Birdsong paragraph analysis

“Jack crawled back into the darkness, feet first, where Evans helped him regain his position and passed him the spade. He sank it into the earth ahead of him, feeling glad of the resumption of mechanical toil. Evans’ grubbing hands worked invisibly beside him. Towards the end of his shift he began to imagine things. He thought for a second that he was standing in the lighted bar of a London pub, holding up his beer glass to the lamp, looking at the big gilt mirror behind the bar. The bright reflection made him blink, and the flickering of his eyes brought back the reality of the clay wall ahead of him. Evans’ hand scraped. Jack struck out ahead of him again, his arms grinding in their joints.”

I believe that this paragraph is particularly effective in conveying setting and atmosphere. However, it does also convey character to a certain extent. Without deliberately revealing any personal details about Jack it informs the reader that he works underground has links with London. Although these are very simple details, they are by no means insignificant as they are two of the focal points of his character. The paragraph conveys setting by combining the description of the intensity of Jack’s work with the physical description of his surroundings. The word darkness is used to describe the tunnel. The meaning of the word is emphasised by its simplicity which gives the effect of the bare, simple tunnel. This is followed up when the metaphor ‘mechanical toil’ is used to describe Jack’s digging work. This gives the impression that Jack and the other work like machines. After this Evans’ hands are described as working invisibly. This reiterates the sheer darkness of the tunnel. Juxtaposition is used to link the tunnel with a pub in London. This is used to emphasise the stark contrast between the tunnel and normal life in the pub in London. The paragraph creates atmosphere by portraying the sheer tedium of the digging process in the tunnel. The process is described as ‘mechanical toil’ which gives the reader the impression that it is dull in similar ways that a mechanical process is dull. Also the fact that Jack’s mind wanders in such a bizarre way shows the work very monotonous and does not require any real concentration or thought.

Jack Firebrace

In the opening two chapters of part two of Birdsong, Jack Firebrace is used to represent the everyman character. In this instance, the everyman man image that he represents is that of the average British man out serving his country in the trenches of France. Like many of the other men, Jack has a family back home in England and is very aware that he may never see them again. However unlike many of the other men in France, he is not serving with the infantry. He is serving with a group of men who are all specialist minors who signed up for this purpose.

The inclusion of Jack Firebrace as a character within the novel provides a contrast between the upper and lower classes. In Birdsong, the upper class is represented through Stephen Wraysford whilst the lower, working classes are represented by Jack. The fact that the two men are serving alongside each other in the trenches allows the reader to see the direct contrast between the two classes.