War! What is it good for? According to the men running the show in the second half of The Wanting Seed, war isn't just good for something, it's GREAT for two things: keeping the population down, and keeping up a steady supply of corpses to be sold to enterprising canning-factory owners worldwide. If your people have to die anyway, what better way than to send them off with glory, honor, and a deep sense of national pride?
Questions About Warfare
- What inspired the onset of Perpetual Peace in The Wanting Seed?
- In The Wanting Seed, what instruments of war is the new British Army willing to use? What won't it use?
- Are all representations of war in The Wanting Seed satirical? Does the novel suggest that certain kinds of war are more justifiable than others?
Chew on This
In The Wanting Seed, romanticism about war is depicted as a great evil. The novel suggests that it is morally corrupt to idealize death in battle, and to teach young men and women to do the same.
Although The Wanting Seed alludes to real-life historical wars, it does not describe any of them in positive terms. Ultimately, the novel critiques any notion of a "just" war, and suggests instead that wars simply benefit those who supply the munitions.