How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
'Why are we fighting? We're fighting because we're soldiers. That's simple enough, isn't it? For what cause are we fighting? Simple again. We're fighting to protect our country, and, in a wider sense, the whole of the English-Speaking Union. From whom? No concern of ours. Where? Wherever we're sent. Now, Foxe, I trust all this is perfectly clear. (5.2.16)
After being tricked into joining the British Army, Tristram works as a Sergeant Instructor until he is reprimanded for teaching the soldiers to ask critical questions about the army and the "war." How does this "no questions asked" policy compare to the State propaganda that helped keep people in line at the beginning of the novel?
Quote #8
Was war, then, the big solution after all? Were those crude early theorists right? War the great aphrodisiac, the great source of world adrenaline, the solvent of ennui, Angst, melancholia, accidia, spleen? War itself a massive sexual act, culminating in a detumescence which was not mere metaphorical dying? War, finally, the controller, the trimmer and excisor, the justifier of fertility?
Although Tristram entertains these questions, he cannot accept that their answer is yes. For him, war remains an unjustifiable act of violence and brutality.
Quote #9
With great difficulty he heaved the corpse off his stomach on to the trench-floor; it groaned, collapsing. Fearful, he crawled away sorely to whimper alone, the smell of the monstrous smoked-bacon breakfast still swirling above. His sobs started up irrepressibly; soon he was howling with despair and horror, seeing, as if the darkness were a mirror, his own wretched screwed face, tongue licking the tears, the lower lip thrust out quivering with anger and hopelessness. (5.8.26)
Although Tristram himself never entertains a romantic vision of war, he's still overwhelmed by the real horrors of the battlefield. Far from the kind of glorious, honorable battle that the lorry driver imagines, the trench warfare that Tristram experiences is lighting-swift, chaotic, and totally puke-worthy.