BIRDSONG THEMES

BIRDSONG THEMES

1. War

   • ''But I was saved by the war''-p331
   • ''...being smashed by bullets before they could stand''-p226
   • ''The further he walked the more isolated he felt''-p358
   • ''We've done something terrible, we'll never get back to how it was before.''-p239
   • Brennan's ''existence'' rather than ''life'' -p402

2. Nature's indifference to human suffering

   • ''Then under the indifferent sky his spirit left the body...'' p174
   • Title of the book is not meant to symbolise ''new life'' or ''fresh hope'' but it suggest ''the indifference of the natural world to the human''.

3. Moral Authority

   • ''Stephen felt a sudden loosening of compassion, which he quelled as quickly as he could..''-p148
     • ''I don't want this here..get him to the MO.''P148
     • '...regarded Stephen as little more than a symbol of some distant authority in front of who they were supposed to behave well and be respectful''-p147
   • The boy at the Hospital and the powerless nurse- p186

4. Time and Change/Place

   • ''In her generation there was no intensity''-p414
   • ''...unnatural was the existence they were leading; they did not wish to be reminded of normality.''p148
   • Sense of Place
     • '''He was screaming for his home.'' Tipper. P.147
       • ''They made a joint grave, because the was over.''P486

5. Trust and betrayal

   • BIRDSONG THEMES (2)
   • Pronoun ''He'' 24 times on page 117, to emphasis Stephen's betrayal and loneliness.
   • The wire not not, ''...the wire became jammed with bodies.''
   • ''Those fat pigs have got no idea what lives are led for them.''p294

6. The influence of History

   • Influence of Stephen's and Isabelle's childhood, on their later lives, love.
   • ''...what guarantee was there that he too would not spend years of his adult life in this hellish perversion?'' p270. Elizabeth on having a son.