Extended Essays 2021

meantime. A great gulf has opened up between then and now… I can’t come to terms with things here any more; it’s another world.” (Remarque, 1995, p. 116). Because Bäumer’s character is so well drawn and relatable, the reader strongly identifies with his experiences and feels frustrated about the ignorance and lack of understanding of his community. The author utilises metaphor to describe Bäumer’s home as being from “another world ”, effectively conveying how the young man has become detached from his previous life. The portrayal of the transformation in Bäumer’s relationship with his mother is particularly moving. Remarque’s choice of first-person narration from the perspective of a sensitive and intelligent young man allows him to use imagery to convey his desperate feelings of longing for his mother’s protection as he cries, “Oh! Mother, Mother, to you I’m still a child – why can’t I just put my head in your lap and cry? Why do I always have to be the stronger and calmer one? I’d like to be able to weep for once and be comforted, and anyway I’m really not much more than a child – the short trousers I wore as a boy are still hanging in the wardrobe. It was such a little while ago, why did it pass?” (Remarque, 1995, p. 126) . Bäumer’s experiences are hauntingly similar to those of others on both sides of the conflict. As British politician Ramsay MacDonald observed shortly after the war, many who fought in the trenches were unable to adapt to life at home, “Millions of men cannot live for years in the riotous lawlessness of war, killing, destroying, smashing their way along, and then suddenly on the blast of a bugle and the issue of a proclamation, return to the methodical ways of civil life.” (MacDonald, 1918, p. 58). Remarque effectively explores the transformation in the soldier’s relationships with his family and community through his decision to write in the first person from the perspective of a sympathetic young man, with whom the reader can easily relate. The immense transformation of relationships experienced by the WWI soldiers upon returning home is also explored in Birdsong . This is conveyed most effectively through the character of Captain Michael Weir, a young engineer who commands a unit of ‘sewer rats’. He looks forward to a return to his former life after spending months working in hazardous conditions underneath the trenches, risking death in “bloody subterranean battles… with both sides struggling desperately to locate and destroy each other's tunnels.” (Jackson, 2011) . The narrator explains that, “he was waiting for the moment when the familiar wash of normality would come over him and he would be restored to his old self” (Faulks, 1994, p. 287) , but he cannot make this adjustment. Weir discovers that his home seems “alien” and “it was hard to imagine that he had seen it before.” (Faulks, 1994, p. 287). He feels estranged from his family and, when he attempts to communicate how terrible the war has been, his father cuts him off mid-sentence and dismissively tells him, “We’ve read about it in the paper. We all wish it would hurry up and finish.” Weir perseveres but his father scolds him and says, “Don’t get yourself upset. Everyone’s doing their bit, you know. We all want it to end, but we just have to get on with things in the meantime.” (Faulks, 1994, p. 289) . Faulks uses irony to indicate that the soldiers feel misunderstood by the people at home, which has transformed their relationships. Weir's father's tone of voice implies his belief that he is more