Sebastien Faulks

Baulks’ novel is very much a social commentary on the problem of war, and he uses many techniques throughout part one to foreshadow what is possibly the most notorious, famous and tragic events of the First World War: the Battle of the Some. With part one being located on the Some, It’s hard to escape the underlying sense that It all points towards this battle, but when the family visit the water gardens, Baulks foreshadows this event In a number of ways.

The first way In which he does this Is through his description of the abundance of them, more precisely: their hectic abundance seemed to him close to the vegetable fertilely of death’. Now, the Battle of the Some Is well documented for the loss of life as a result of It (over people died in total) and this reference to the word death, Is an Important link. As the Battle of the Some was famous for the amount of death that occurred.

In the same paragraph, he says this: The brown waters were murky and shot through with the scurrying of rats from the banks where the earth had been dug out of trenches and held back by elaborate wooden boarding’. As you can probably guess, there are a few different parts of that that are a direct allusion to the Battle. The first of these is his mention of brown, murky waters. One of the biggest problems for soldiers serving in the trenches during all of these big battles was the lack of clean water for drinking, so this phrase, ‘brown waters were murky and shot through’ is a perfect hint towards the Battle.

Another one in this extract is his elaboration on the problem of rats in this part of the river. Rats were quite possibly the most problematic factor in trench airfare, be that in the Battle of the Some or elsewhere, and they carried with them disease, and also helped themselves to soldiers supplies. Now, seeing as they have been mentioned, it is possibly the most explicit example of foreshadowing to the Some, because they were such a huge and notorious problem.

The third, and possibly most obvious, reference from this extract is probably the last part, where he speaks of where the ‘earth had been dug out of trenches and held back by elaborate wooden boarding. The Battle of the Some epitomized trench warfare, it was the cost expansive use of trench warfare the world had ever seen, particularly as It was the longest battle of the First World War. As well as this reference to trenches, there is another similar one on the next page which reads, the rotting of matter Into the turned and dug earth’.

Turned and dug earth Is an allusion to the changing of the ground and landscape that occurs when trenches are dug, so that Is another big reference to the Battle of the Some. In what way does Sebastian Baulks foreshadow the Battle of the Some in his ascription of the water gardens in Birdsong? With part one being located on the Some, it’s hard to escape the underlying sense that it all points towards this battle, but when the family visit the water gardens, Baulks foreshadows this event in a number of ways.

The first way in which he does this is through his description of the abundance of them, more precisely: their hectic abundance seemed to him close to the vegetable fertility of death’. Now, the Battle of the Some is well documented for the loss of life as a result of it (over 1,000,000 people died in total) and this reference to the word death, is an important link, as the same paragraph, he says this: ‘The brown waters were murky and shot through with and held back by elaborate wooden boarding.

As you can probably guess, there are a most expansive use of trench warfare the world had ever seen, particularly as it was there is another similar one on the next page which reads, the rotting of matter into the turned and dug earth’.