A Changing War Literature

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Recommended: Literature after the second world war

Starting in the year 1916, the views on war as found in western literature drastically change due to World War I. This can be seen in the similarities between Rudyard Kipling’s 1888 short story, The Man Who Would be King, and other pre-1916 war literature. Some major running themes of this kind of literature are the idea of war as a journey, nationalism, and romanticism. This pre-1916 literature is extremely different from its post-1916 counterpart. Rather than romanticizing war, this new kind of literature emphasizes the bitterness and irony, propaganda, and disillusionment that manifested itself later on in the war. Due to these evident differences, it is clear that starting in the year 1916, the atrocities of World War I caused a drastic change in war literature.

Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King, published in 1888, exemplifies the notion of war being like a journey or quest. Peachy Carnehan, a prospective King along with his partner Dan Dravot, tells our narrator, “we will let it alone [India], and go away to some other place where a man isn’t crowded and can come to his own… Therefore, we are going away to be Kings.” Carnehan and Dravot are preparing to commence their journey, which they describe in a very positive light and with a great deal of hope. Kingship is the goal of their quest, and while they know that they will have to fight for it, the prospect of warfare does not dishearten them. This reasoning behind war is generally a universal one in western society before 1916.

John McCrae also demonstrates this rational behind war in his 1915 poem, Equality. He says, “I saw a King…Unsatisfied until he should achieve/ The grand ideal that his manhood sought.” The “grand ideal” that this king seeks is victo...

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When comparing Rudyard Kipling’s short story, The Man Who Would Be King, with the literature of World War I, there are many striking similarities and differences. Upon further analysis, it becomes clear that The Man Who Would Be King is akin to much of the pre-1916 war literature due to the shared themes of journey, nationalism, and romanticism of war. However, differences arise between Kipling’s story and the war literature post-1916. These differences are manifested in post-1916 war literature’s use of bitterness and irony, as well as it’s emphasis on the war propaganda and the disillusionment caused by the war. These new themes found in war literature after 1916 lead us to the conclusion that World War I, and the atrocities that it brought, prompted a drastic change in the way people think about war, the result of this being a new kind of war literature.

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