World War One Literature

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how the four texts "Journey's End" by R.C.Sheriff, "Attack" by Siegfried Sassoon, "Missing, Presumed Killed" by Pamela Holmes and Vera Brittain's "Letters from a Lost Generation" are typical of World War One literature. It analyzes the four texts in terms of language form and structure and the way the writers use the genre of their choice to express their thoughts and feelings. The influence of the time of composition and the significance of the gender of the writers is also discussed.

From the Paper:

""Journey's End" written by R.C.Sheriff continues to be one of the most enduringly popular plays written about the First World War. The play, set in a dug out in the trenches, explores the tensions between a group of officers waiting for an enemy attack. In this extract Sheriff describes a situation where the commanding officer, Stanhope, gives his orders regarding the imminent enemy attack to the sergeant-major. To a certain extent, "Journey's End" supports the traditionalist view of the war, of brave soldiers sent to their deaths while the incompetent high command dine in their chateaux behind the lines, and it is this idea which is often enforced through First World War literature."

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