The Attitudes to War Expressed by Roland and Vera

The Attitudes to War Expressed by Roland and Vera

"The War at first seemed to me an infuriating personal interruption

rather than a world-wide catastrophe." For both Roland and Vera the

war changed their lives in many ways as one can see that over a

relatively short period of time their attitudes change again and again

due to their experiences and what they learn from them. The effect

that both Roland and Vera's experiences have and the change in their

attitudes to war show the definite change in personality and character

from their youthful ignorance and naivety to Roland's desperate desire

to be part of the War compared to Vera's disbelief at what was

happening. "I found it, very hard to believe that not too far away men

were being slain ruthlessly, and their poor disfigured bodies heaped

together and crowded in ghastly indiscrimination into quickly provided

common graves as though they were nameless vermin."

Although Roland and Vera from the outset appear to have different

attitudes to the war the love that they have for one another does not

waver, and it can be argued that their love grows stronger. The War

highlighted the fact that for some there would never be another

tomorrow, "O Roland, I wrote, in the religious ecstasy of young love

sharpened by the War to a poignancy beyond expression." It can also be

argued that Vera's attitude to War is of someone who was to be left

behind once Roland went to the front, therefore her attitude could

change according to Roland's experiences and how the War affects both

his own character and their relationship.

Vera maintains a hope that Roland would not go to the front and would

inde...

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...e impending was

unlikely to remain excitingly but securely confined to the columns of

newspapers. So I made myself face what seemed the worst that could

possibly happen to use."

"I've wished…that you hadn't come to take away my impersonal attitude

towards the war and make it a cause of suffering to me as it is to

thousands of others." Roland's direct and forthright attitude to the

war changes Vera's attitude as she is in a way forced by Roland's

departure to the front to make the war part of her life. "Certainly

the war was already beginning to overshadow scholarship and ambition."

For Roland his own desire for the time being was to fight in the war

and in turn Vera's desire moved away from Oxford and towards her

ambition to experience something as close to what Roland was

experiencing at the front as possible.