Graves goodbye to all that. Goodbye to All That Analysis 2022-11-16
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"Goodbye to All That" is an autobiographical essay written by Robert Graves, a British poet and novelist. In the essay, Graves reflects on his experience as a soldier during World War I and the lasting effects that the war had on him.
The essay begins with Graves describing his initial enthusiasm for joining the military, fueled by a sense of patriotism and the romanticized idea of war that was prevalent at the time. He writes about the grueling physical training and the camaraderie that he experienced with his fellow soldiers.
However, Graves's optimism is quickly shattered when he is sent to the front lines of the war. He writes about the horrors that he witnesses, including the death and injury of his comrades and the constant threat of his own mortality. He also reflects on the psychological toll that the war took on him, as he struggled to come to terms with the atrocities that he had seen and participated in.
Despite the trauma that he experienced during the war, Graves ultimately decides to return to the front lines after being injured and recovering. He writes about the sense of duty that he felt towards his country and his fellow soldiers, even in the face of overwhelming fear and despair.
In the final sections of the essay, Graves reflects on the aftermath of the war and its impact on his life. He writes about his difficulty in readjusting to civilian life and his disillusionment with the idea of war and patriotism. He also writes about the lasting physical and psychological wounds that he and many other soldiers carried with them after the war.
"Goodbye to All That" is a powerful and poignant reflection on the devastating effects of war on individuals and society. Through his candid and honest writing, Graves brings to life the horrors and sacrifices of war, as well as the lasting impact that it can have on those who experience it.
Goodbye to All That: Robert Graves and the Great War
I divided up the money and I burned the diary. We had no picture of what the trenches would be like, and were not far off the state of mind in which one young soldier joined us a week or two later. However, Graves is also both distant and elusive. So the great value of Graves's anti-war memoir is that, as a Captain in a Welch regiment, he had no clue about, and thus does not write about, the larger strategy of the war. We observe his path back toward mental stability, growth toward maturity and an understanding of himself.
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves: 9781101907986
A second example of the impetuousness of youth follows a few pages on, when on holiday with his mother and sisters in Switzerland, Graves for some unaccountable reason decided to find out what skiing down the hard ice of a skeleton-bob run was like. Graves's intense friendship with Sassoon changed the direction of his war experience, and it is interesting that, even writing after a falling-out, that still comes through in this novel. A person can study psychology and read in a textbook about post traumatic stress disorder, but this book is so much better. A good title, if you ask me! You'll find five hundred francs there too. He confines his pen to tactics, and the tactics he observed are damning.
Graves lived in Majorca until his death at the age of 90 in 1985. His original intention was simply to write a personal history of his experience in the war, and in a way this goes above and beyond the myriad textbooks and second-hand histories on the subject — here we feel as if we are in the trenches with Graves, but we also shake our head at the stupidity of commanders, and learn of the somewhat darker aspects of the war such as the suspected British atrocities, and also how French women could make a packet working as prostitutes for about six months. It was a horrific, life changing experience and that was all. After being wounded in the lung by a shell blast, he endured a squalid five-day train journey with unchanged bandages. Occasionally on a quiet day in a quiet sector the chaplain would make a daring afternoon visit to the support line and distribute a few cigarettes, and that was all. Graves caustically notes that such expensive tea will have to be paid for by increased taxation in peacetime p113. If the regimental chaplains had shown one tenth the courage, endurance, and other human qualities that the regimental doctors showed, we agreed, the British Expeditionary Force might well have started a religious revival.
Proceed, but with realistic expectations. And I know that you're going to be all right. This war is a booger. Graves, you lie down and have a doss on that bunk. So I put the torch back in my pocket.
So the great value of Graves's anti-war memoir is that, as a Captain in a Welch regiment, he had no clue about, and thus does not write about, the larger strategy of the war. And we could hear a shell coming and take some sort of cover, but the rifle bullet gave no warning. There was a sudden crash. This meant he had a very difficult time at public school Charterhouse as war with Germany gradually became inevitable. If they had shown one-tenth the courage, endurance, and other human qualities that the regimental doctors showed, we agreed, the British Expeditionary Force might well have started a religious revival.
A sergeant of the Royal Irish Rifles had been giving a little unofficial instruction before the proper instructor arrived. I had my first direct experience of official lying when I arrived at Le Havre in May 1915, and read the back-files of army Orders at the rest camp. In it Graves, for instance, is called David Cromlech, and Dunn is Captain Munro. Graves found it very difficult to alter his feelings on this subject, while also feeling shame about it, and his description of his life at Charterhouse feels very much like an attempt to come to terms with his confused sexuality and lay blame over it. But is it really all that? Passing through his shoulder and chest, it seriously injured his right lung. It takes strength and great courage to speak out, as Graves has done.
Miller used to be pointed at in the streets when the battalion was back in reserve billets. Sassoon saw such publication a betrayal. Graves and Sassoon had been friends, and came to know each other better during convalescence, but when Sassoon chose to publicly repudiate the war in 1917 and call for the government to work to some peace with Germany, an offense which was against the code of military conduct, and could result in a court martial, Graves along with a psychiatrist, W. The book's light moments rely on a satire of manners that plays to his immense vanity; the rich details of a catered life flesh out various sketches — every faux pas made, the style of the place settings, his illustrious friends and family, the weave of the many strings he pulls. Instead of the usual music-hall songs they sang Welsh hymns, each man taking a part.
You get to know a very interesting person and Graves has important things to share with us about the First World War and more. In May 1915 he was sent to France. It is usually categorized as a memoir, but there is probably more fiction in it than fact. But he was always in evidence back in rest-billets. This book proved very popular with the public, but, perhaps, the best way to understand it is to understand that it was not entirely written for the public.
Only survivors have great reputations. Dunn too took Graves to task for his memoir. Each of the three books mentions the authors of the other two, sometimes giving different perspectives on the same events. As an aside on Egypt and Feminism he visits the house of a Greek family, one of the daughters tells him that in another twenty years the women of Egypt would control everything. During initial military training in England, he received an electric shock from a telephone that had been hit by lightning, which caused him for the next twelve years to stammer and sweat badly if he had to use one.
