Upton Sinclair's 'After The Retreat'

Influencing the flow and rhythm of her poetry is Sinclair's distinctive usage of a stream of consciousness writing style that presents her poetic pieces as an uninterrupted flow of her unfiltered and genuine thoughts on the war to her audience. Sinclair's poem, "After the Retreat", revolves around the normalcy of a house that she is haunted by and continuously dreams of, as opposed to the memories of bloodshed and wounded in ruined cities such as Flanders. In one section of the poem, Sinclair writes, "At night I cannot sleep in England here / But I get up, and I go / Not to the cities of Flanders / If I could only see again / The house we passed that day" (Sinclair 20-29). The stream of consciousness writing style that is used throughout this

poem highlights the conflicting and vivid recollections of peace within the war intruded upon by the bloodshed, wounded, and dead that she was exposed to as a member of the ambulance corps. By presenting her thoughts as a unorthodox stream of unfiltered words, the audience truly connects with her message as if they are reading the same exact ideas that were in Sinclair's mind at the time of her writing.

In this light, the audience is exposed to the conflicting feelings that Sinclair had during WWI. Though she loved the excitement and novelty of being able to forge her own path and experience the war as more than a simple observer, Sinclair also recognized how depressing and sorrowful the war was. Ironically, out of the all the wounded individuals that she helps throughout the fighting, she does not remember the graphic injuries inflicted upon the wounded-she is conflicted instead because she clearly remembers the normalcy of a house that stood apart from the shrapnel and destruction found throughout the battlefield. In "Dedication", Sinclair once again relies on a stream of consciousness flow when she says, "But you she loved / You she touched with her hand / She kept you with her in her fields of Flanders / Where you go" (Sinclair 18-22). This instance of stream of consciousness writing highlights the disappointment and betrayal that were in Sinclair's thoughts when she wrote about how her ambulance corps was able to continue their work in Flanders where she did not return

to. Thus, a usage of stream of consciousness writing is critical to the connection that Sinclair forms with her audience through her poetry, allowing them to understand her perspective on the war as she did in her private thoughts.
The repercussions of World War I were astounding not only in the extreme bloodshed and the high number of casualties, but in the shifts in lifestyle that it brought to countries such as England. As the men from England were deployed to fight in the war, the vacancy of positions originally dominated by the male figure were filled by many women who found themselves in a shift of social identity. Constricted by the conventional gender roles that dominated England at the time, May Sinclair refused to dedicate her life to domestic duties. The war provided an opportunity for Sinclair to participate in an ambulance corps that exposed to her new ideologies, her poetry embodying her enthusiasm of her freedom in the war as well as conflicting feelings. Therefore, the effective usage of imagery, simple yet connotative diction, and a stream of consciousness writing style throughout her poetry underlines May Sinclair's passionate and vivid recollections of WWI in her firsthand experience of death and destruction, to her audience.