World War One. Gravess Good Bye to All That - Essay Example

?Explain historically Graves’s Good Bye to All That. What is “all that”? Why does he leave it behind, and where does he arrive. How is Graves’sexperience representative of many Europeans’ experiences of the Great War, or how is it unique among those many experiences? At the beginning of the First World War, few had foreseen how much that conflict would affect the social, political, and economical map of Europe. In fact, its consequences for the European societies were so great that many historians refer to the First World War as to the start of the modern era (Wilde). In his autobiographical novel “Goodbye to all that”, Graves aims to overcome his traumatic war experience and close that chapter of his life, resolving “never to make England my home again” (Graves 1960: 279). The author criticizes the British class system and, consequently, his economic class, his education, family religious upbringing, his military leaders and British government as he finds all of them responsible for the tragedy of war and cruel, senseless death of millions of young men. Graves says goodbye to the old class system of Britain as his war experience taught him that, despite coming from different social backgrounds, all people share the same values and identities. As the author?s parents educated him through a strict social code, which treated the lower classes as morally inferior to the bourgeoisie, the author had been aware of class distinctions since childhood. Yet as a four year old boy, when Graves was staying in hospital with scarlet fever, he discovered that some children, also himself, received deferential and preferential treatment. His interest in different social classes continued through adulthood, when he used to ask his acquaintances “at what point in childhood or adulthood they have become class-conscious, but never have been given a satisfactory answer (Graves 1960: 24). However, during the war Graves found himself impressed with natural intelligence of poor, uneducated men and, thus, learned to respect people from lower social classes. Graves commanded a platoon of forty men coming from low social backgrounds, who joined the war for money. While at first he called them “most marginal elements of the society”, with time he came to appreciate their intelligence, courage, and ability to stay calm in the battlefield. Furthermore, at the war all soldiers, no matter their social status, had to face the same conditions, danger, fear, and in many cases severe wounds and death. As a result, Graves admitted that twenty years after his first experience with the separation of different social classes he “ had refused it” (Graves 1960: 25). After the war, when struggling to maintain his family only with his family, Graves opened a small shop; an activity that was typical of lower-class people and, thus, despised by people from Grave’s background. In this way, he demonstrates that he does not care about class distinctions anymore. The First World War has changed British social classes irreversibly. First, lower class citizens had a chance to earn money when fighting in the war and, thus, raise their standard of living. Furthermore, such factors as rationing and the control of essential for everybody contributed to the decrease in extreme poverty by the end of the war. On the contrary, due to the rationing and lack of many goods in the market, the living standards of the middle and upper class significantly deteriorated. Moreover, many families affected by the rise in tax land had to sell their land holdings. It is estimated that 25% of properties in England were sold between 1917 and 1921. The living conditions of higher class families also deteriorated due to the deaths of the men, who used to be the main financial supporters. As a result of that, higher class women had to take jobs, which changed not only the class structure, but also the position of women in the society (Bourke 2003). At that time, it was a widespread view that the First World War enabled women to advance politically and economically. It was estimated that between 1914 and 1918, nearly two million women replaced men in employment, which increased the percentage of working women in Britain from 24 per cent to 37 per cent during the four war years. Furthermore, in 1918, for the first time in British history, women over 30 years old who held property were entitled to vote (Bourke 2003). Graves sees the differences in the women’s social position as he says goodbye to the old society, “the kingdom of prince Carlos’s mother’s great-great-grandmother (…), when only perverse women used to wear trousers or to make up their lips (Graves 1960: 397,398). Graves came from a traditional family, who believed women had an inferior place in the society. Thus, most of his relatives and friends found it hard to get used to women’s new social role and disapproved of Grave’s marriage with a feminist, Nancy Nicholson. Their traditional way of thinking is reflected through the behavior of Grave’s mother, who nearly fainted when Nancy appeared at the wedding reception wearing trousers and her jacket of a farm worker (Graves 1960: 317). Grave’s family also disapproved of the lack of religious practices by the young couple and the use of her proper maiden name by Nancy. Moreover, it was a shock for Grave’s relatives and friends, when Robert and Nancy joined the Society Birth Control (Graves 1960: 336). All the attitudes adopted by the young couple were more and more common in the post-war European societies. Following his war experience, Graves also distances himself from organized religion. Grave was baptized into the Church of England and brought up with a strict, religious upbringing. As a young boy, his religious fervor made him break up his friendship with an atheist colleague. Despite having very few friends at school , Graves claimed that “I considered my religion and my opportunity of salvation more important than any earthly love”(Graves 1960: 64). However, Graves’s traumatic war experience deprives him of any religious feelings, as well as many of his fellow soldiers. As he admits, “Hardly one soldier in a hundred was inspired by religious feelings of even the crudest kind. It would have been difficult to remain religious in the trenches even if one had survived the irreligion of the training battalion at home “(Graves 1960:222,223 ). He lost respect for Anglican chaplains from the regiment, whose work was limited to stay at the rearguard with the transports, and who did not display even “a tenth part of the value, resistance, and other qualities displayed by the doctors from the regiment”. (Graves 1960: 224). As a result, after the war Graves abandoned religious practices and, despite his parents’ will, refused to baptize his children. The secularization of British society increased after the First World War as “Christianity and war did not go together” (Mc Kean 2002: 7). Such factors as taking over social programs by social forces and an attempt by churches to loosen their doctrine in order to make their sermons more appealing to masses during the war resulted in more liberal religious attitudes. Moreover, at that time the religious works of liberal poets and writers were more appealing to “collective consciousness of a nation involved in war” (Mc Kean 2002: 11). Soldiers easily identified themselves with the feelings of liberal spirituality and patriotism, expressed by authors, who often experienced the war first-hand. Finally, the trauma of war demoralized and desensitized British society to an extent that lead many families to abandon their religious practices. Graves also says goodbye to patriotism, which was found “too remote a feeling, and at once rejected as fit for civilians, or prisoners” among his colleagues in trenches (Graves 1960: 223). Having seen and withstood so much suffering , he did not feel patriotic pride, just fear and pain. Thus, when Graves returned to England for convalescence, he could not understand the patriotism and military sentiment that were displayed everywhere. He felt identified with the views of his friend Sassoon, who claimed that while all the soldiers had decided to fight in the war of defense and liberation, the conflict turned out to be a war of aggression and conquer. Sassoon found “political errors and continuous lie” guilty of sacrifice of the soldiers (Graves 1960: 304). However, while Graves supported Sassoon?s views, he knew that such soldiers’ protests could not stop the war. That decline in patriotic feelings was common in British society as well as in many European societies after the First World War. Despite the efforts of governments to share patriotic feelings through propaganda, raising “the public sentiments of enthusiasm, nationalism and militarism”, the atrocities of the War left the society discontented and disillusioned. As a result, the pro-war attitude started to decline in popular media (MacCallum-Stewart, 2009). Graves leaves behind both the trauma of War and the pre-war traditional British society. He abandoned his views on social class distinctions as his war experience taught him that lower-class people are brave, intelligent men, who deserve respect and appreciation. Furthermore, his struggling to maintain his family after the War and his work in grocery shop allowed him to realize that there is no work that one should be ashamed of. His marriage with a feminist, Nancy Nicholson, helped him to accept the new, more significant role of women in the British society. Finally, the trauma and atrocities of War lead Graves to abandon his patriotic and religious feelings, inspired by his family and society. His traumatic experience of being seriously wounded, ill, seeing violence and deaths everyday left him disillusioned about his religion and nation. Grave’s experience is representative of many British and European citizens, who, following the First World War, had to face the change in the social structures, the new role of women, and increasing secularization of the society. Grave tries to overcome his traumatic experience, emigrating to Mallorca in 1929 and, thus, deciding to “never to make England my home again” (Graves 1960: 279). However, he is aware that nobody can abandon their identity; “the protestant morality of English ruling classes, though qualified by mixed blood, a rebellious nature, and an overriding poetic obsession, is not easily outgrown ” (Graves 1960: 398). Works Cited Bourke, Joanna. “Women on the Home Front in World War One”. Bbc.co.uk/history/british/Britain_wwone. 03 March 2003. 12 April 2011. Graves, Robert. Goodbye to All That. 2nd Ed. London: Penguin, 1960. MacCallum-Stewart, Esther. “ Satirical Magazines of the First World War: Punch and the Wipers Times. Firstworldwar.com. 22 Aug. 2009. 12 Abril 2011. McKean, Matthew K. ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’: Cultural Expressions of an Evolving British Religious Consciousness before and after the First World War, 1850-1920. UniversityofBritishColombia,CenterfortheStudyofHistoricalConscioussness. 06 Nov. 2002. 13 April 2011. Wilde, Robert. “Overview: The First World War.” Europeanhistory.about.com. Web. 07 Abril 2011. Read More