Analysis Of Edward Thomas 'The Retreat'

Many who had created their vision of prosperity in their mind soon changed with the perils of the War. For one there was constant control and repression by other troops and those in higher ranks. Ivor Gurney in his poem The Retreat writes “I weak as a rabbit - ‘How much longer, dammit?’ / They said ‘Shut up.’ I said ‘I wish this were over!” they said ‘Shut Up’ ” (128)(LL 130-132). The poem gives an account of how the fellow troops at most cases felt throughout the war, carrying feelings such as being scared and oppressed by others in their surroundings. Furthermore, such psychological mindset guided the troops to dissolution. In the poem Rain, Edward Thomas writes “Rain, midnight rain,, nothing but wild rain / On this bleak hut and solitude,

As Edward Thomas writes in his poem titled No one cares less than I, simply stating, “ ‘No one cares less than I, / Nobody knows but God,’ ” (60)(LL 1-2). This indicating that at one point the troops mind had shifted from being disillusioned and scared to not caring at all and accepting what the War was and how it was changing their lives.The soldier’s mind was in constant attack by the outside world that was the War, which really deteriorated them

WIlfrid Gibson in his poem Between the Lines gives great detail of a life of a soldier in the trenches, he expresses “But he was tired / Now. Every bone was aching, and had ached / For fourteen days and nights in that wet trench-” (66)(LL. 53-55). Effects of the war on the body were not always something permanent, for many of the soldiers more than likely suffered with body aches, and had to endure them since many did not die from them nor were they sent home because of