a full embodiment of everything Owen wants to stand for.
• p-114 'And do you know, it was actually easier to believe they were men from Malborough's army (A battle occuring hundreds of years before) than to think they'd been alive two years ago' in reference to skull's in the side of Owen's trenches. Soldiers did not know they were carving history.
• p-114 "It's as if all other wars had somehow.. distilled themselves into this war and that makes it something you.. almost can't challenge" - Owen. WW1 - The great war - Known as the most brutal war in history - 16 million soldiers died.
• P-114 Sassoon and Owen discuss similar war experiences ina. very intellectual way.
• p-114 "A hundred years from now they'll still be ploughing up skulls. Ans i seemed to be in that time looking back. I think i saw our ghosts" - The immense impact of this terror will be remembered for generations on end - Rememberence day is a sign of this - celebrated every year to this day.
• Throughout their first encounter - It's made clear Owen and Sassoon's poetry is their way of unburdening the war and releasing their trauma - to express their true thoughts on paper is one dissimilar to any sort of therapy.
• p-115 OW 'Oh, they're not about the war.. i don't write about that' SS 'Why ever not?' OW 'i s-suppose i've always thought of p-poetry as the opposite of all that. The ugliness' - Poetry is a thing of beauty and it has to be intricately crafted to fully appreciate it's excellence. Detailing war would only defeat the purpose of poetry's beauty in Owen's eyes.
• p-118 Prior ventures into Edinborough and is free from CL for a while "It was worth it though, just to sit quietly, to listen to the voices that didn't stammer, to have his eyes freed from the ache of khaki' - Away from CL is essentially an escape from war, the institutute as much as it aims to recuperate from the trauma imposed from war, also heavily reminds patients of it's horrific nature. The screams, the breakdowns, the nightmares all corroborate towards the fact that CL is in some ways an embodiment of the front line.
• p-119 'It was a point of honour with him to lie to Rivers at least once during every meeting' - Still hasn't fully taken on Rivers as someone he can trust or openly talk with.
• p-119 introduction to Munitionettes: Sarah, Madge, Lizzie and Betty. They represent the enhanced emancipation of women that occured due to the war as they were permitted new freedoms in factory job roles to fulfill what the men on the frontline would have to do. Their is a sweet, excited sense of camaraderie between the women in the novel, thata arguably contrasts the "class distinction" present on the front line.
• Munitionettes - Not typical 1917 women. Working class Northern women were very much more liberated from the concept of the Angel of the House.
• "Minor explosions of giggles" "Shoulders shaking" "laughing and wiping her chin" The women are hysterical with their freedom. They are appreciating the moment despite the horror of war. Very contradictory as we are supposed to feel happy for these women but the conflict remains that this freedom is at the expense of millions of men dying.
• p-122 'She held her hand out to him in a direct- almost boyish way' - Th e women are learning the mannerisms associated with men and their business.
• p-122 - 'He thought about what the detonators she made could do to flesh and bone, and his mind bulged as a memory threatened to surface' - Barker deliberately brings in a conflict here - with Prior at the heart of it - So prior is finally forced to make a decision that will result in him fitting into a certain demographic - a struggle ever present in his life so far. Will he take up Sarah despite her heavy associations with the war which could result in him reliving some parts of his trauma?Or does he return to war - unphased by the enhanced liberation of women.
• p-123 'They seemed to have changed so much during the war, to have expanded in all kinds of different ways, whereas men over the same period had shrunk into a smaller and smaller space' - Tradition is beginning to be flipped upon it's head. The war is so coercive that it is altering the route of tradition where the man holds the power and the women is the subordinate - Barker emphasises the sheer impact of war here, for it's influential reign on society.
• p-123 Sarah simply states the battle in which she lost her partner, and it's an accepted form of grief "Loos" she says. Prior - "The names were left to say it all. Mons, Loos, Ypres, the Somme. Arras" The names of these battles will forever be associated with death.
• p-124 Sarah details her boyfriend's death at Loos 'You know when you get a tune stuck in your head? I just kept on thinking, our gas" The incomprehensibility of war is made clear here. The recruitment process and propaganda was so euphoric and full of adventure it could never have even considered to detail how events like this could unfold. Confusion upon society.
• p-126 Prior tries to initiative intercourse but Sarah is confident enough to say "I know what you want" Which is exactly what Prior wanted, just "flesh against flesh in the darkness and then nothing" Prior wants to escape the war desperately,and sexual intercourse is a form of natural escapism and fulfillment that can take the mind elsewhere. Sarah sees past this. She sees it as immoral rather than a bit of fun. Showcases the modern outlook on women's role in intercourse. The woman now has more of a voice and importance in leading up to it.