AP Essay 2009

A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Select a novel or play and, focusing on one symbol, write an essay analyzing how that symbol functions in the work and what it reveals about the characters or themes of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

The qualities and meanings that a character represents is nothing without a setting. A trait displayed through one context can be completely different in another. Well-defined settings are usually used to portray the mood, but when the author uses the environment as a symbol, there is a development of deeper complexity. Pat Barker utilizes the complexion of the post-war setting in The Ghost Road in order to show the mental degeneration of the soldiers, revealing that the horrid memories are permanent. Despite the war being over, there are still unresolved mental causalities of warfare.

            The setting represents the morale and mentality of the soldiers as they trudge through the barren landscapes. Each word description used represents specific feelings felt by the men. Barker starts off by stating that the soldiers “marched all day through utter devastation” (240). From the first line, the author already sets the direction of the passage. There will be almost all negatively connoted description as implied through “utter.” Then the scenery is delved into more deeply with the descriptive sentence: “Dead horses, unburied men, stench of corruption.” By doing so, Barker hones specifically on establishing the relationship between man and the environment, the main symbol. First it describes animals and then men, showing how men have become animals as through war. Then it connects men to corruption, to specifically refer to the soldiers themselves.  Barker describes the idea of “corruption” as a smell to make the emphasis the relation of environment to men. From this short intro, one can already see the established relationship between environment and man that pervades through the rest of the passage. Not only does the setting serve to set the mood, it assumes an identity.

            Environment does not become the mere collection of objects like trees or grass, but a dynamic physical being. Barker suggests that the “land possibly can’t recover” from the horrors and remains of war. The personification of the land gives the author the ability to show the progression of the soldiers. The once “young male vigor” that described the men now becomes “so foreign that we couldn’t fit in.”  With this statement, it shows that the land like men was once healthy.  The land can also acquire a sickness as “It’s Poisoned. Poison’s dripped into it from rotting men, dead horses, gas.” Like all diseases however, poison can be cured. There is a hint of hope it references when it states “it will (the land), of course” recover. This connects to the theme of inability to forget. The evils of the war are always there, like how “Fifty years from now a farmer’ll be ploughing these fields and turn up skulls.” By allowing the setting to act like an entity, the author gives makes the march through the forests more personal and believable. It is easier to create these images of war if the setting relates easier to the audience. If one can feel the emotions of the landscape, then the meaning of the work illuminates better. One cannot sneak to rid themselves of the past. They can only try to hide it.

            The theme is advanced even more with the description of the abandoned German tunnel system. Although it is completely safe for the allied soldiers to wander about, the troops are “slightly nervous about these tunnels” (Barker 241). Here, like the environment of the ravaged country side, fighting has ended but the after effects of war still exist. The tunnels play more on the mental degeneration of soldiers because they do not possess “a rational fear.” Rather, “it’s something to do with children whom the Pied Piper . . . or Rip Van Winkle” (Barker 241-242). At this point, it becomes clear, the soldiers are no longer how they once were. War is so influential that it causes trained soldiers to fear such childish fairy tales. The setting serves to reinforce the situation of the soldiers. In this case, it is used symbolically to represent settings of these fairy tales. Like the “remains of an elaborate German system,” the fear persists even after the war, meaning that these memories are forever ingrained in those who behold them. From the latter half of the journal entry, one can see that the environment is changeable and inconsistent. Often times the mood matches the connotation given off by the surrounding scenes. Setting helps to compliment what is already established.

            War will always exist even if there is no violence. In mental and psychological states, people find themselves at battle more so than with the enemy. Pat Barker captures this using the land as a symbol to represent the mood of men. The environmental state parallels that of the soldiers. War causes the land to be ravaged, but ultimately repairable. Yet, however much is done to bury the past, it cannot be erased.