Discussion Questions

April 4, 2006

1. Is the difficulty for us today to adequately understand the  WWI period and experience due to what Winter argues is the "banalization of violence"?  Is it due to other things, or do you agree at all that we can't adequately understand the WWI experience?  Is Winter's argument for the banalization of violence accurate for today?
2. Do you agree with Winter that the story of WWI is "idealism betrayed"?
3. In looking at the casualty figures, do you think that you view them differently than you did at the beginning of the term?  If so, how and why?  What accounts for a difference, if there is one?
4. Why has McCrae's poem seemingly become the defining poem of WWI in terms of the dead and remembrance?
5. What has been the impact of the war on the years that have followed the end of the war?
6. What is the myth of the dead?  What do McCrae, the war cemeteries, and the letter from a driver at the front, say about the myth?

    

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