Quote Analysis Flashcards
(15 cards)
‘You must speak, but I shall not listen to anything you have to say.’
Power Imbalance - imperative and dismissive tone commands the other person to speak but devalues the value of them speaking.
Symbolism of Futility - speaking becomes a hollow act
“Rivers’ knew, though he had never voiced his knowledge, that Sassoon was going back with the intention of being killed.”
Internal awareness but external silence, silent moral conflict.
Tone is sombre and fatalistic.
“And the Great Adventure—the real life equivalent of all the adventure stories they’d devoured as boys—consisted of crouching in a dugout, waiting to be killed.”
Irony of war as manly war ended emasculation, deep frustration with the war as expectations don’t match reality.
Newly mechanised war as rules of war has changed.
“Fear, tenderness - these emotions were so despised that they could be admitted into consciousness only at the cost of redefining what it meant to be a man.”
Natural human emotions that are despised in the traditional definition of masculinity, condition of manhood.
Societal shift is needed for men to embrace their emotions.
Critique of toxic masculinity.
“A horse’s bit. Not an electrode, not a teaspoon. A bit. An instrument of control.”
the bit, an instrument of control, must symbolize the control Rivers has over his patients—how he forces them into roles they no longer desire.
Rivers reconsiders his role as a doctor.
‘The war that had promised so much in the way of manly activity had actually delivered female passivity.’
Irony - contrast between what was promised and what was delivered exposed disillusionment felt by many soldiers.
Gender stereotypes ingrained in society.
“The only thing that really makes me angry is when people at home say there are no class distinction at the front.”
Confronts false ideals that war will erase social boundaries.
Criticises home front for simplifying or romanticising war.
‘NO MORE WORDS’
Capitalisation suggests an anger not able to be expressed through voice.
‘The clubbable officer, the chap with the right accent, the right background…
List of necessary characteristics needed to be in the middle class
‘A society that devours its own young deserves no automatic or unquestioning allegiance.’
Metaphor - evoking sacrifice, exploitation and destruction of youth.
Systemic betrayal
“It’s his duty to go back, and it’s my duty to see he does.”
‘There’s nothing physically wrong with me, but I’m scared stiff.’
“In her world, men loved women as the fox loved the hare. And women loved men as a tapeworm loves the gut.”
‘The dead leave a legacy of silence.’
“They seem to have changed so much during the war, to have expanded in all kinds of ways, whereas men over the same period had shrunk into a smaller and smaller space.”
