Pain of War Affects People at Home and on the Battlefield

(#Essay draft) Pain of war affects people at home and on the battlefield.

1914 was the year in which World War One began and many people carried assumptions that it would be fought and won before Christmas. In Soldier Boy, Anthony Hill portrays to the reader that the pain of war affects Jim, his family and the soldiers (physically, emotionally and mentally). After the soldiers’ departure from Australia, they had realized that the suffering of war was agonizing. Throughout Jim’s experiences at the front he came to realize that the sufferings of war were not always glorious and that soldiers were not the only ones to be affected by the pains of the war. This essay here will explore the difficulties and the pain that -people at home and on the battlefield- faced due to war.

The novel is constructed in a way that tells war led a brutal impact on the soldiers (physically, emotionally and mentally). Most young soldiers, who were not apprehensive about the war, took this as a chance of a thrilling opportunity and participated in the war. But they would soon recognise that war was agonising and nothing more than bloodshed and death. When the soldiers reached the shores of Gallipoli, they realised that they had opened “the lock of hell” (pg 45). It is through this metaphor that the reader understands the reality and horrific natures of war. The author exemplifies that war was punishing and agonising for the soldiers when he describes that “It seemed to rain bullets and death” (pg 45). As soon as the soldiers settled in the trenches “troops were crippled by disease, by typhoid and dysentery” (pg 92). It is through this message that the reader is informed about how gruesome and horrendous the dirty trenches were in war and how horrific it was for the soldiers. The author’s use of “Heat leapt up from the paved streets of Heliopolis, like a burning eye on an early route march” (pg 67), eptomises how depressing the weather was for the soldiers at Heliopolis. These moments illustrate how impenetrable an early morning route march was for the struggling soldiers. Not only does, Anthony Hill show us that war had a brutal impact on the soldiers, but it was also difficult for Jim Martin.

In this novel, Anthony Hill conveys the idea that Jim Martin’s experiences during the war were very oppressive for him. Like most young soldiers who had enlisted at that time, Jim had to face the difficulties of war. Throughout Jim’s experiences at the front he came to realise that the suffering of war was not always glorious. After almost drowning, Jim ended up in a hospital ship and he “lay desperately ill with typhoid”