January 26th, 2026

Before we get into the day let me just say that I have no real excuse for being so damn late with these posts except that I got lost in the sauce that is school. Not in the good, productive way, but in the burnout type way where I am just sad all the time, like my motivation i just completely shot, the only thing I am enjoying is season 2 of The Pitt. Oh well. I’ll get over it hopefully. Let’s get on with these posts that I am super behind on.

So today we continued to talk about WWI and the novel by Rebecca West. We had a short discussion at the beginning of the class, delving into the characters’ classism.

So there was a gap between expectations and the reality of WWI. Most of you know this so I will go through it quickly. There was this belief that the war would play out like the ones of old, where man to man combat was the norm. People thought the war would be over by Christmas. Obviously that didn’t happen. Everyone was of equal strength and the weapons were better than ever meaning trenches were required. It also meant that the front lines would not move much at all. It was a filthy and awful war what with all the gas attacks and lack of penicillin, the only comfort people had was camaraderie with fellow soldiers.

WWI was also the first industrialized war where everyone, including those at home, were mobilized. There was censorship galore, ensuring that people at home did not know what the hell was happening, but soldiers’ letters made it through telling loved ones of their reality on the front. This was the time where modern propaganda was created. Women and children were used in propaganda posters to demonize the enemy. We were shown these posters and they were the same ones I was shown in my Modern Europe history class many semester ago. Women were encouraged to ration food and learn how to can.

The armistice was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918. A ceasefire was negotiated, there was no ending battle or official retreat. People died right up until the end because they were told to. So much death and for what?

The war did contribute to culture. The book we just read, Return of the Soldier, and All Quiet on the Western Front were made as well as other pieces of art. People were also turned into pessimists, they became disenchanted with the world. Scientific advancements were used for improving human lives while also being used to cause death in the war. This is when psychology and Freud’s psychoanalysis became more popular, before it was quite fringe.

We ended the class by briefly getting into Sigmund Freud and his whole deal regarding humans being governed by their sex and death drives. Most of this section was actually getting into how the doctor that actually has the solution to healing Chris’ ailment (shellshock) is someone who is trained in psychoanalysis and is not looked at with respect due to him looking lower class and less professional. So another piece of commentary on classism.

There are a few more days left of WWI stuff as we had to watch the 1979 movie of All Quiet on the Western Front and then we will get into James Baldwin.