"A Man May Change" Prose Analysis

The horrors of war are something that everyday civilians cannot grasp. Death and despair may have been common back then, but today people are isolated from these dark images. Nor do they want to see them. These barren environments become one of the causes of change for men. A Man May Change by Marvin Bell examines the reality behind men changing, drawing a comparison to Pat Barker’s book The Ghost Road, which epitomizes the effects of war on men. One of the things that changes the most that often goes unnoticed is the weather.

            The references Marvin makes to nature exemplify the magnitude of change on life. He juxtaposes change to “raining for forty days and nights or . . . the sun bak[ing] the ground for as long” (Bell 13). The level that change is dramatizes means that it the change this poem is discussing is not something that can be easily achieved or overlooked. Change in Bell’s eyes is something that makes it “[not] life, just life, anymore, it’s living.” The author refers to the idea of “life” as something that is routine and unchanging. One can refer to life as just the “regular weather of ordinary days”, but living is change. Living is being able to not know what’s going to happen next and find everyday of life full of color.

            But at the same time, change does not necessarily have to be positive change. Marvin explores this idea during the last few lines of his poem. He states that “it sometimes happens that a man has changed so slowly that he slips away before anyone notices and lives and dies before anyone can find out.” The bleak and morbid ending hints that perhaps man needs an audience to witness his change. Without anybody to compare his degree of change, man dies being remembered as someone who hasn’t achieved peace. The poem also implies that change can be a slow process in which the change of the environment is relatively the same so that a man’s progress might not be noticed. This idea is further explored by Pat Barker, when she references the soldiers who “been home on leave and found home so foreign that [they] couldn’t fit in” (Barker 242). With the war environment providing a stage of violence and death, men can only watch as they become more and more use to it. There comes a time when they forget their past lives and become too attached to where they currently are. Assimilation into war might seem silly, but Barker tries to explain this reality.

            The title “The Ghost Road” symbolizes that comparison to an old lifestyle can reveal change. Before entering the war, the men had high hopes as they walked the country sides, but now they “march all day through utter devastation” (Barker 240). But as those who survive walk back, they must bear the burden of witnessing the “dead horses, unburied men [and] stench of corruption.” The road has become a ghost road in which the life that was once there has gone and vanquished. The harder it is to change a man, the harder it is to change him back. Men have started to “economize on grief” (Barker 241). Meaning they find fortune in pain and morbidity. Likewise, Bell supports this idea when he quotes “as simply as a self-effacing bar of soap escaping by . . . wash water is how a man may change” (Bell 2). Their psychological change leaves a trail like flowing water does. The path that once stood has slipped past the soldiers and washed up reality.

            Change is subtle but the effects are enormous. As shown through Barker’s Life Class, soldiers can get so use to the horrors of war that they abandon their previous lifestyles. Barker uses the environment to convey the feelings of the soldiers similar to how Bell uses nature to juxtapose change. Yet, Bell implies that change can lead a man to his true calling, bad or good, while Barker emphasizes only the dark themes of change. Man is bound to go through life-changing events, but whether the social environment responds to his transformation is ultimately the indication of true change.