University essay collection

Generals Die in Bed: Propaganda Versus the Realities of War

Magicseeker

Dr. Margaret Anne Smith

English 3508

4th December 2018

Generals Die in Bed: Propaganda Versus the Realities of War

An analysis of propaganda and its effects are fundamental in understanding the perception of war in the public sphere. War propaganda was designed to influence the opinions of the public, enforce nationalistic ideals, and encourage men to enlist. To achieve the desired results, propaganda promoted an unrealistic version of war. In his novel Generals Die in Bed, Charles Yale Harrison systematically contradicts and invalidates the false pretences of bravery and glory which war propaganda fed to the public. Harrison reveals a more realistic depiction of war, of its effects, and of soldiers. The core concepts of war propaganda: bravery, the heroic soldier, the concept of the enemy, and glory are all addressed in the novel and contrasted against the realities.

Propaganda often portrayed soldiers as gallant heroes, strong warriors, and protectors; this appealed to people's desire to be a better version of themselves. In World War 1 and Propaganda, Troy Paddock writes that "Effective propaganda needs to meet its target audience halfway if it wants to be effective. Appealing to the emotions of the intended audience is certainly one approach." (Paddock, 14). War propaganda promised young soldiers a dream of glory, heroism, admiration from others, and even attraction from women. Soldiers were held up to an unrealistic ideal, but Harrison represents them more accurately as ordinary people who were placed under the constant threat of death. Throughout the novel, Harrison avoids describing the soldiers' actions with unrealistic and unattainable bravery; instead, he makes certain to insert the fear and confusion involved: "We are in the line – suddenly the enemy artillery begins to bombard vs. We cower behind the sandbags, trembling, white-faced, tight-lipped. Our own guns reply" (Harrison, 18). The diction used does not reflect the romanticized notions of heroism that newspapers of the time typically reported.

In the introduction, it is written: "If a screaming, one-ton shell launched from six miles away had your name, rank, and serial number on it, it mattered not one damn how brave you were" (Harrison, i). From the very beginning, the novel addresses a difference between the propaganda and the reality of war. The quote demonstrates the sentiments surrounding the concept of 'bravery'; the public had an image in their mind, developed by promotional posters and newspaper articles, of the 'brave soldier'. It was an idea which asserted that wars were won through bravery, and claimed that Canadian and American soldiers were braver than others. Harrison revokes that concept by addressing one of the many realities of war: a soldier's death typically depended on the location that he was standing when an attack hit, making them victims of circumstance. Despite the portrayals in the media, personality and other characteristics were irrelevant when under attack.

Despite the celebratory atmosphere when the community sends off new recruits, the novel identifies an underlying fear which indicates that the public appearance is not the complete situation. The narrator literally clings to a woman, symbolically clinging to the last traces of his home: "She is the last link between what I am leaving and the war. In a few minutes she will be gone. I am afraid now. I forget all my fine heroic phrases" (Harrison, 5). This demonstrates how the phrases and falsehoods enforced by propaganda fade when faced with the reality of the situation. The first chapters implement the idea of appearance versus the reality of war because it contrasts civilian life against the horrific chapters that follow.

One of the most interesting aspects of this novel is the concept of the 'enemy'. The narrator speaks on behalf of the troops as a whole when he mentions the sentiments about the German soldiers. There are one or two officers who make negative comments, or a few new recruits that excitedly talk about killing the enemy and participate in petty name-calling, but the narrator expresses that it is not the case for most people. In the trenches, the soldiers are usually depicted remaining neutral about the soldiers of the opposition. When they receive newspapers with Anti-Germanic material and atrocity stories, they are not subject to believe it: "Strangely, we never refer to the Germans as our enemy. In the week-old newspaper which comes up from the base we read of the enemy and the Hun, but this is newspaper talk and we place no stock in it. Instead we call him Heinie and Fritz. The nearest we get to unfriendliness is when we call him 'square-head'" (Harrison, 23). The other soldiers are not viewed as 'the enemy', other aspects of everyday life fill that role: "We have learned who our enemies are – the lice, some of our officers, and death" (Harrison23). The novel makes certain to demonstrate that there is no 'good side' and 'bad side'; whereas propaganda often dehumanizes and villainizes these other soldiers, Harrison humanizes them. "The most famous propaganda technique employed in the First World War, which all governments and most journalists used, was that of the atrocity story" (Cawood, 23). An atrocity story was often a fictitious or exaggeration of a horrendous act committed against our