One quote from the “Blind” chapter really stuck out to me. It’s the one that starts with “I see it all through a mist” on page 101 and ends with “We are one body, suffering and bleeding” on page 102. It captures how shared this experience is between everyone in the novel. Borden acknowledges that they’re going through a horrifying experience that has left them numb and confused in a way, hence the “mist,” but she’s “never been so close before to human beings.” Whether she personally knows these soldiers or not, she feels that she knows what they’re going through and can read what they’re “saying” through their facial expressions. Reading this part and thinking about this solidarity also made me think about the collective experience people have gone through during tragedies in the modern era, especially the American people after 9/11. This war brought some people together but also tore the world apart–the ultimate irony when it comes to thinking about solidarity.
Literature of the Great War
ENGL 348. Fall 2018. Dr. Scanlon.
I think this solidarity is important because she is acknowledging the fact that all these complete strangers that have experienced the same horrific events are the only ones who understand each other. They have to have each other’s backs and they have to help each other get through the next big battle of getting through the war and then going back into normal society. This part also really struck me because for once it was a moment of being all together, being as one body collectively together and not a broken body or pieces of bodies that we have seen in almost every book we have read this semester. Though it is sad, it was a nice change from the broken body image.