How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Each musket ended with a wicked round eye—watching him so it seemed. Eight cruel eyes. It was like looking into the face of death. (9.5.12)
So much like looking into the face of death that Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about it. How does the personification of the muskets make facing them worse? Or does it? Is it an attempt to blame the musket rather than the person firing it?
Quote #8
Johnny had been fearful that Rab would be suffering, crying out, struggling like other wounded men he had seen: afraid that with death so close something of that aloof dignity he had always had would be shattered. He had lived with Rab a year and a half, and yet he had never really known him—not known him inside and out as, say, he had known the hated Dove.
But half-sitting as he was, Rab did not seem at first very different from always. His face was white but not drawn. The eyes very dark and wide. Rab smiled. (12.4.3-4)
For a dying man, Rab doesn't look too bad. In fact, Rab faces death as we would expect him to. Do you agree? How does the way Rab dies correspond to—or break from— descriptions of his character in earlier scenes?
Quote #9
"And some of us would die—so other men can stand up on their feet like men. A great many are going to die for that. They have in the past. They will a hundred years from now—two hundred. God grant there will always be men good enough. Men like Rab." (12.5.17)
What future events might Doctor Warren be referring to, if he could see them? What makes a man (or woman) "good enough" to die?