Escape- of the war, or of death?

Escape by Robert Graves

Here's a picture of all the thoughts and notes I jotted down after reading it a couple of times. Hopefully later I'll be able to expand upon this.

I'm not sure in this poem if Graves wishes to escape from death, to survive, or if he wishes to escape from the war. I mean, he describes "Hell", and it doesn't seem to be that good of a place, but then he also describes it in a war-like manner- by this I mean that he has the same emotions as if he were in war. He doesn't like the army- all of his army weapons were taken away from him, and he's helpless: he doesn't want to "die for any one". I also noticed that there were parallels between him entering Hell and him undergoing treatment at a hospital, which is interesting. Anyways, these were my interpretations.

Nightmare 24-7

Trench Duty - Siegfried Sassoon

Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake,

Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take,

I blunder though the splashing mirk, and then

Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men

Crouching in cabins candle-chnked with light.

Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right

Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare

Of flickering horror in the sectors where

We raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and chilled,

Or crawling on their bellies through the wire.

'What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?'

Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire:

Why did he do it? ... Starlight overhead-

Blank stars. I'm wide-awkae; and some chap's dead.

Sassoon's Trench Duty describes a dream where a soldier goes on for trench duty, falls asleep, and wakes up to find someone dead. Living near the border, the soldier experiences the nightmare of invading the enemy's territory. The soldier then wakes up to find that he's woken up to pretty much the same nightmare. I believe this poem is one that talks of the horror of World War I, showing that the nightmares that everyone may or may not have are a reality for the soldiers. This tone of fear is created with alliteration, harsh and violent diction, and the simplicity of the sentences.

The alliteration creates the mood of the war- noisy and dangerous. The sounds from the beginning to the end parallel those of the war: "Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake" contains a lot of "s" sounds, and there are many other sounds such as "muttering voices of the men", as well as the line, "crouching in the cabins candle-chinked with light". This is followed by words such as: "big bombardment", "rumbling and bumping". These repeated sounds recreated war noises- the "b", "mp", m", "s" along with many others are auditory images of bombs, rockets, guns, all the war weapons used. Thus, the alliteration makes the poem seem harsh, much like a nightmare.

The diction creates imagery of chaos and violence. Here are some words: "splashing mirk", "blunder", "gruff", "crouching", "the dark's a glare of flickering horror in the sectors", "stiff and chilled"... The list goes on. So these words work as visual imagery to show the chaos of war. And it is important to remember that these words are while the soldier is in a nightmare. So when the soldier wakes up, he wakes up to a nightmare and the same images that he had dreamt of. These words create a tone of fear which the soldier portrays. The sentences also rhyme, in the pattern: aabbccddefefgg, which make the poem run faster and thus more chaotic and non-stop: much like the war.

Then, there are the sentences. They are very simplistic, that is to say, the dialogue at the end where he wakes up. His questions resemble his confusion and fear: "'What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?'". The quickness of it is represented in his short sentences: "Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire", "Starlight overhead- / Blank stars". His nightmare, of confusion, is both in his dreams and in the physical world.

The poem ends with "I'm wide-awake; and some chap's dead", which shows the blur of the dream world and the real world, making the reader wonder if it was a dream at all. Also, the question, "Why did he do it? ...." makes me think that the soldier who died may have killed himself- at night, where the nightmare exists both day and night.

So, I believe that Trench Duty by Siegfried Sassoon works to detail how the soldiers felt during the war, and what they went through.

World War I Poems- comparison

There are many similarities among the different World War I poems. In Robert Graves', A Dead Boche, and Arms and the Boy, by Wilfred Owen, the two poems complement each other and resemble many of the ideas behind World War I poems. [The two poems written at the bottom of this blog for your own reading pleasure]

One of the things World War I covers is the monstrosity of the war:

• In these poems, I think that the two create an image not just of the monstrosity of the war, but how the people themselves are monsters, and have lost their moral balance
• A Dead Boche (Robert Graves)
• He begins with saying that he's found "a certain cure for lust of blood", already showing that many yearn for blood
• Then, he describes something "propped against a shattered trunk", something that is unpleasant "in a great mess of things unclean".
• It's described even more: "a dead Boche" - a German soldier
• Some words:
• "scowled and stunk"
• "with clothes and face a sodden greeen,"
• "big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired"
• "dribbling black blood from nose and beard"
• While describing the German soldier, it seems that the Boche is the one who is mutilated and scary- but then if you think about it, the soldiers who dreamt of "blood and fame" are the ones who have done this. While the Boche may be scary, we [the soldiers] are the monsters who have done a lot of horrors.
• Arms and the Boy (Wilfred Owen)
• The beginning really characterizes the boy as someone who is kind of monstrous. I mean, the title, "arms and the boy" really introduces it. Arms, being weapons, and boy, being something that should be innocent. But he's not.
• The boy has a "bayonet-blade", "keen with the hunger of blood", "blue with all malice", "like a madman's flash", " and thinly drawn with famishing for flesh". I mean, if that doesn't speak for itself, what does? The boy is defined as something that needs to kill.
• Some other words:
• "blind, blunt bullet-leads", "nuzzle in the hearts of lads", "cartridges of fine zinc teeth", "sharp with the sharpness of grief and death"
• By "nuzzle in the hearts of lads" Owen compares innocent boys with those who participate in war- and how they have changed and how much war can change soldiers and make them brutal.

Another one is the contradiction between the glory and fame propaganda about the war and the actual ferociousness of it:

• Almost all the poems we've read have had this idea, and how the soldiers join for glory but end up dying instead, and the world lives with a false ideal.
• A Dead Boche (Robert Graves)
• The poem begins with the false ideal and then proceeds to belittle it.
• Graves quickly destroys the fallacy:
• "songs of War", "hear of blood and fame" --> "'War's Hell!'"
• alliteration and rhyme help here, because it makes the poem smooth and sing-songy, and so it contrasts the false tone with the true tone of war.
• Also, by saying "you've heard it said before" he adds in how many feel this way. The "songs of War" are not really songs.
• Arms and the Boy (Wilfred Owen)
• This poem is actually the opposite, in the way that it begins with describing the boy as someone cruel, an war as an angry beast, and then ending with a last stanza on after telling the truth about the boy's actions, how he will be viewed at home.
• He's not a monster, but a hero:
• "there lurk no claws behind his fingers supple", "and God will grow no talons at his heels, nor antlers through the thickness of his curls"
• Again, there is this rhyming pattern, which shows the iron. Expand upon it really, as he's already established the irony that the boy has done sad things and yet "God" is supporting him still.

There are a lot of allusions, usually:

• There is also the idea of God, and whether or not he supports the war or not, or even exists. But at least there are always mentions of the actualities of war (eg. battles, or certain weapons/soldiers)
• A Dead Boche (Robert Graves)
• "Mametz Wood" is a battle led by the Welsh, which Graves was a part of
• The Battle of Mametz Wood was part of the larger scheme of the Battle of Somme, the woods being one of the main areas of the Somme. So introducing this battle already gives a lot of connotation and tone of horror. Supposed to be quick, the soldiers were filled with hope before the battle and completely slaughtered b the end of it.
• "Boche" --> It means German, and is an "offensive slang" according to dictionary.com. So this has a lot of connotations as well, to those who know the war: a Boche, initially considered the enemy and disrespectful, is not the monster...
• Arms and the Boy (Wilfred Owen)
• Well, there's God, obviously: "And God will grow no talons at his heels, nor antlers through the thickness of his curls"
• Perhaps there is a more specific allusion in the bible or some other holy text, but the overall gist of it is that God does not consider the boy, who has committed a lot of atrocities, an animal, but a human: honorable and just.
• Throughout the poem there are lots of connections to specific weapons-
• "bayonet-blade" "blunt bullet-leads", "cartridges", "zinc teeth"
• And so the poem brings this in to contrast with the purity of what boys usually represent.

So those are the ones that come to mind when I read these two poems.


A Dead Boche - Robert Graves


To you who'd read my songs of War
    And only hear of blood and fame,
I'll say (you've heard it said before)
    'War's Hell!' and if you doubt the same,
Today I found in Mametz Wood
A certain cure for lust of blood:

Where, propped against a shattered turnk,
    In a great mess of things unclean,
Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk
    With clothes and face a sodden green,
Big bellied, spectacled, corp-haird,
Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.

Arms and the Boy - Wilfred Owen

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads
Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads,
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.

For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.

"Before the Mirror": A reflection of man to woman

In Swinburne's Before the Mirror, there are quite a few similarities between this poem and Owen's Greater Love. They both deal with estranged emotions, mainly love, and how between the genders they feel disconnected. However, the paths the two poems take differ as I feel Owen's poem speaks of the complete separation between the emotions of men and women, while in Swinburne he slightly covers this idea, but in the end suggests that both genders are similar because both of them have felt loss.

Below is a copy of my notes on Before the Mirror- I hope you enjoy, and if you want to see my thoughts on Greater Love to really compare the ideas, the link is right here: http://adrienne-hlenglish.blogspot.com/2011/11/wilfred-owens-greater-love-for-war.html

Some overall ideas I found in the poem (hopefully these will become clear upon reading the marked up poem at the bottom):

• Similar to Greater Love
• Things have changed since the war began- from naivety of love/ goodness to the actuality of love / badness
• love is mysterious/unknown: soldiers don't really know what it is, only what they are told
• Separation between women and soldiers, one of them doesn't belong
• Different from Greater Love
• Women have watched things pass/die: they have changed too, like the soldiers
• the two may not be so different after all: there are sorrows for both genders

And I guess, the relevance of the title... hmm... Before the Mirror:

Okay, so a mirror is a reflection, a copy, and "before" implies that you're standing before it- so you're looking into a mirror, and seeing yourself: in the poem, there is something that resemblances this: "I watch my face, and wonder / at my bright hair". I thought at this point it was like the author didn't know himself. He was an alien to himself, didn't recognize himself. So maybe by the title, "Before the Mirror" the author meant that he was exploring an idea central to the soldier, and that when he looked into the mirror for answers, he saw himself. And this connects to the idea that both women and men suffered losses and emotions. The two are reflections of each other.

Marked-up version:

Wilfred Owen's "Greater Love"- for war

I've gathered from this poem that Owen is talking to his lover- the women out of the war, and how for him, he has lost his love for women because the war seems so much more important. Each stanza begins with words that are generally associated with a woman, and yet at the end of each stanza, they hold a grimmer tone. The rhyming helps link his, in the pattern a,a,b,b,b,a --> the inside "b" lines full of emotion of what has happened, surrounded by references/contrasts between women and war.

The first stanza begins with, "Red lips are not so red", automatically creating a compare and contrast between women and war. Each feature of the woman lacks the strength that the war had. "Red lips" are not as red as the "stained stones kissed by the English dead". The word "stained" serves to create that red color without saying it, comparing it to the red lips of a woman, and then "kissed by the English dead" develops the contrast, saying that the dead dying are much more touching and emotional. Owen talks directly to a woman- "O Love, your eyes lose lure". The next stanza follows the same format- beginning with "Your slender attitude", creating the figure of a woman and her personality, which is not so striking as "limbs knife-skewed". Each characteristic of women, "Your voice sings not so soft", "Heart", "dear voice", "though your hand be pale", is belittled by the war, and small in comparison. The voice of the "wind murmuring" and the silence of those who once coughed is more memorable. In a way, Owen is blaming the love that the soldiers feel for the ones safe at home. The women are what the soldiers are fighting for, and though they "trail your cross through flame and hail", they die. And so Owen is perhaps commenting on how the fierceness of the war overbears whatever attributes women have. Whatever women may do- sing, or send their love, it matters not because they are no comfort to war.

Owen also blames a bit of God- those whose limbs are "knife-skewed, rolling and rolling there where God seems not to care" reveals the idea that the soldiers at war are alone- away from faith and love, and although they believe in it, "Till the fierce love they bear", this eventually leads to their fate- "cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude." The contrast, from "fierce love" to "decrepitude", reveals the sudden change of the emotions soldiers go through. They volunteer, they fight for what they believe in, but quickly the sights that they see, the deaths they witness, have taken that away- and they feel alone. "Decrepitude" gives the meaning of tired, worn out, and abandoned- much like the soldiers feel.

The title of the poem, "Greater Love", speaks of the loss of the love they once had- of women, of God, of glory- and their newfound purpose. Owen speaks of war both as something of awe and something of horror. The phrase, "Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed" gives a fearful feeling, but it also adds a bit of holiness to the war- the "earth has stopped" gives the idea of a greater power, and a righteousness in ending the pain "piteous" soldiers had gone through. By this, I think Owen is making the point that the soldier's ideas of love has been warped- a woman's voice is the "wind murmuring" representing those "whom none now hear", and how a heart beats harder not because of a girl but because they've been shot. By "Greater Love", Owen does not mean he love's the war, but that he feels much more duty, emotion, and connection to war and his fellow soldiers than he does back in his own country.

As an interesting note, in one of my previous blogs I mentioned how in "Regeneration" there is a scene where one of the soldiers in the hospital mentions that war sometimes feels "sexy", and I wonder if this could have anything to do with the comparison of women to war.

Repression of War Experience: Quick commentary

Siegfried Sassoon's Repression of War Experience is, I believe, a poem chronicling his conflict between not believing in the war and needing to return to it, as he talks to himself. Out of the war zone, his thoughts ramble as he doesn't know what to think about anymore, like a bad song in your head. The sentences throughout the poem are long, as if he is trying to distract himself from thinking about the war, picking up on anything but that.

The poem begins with a moth- a "silly beggar" that gets too close to the flame. This could be a metaphor for what Sassoon feels, and what soldiers in the war do; they volunteer because they think they need some purpose, or that it is their duty, or for glory, and in a way they are begging to be told what to do. However, as they go too close to what they want, the "glory, liquid flame", they "scorch their wings", meaning that they die in war. Right away Sassoon says, "no, no, not that,-- it's bad to think of the war", and so we can see that he doesn't want to dwell on this. He "gagged" them all day, showing that war, as a bad song stuck in your mind does, keeps coming back and he can't get rid of it. "Gagged" gives the impression of throwing up- something he probably wanted to do when thinking of war. And he doesn't want to think about it for fear of becoming one of the ones who "jabber among the trees". He needs to be in "control" of those "ugly thoughts". When he says, "it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad", it almost seems like this is something he's been told- and thus these two contrasting ideas (for and against the war) are at play. Away from war, Sassoon isn't sure what he believes in, and he doesn't want to think about it because he kind of knows that he may drive himself craz.

The next stanza deals with him using all these techniques to calm down and take his mind off the war- but again, it seems as if he's repeating what someone else had said: "draw a deep breath; stop thinking, count fifteen, and you're as right as rain".  This doesn't work, as his mind runs on and goes off on a bunch of tangents. He doesn't know what he should think, and he can't come down and relax, because he has to distract himself from thinking about the war- he asks, "why won't it rain?", wishing for "thunder-storm tonight". It looks as if Sassoon wishes to be back at war- where there is thunder, and sadness where the roses hang their dripping heads, and he can empty out the trenches "with bucketsful of water to sluice the dark". This action of sluicing the dark I think mirrors one where you would be frantically trying to drain the trench you are in, covered in mud, and throwing it out where it is pitch black at night.

Sassoon then tries to distract himself again- he mentions books. By contrasting these two moods one after the other, it becomes clear that he goes back and forth with what he thinks about the war, and that his mind is lost: "Books; what a jolly company they are, standing so quiet and patient on their shelves, dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green, and every kind of colour". He enjoys books because they are filled with stories not about war, but are "quiet and patient"; they are "jolly company" opposed to the horrible war. By listing all the colors, joined with "and" and then at the end "every kind of colour", it creates the mood that he is just thinking about everything he sees in an attempt to not think about the war. When he asks, "which will you read?", and then, "O do read something" I think he is talking to himself, trying to get himself to concentrate on something or feel better.

When next he says "I tell you all the wisdom of the world is waiting for you on those shelves;" this is followed by "and yet you sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, and listen to the silence". If he's talking to himself, this clearly demonstrates his two conflicting thoughts- one where he wants to forget about the war and delve into the wisdom of books, and another where he cannot let the war go. His mood is reflected yet a gain with the metaphor of the moth, as there is "one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters"- much like him, the moth has gone around in circles. He is dizzy from thinking fast and yet not thinking at all, and he is as fluttery as a moth in this situation. Outside, "the garden waits for something that delays", and I think this too reveals that he is waiting for something. What he is waiting for becomes clear after the next few lines: "there must be crowds of hosts among the trees,- not people killed in battle, [...] but horrible shapes in shrouds- old men who died slow, natural deaths, - old men with ugly souls, who wore their bodies out with nasty sins". Sassoon holds distaste not for soldiers taking part in the war, but for those who didn't- those are the ones who lived long lives, and died slow, natural deaths- something that many soldiers were denied. Sassoon probably feels resentment that some escaped from the war, not upholding their duty to protect other soldiers. In Regeneration by Pat Barker, Sassoon goes to a medical hospital because he protested against the war, but joins the war in the end not because he believes in the war, but because he could not leave his men behind. I think this is the case- while he is struggling with what he believes about the war, the fact remains that he misses it, and he feels that people need him. The garden could be waiting for someone to use it, as he is- Sassoon is waiting for his orders to return to the war.

The last stanza is one where Sassoon speaks directly to himself, "You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home". In one way, he's trying to calm himself down, trying to be like what "normal" people, citizens, feel at home. However, he cannot successfully do this because he knows that a war is going on, and he has a duty to fight- "You'd never think there was a bloody war on!..." Sassoon is angered that where he is is so "safe" and "peaceful": he can't just forget about, no matter how hard he has tried. When he says to himself, "O yes, you would", instead of talking about anyone not knowing there was a war on, he says to himself, "O yes" as if it was obvious that he would hear it. He knows that as a soldier, he is different from citizens. In Regeneration, Sassoon expresses a certain distaste for those who were not a part of the war and did not understand it- he felt separated from his own home. Here it is the same- he is surrounded by harmless things- books, moths, clear skies- but anything he thinks about brings him back to the war. "Why, you can hear the guns. Hark! Thud, thud, thud,- quite soft... they never cease- those whispering guns- O Christ, I want to go out and screech at them to stop- I'm going crazy; I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns". While this is only one sentence, he says only phrases in short bursts, showing that he's losing control, and the guns are ever prevalent in his mind, no matter where he is. While he tried to distract himself, he was unsuccessful, and the guns "never cease" that he tenses up- he wants to "screech at them to stop" as he gets angry and loses control. And he finally realizes- the combination of trying to keep everything in, wanting to be in the war, not wanting to be in the war, the rising tension, has made him want to explode. The repetition of the "s" and the "sh" sounds- "soft", "cease", "whispering", "Christ", "screech", "stop", "crazy", "stark", "staring"- reveal the growing pressure within him.

So overall, the poem is him regressing back to his war experience; even though he is out of the war zone, he can never completely leave it. The guns "never cease", and this causes a conflict within him between knowing the horror of the war (eg. parallel to moth's life and "ugly thoughts"), and knowing that there are people out there dying and he should be there too (eg. the crowds of ghosts of those who didn't die from war, something shameful in Sassoon's eyes).

Bough of Nonsense- nonsense indeed

When I say "nonsense indeed", I don't mean it is nonsense- although I may have thought that at first. The poem deals with nonsense, and the way I look at it, it is where Graves talks to himself figuring out that the war is nonsense, and if you think otherwise, well, then that's nonsense (if that makes sense).

So basically, I figured that R. was Robert Graves and S. was Siegfried Sassoon. I think these two are the ones talking with each other not only because they were pretty close and fought together, but because of the relationship the two have. Sassoon was against the war, and I think this poem talks about how nonsensical the war was and it is pretty anti-war-ish. The two learn from each other that the war is not what everyone says it is- it is not something to make sense of (for instance when they talk about the temple dedicated to Sense, and how the roof has come crashing down), but something that is nonsense. I interpreted the temples both as something based on faith (and thus faith has been destroyed) as well as the belief/worship in war (as that has toppled as well). I think is interesting that the poem suggested that if one tried to make sense of the war, using sanity, one would go insane- but as soon as one accepts the nonsense, you reach a certain peace. This is why I think "An Idyll" appears after the title. While the poem is certainly not "a picturesque scene", it is in the context of the war, and in the fact that unlike many other soldiers, it seems as if Sassoon and Robert Graves have reached a restfulness and tranquility- a balance to the chaos of the war. I've analyzed it deeper in the pictures below. There is this constant contrast between what the war is viewed as (or the normality of what it should be eg. worshiped) vs. the nonsense of it (that war in fact is not normal, and that there are skulls and flowers and there is not much difference between the two). So as you look through my thoughts further down, I think I look at the different elements which help create this idea.

Here are some detailed notes I took- following my thoughts and stuff. I think it's pretty readable.

Bulls and steers, all that fun stuff.

Bulls and steers are a major theme in The Sun Also Rises. Not only does each bullfight parallel the events among the group Jake belongs to, but through the description of the bullfights and the way it is written, the relationships between bull, steer, and bullfighter symbolize those of Jake, Brett, Mike, Bill and Cohn.

"The bull, striking into the wood from side to side with his horns, made a great noice. Then I saw a dark muzzle and the shadow of horns, and then, with a clattering on the wood in the hollow box, the bull charged and came out into the corral, [...] his head up, the great hump of muscle on his neck swollen tight, his body quivering as he looked up at the crowd on the stone walls. The two steers backed away against the wall, their heads sunken, their eyes watching the bull" (Hemingway, 143)

This is the first scene describing the bulls and steers. The steers are separate from the bulls, but wish to join them, although they fear the bulls as well. The bulls, on the other hand, are raging creatures who at first attack the steers. In a short paragraph at this website, the connection between sexuality and bull-fighting is made. The bulls represent masculinity, and are described in a sexual manner. So who is a bull? At first, I thought Cohn might be the bull, when Jake describes one as having "a left and a right just like a boxer" (144). However, when a bull pierces one of the steers, and in the end, when "the steer who had been gored had gotten to his feet [...] none of the bulls came near him, and he did not attempt to join the herd" (145). So in this case, Cohn is the steer who failed in his job. I think that it is important that the relationship between a boxer and a bull is made, because it characterizes Cohn. Although Cohn has the physicality of a bull, mentally he does not fit in and this is what creates his situation. He is ostracized and hated by pretty much everyone due to his beliefs. Cohn's resemblance of a steer is clarified when Mike calls him one. Cohn tries too hard to join the herd, to belong; and when he goes too far, he is left out of the group entirely.

The other steer during the running of the bulls would be Jake, I think. For he doesn't belong with the masculinity and sexuality of the bulls, and his body is weak, but he knows how to join the herd. He hangs around people who are more sexually capable than himself, and he replicates a bit of masculinity- enough to join the herd. Actually, this can be compared to Cohn's un-masculinity, how he doesn't fit in with the mindset of it- he never drinks. In the first scene, the steer who would represent Jake is described: "When the next bull came out, all three, the two bull and the steer, stood together, their heads side by side, their horns against the newcomer. In a few minutes the steer picked the new bull up, quieted him down, and made him one of the herd" (145). Not only does Jake join the herd, but he helps steer the bulls- he quiets them, he helps them join together too. This parallels how Jake brought all of them together, and that he is the only one who knew all of the characters before the trip. Also, when Mike starts blabbing towards Cohn about how annoying he is, Jake is the one who will talk to Cohn later. By this the bulls are Mike and Bill, who are strong physically and a part of the group.

So then, who is Brett? In the one scene where Romero kills a bull, not only the bulls are characterized but the bull-fighter: "Romero spoke to the bull and tapped one of his feet. The bull charged and Romero waited for the charge, the muleta held low, sighting along the blade, his feet firm. Then without taking a step forward, he became one with the bull, the sword was in high between the shoulders, the bull had followed the low-swung flannel, that disappeared as Romero lurched clear to the left, and it was over" (224). Brett is much like Romero. She manipulates the bulls, makes them run after her, displaying her flannel (which I think is her beauty) but eventually she ends her sexuality and "kills" those who love her. By this I mean that Brett continually moves from one person to the next, always killing her relationships. She is in control of her life, and she manipulates others. She displays her sexuality for the whole world to see, as Romero does with his bull-fighting. All the men run after her, and in the end, it is their own momentum they create in running after her that kills them. Brett holds the sword, but it is the men that put themselves on it, as the bulls do as they run at the sword.

The only thing I'm not sure about is that Bill does not run after Brett. He does like women, but he doesn't make a fool of himself as everyone else does. Bill helps people get along, sort of like Jake, and so at first I thought he was a steer. But he is a part of the group. But does that make him the blind bull that Romero had trouble with? It sort of makes sense, as during this bull fight Romero is shown in a bad light. Those who do not understand find it distasteful, and all of his pain from the fight with Cohn shown through. Bill, in a way, sees through Brett's sexuality due to witnessing Jake's pain, and perhaps shows her in a bad light. However, Brett doesn't actually "kill" Bill as she does others...

The Top Ten Reasons Why You Want to Be Jake

1. You like to silently insult others to feel better about yourself.
2. You only relate to ex-soldiers.
3. You want to get what you pay for.
4. You like to keep your friendships on convenience.
5. You want to enter the friend zone.
6. You want to observe but not participate.
7. You need to feel like a man.
8. You love bull-fighting.
9. You like to passively socialize in order to remain detached from yourself and others.
10. You like to actively pursue not doing anything.