"La Guerre, Yes Sir!"

Book Review # 114219

English > Analysis
Literature > French

An analysis of the theme of violence in Roch Carrier's "La Guerre, Yes Sir!".

1,205 words () | 4 sources | MLA | 2009 Canada

Paper Summary:

Violence is a dominant theme in Roch Carrier's "La Guerre, Yes Sir!". Carrier presents his readers with various kinds of violence including personal, parental, sexual, and cultural. This essay will briefly consider the various types of violence Carrier explores, responding to Nancy Bailey's argument that "La Guerre, Yes Sir!" portrays the victory of life over death.

From the Paper:

"From the first page of Carrier's novel, the reader is confronted with violence. We read that Joseph, in order to escape the war, has cut off one of his hands. The axe "crashed down between the wrist and the hand, which leap into the snow and was slowly drowned in his blood" (Carrier 8). This act of personal violence - violence committed against the self - is not without certain, and perhaps unforeseen, benefits. "The cloudy window separating [Joseph] from life gradually became very clear, transparent" (8). With this sentence, Carrier initiates a significant theme in his book: violence and death help one to understand and to feel life potently. Nancey Bailey notes that "the strange, stimulating presence of death [is] a means to authentic existence in life itself" (1). "

Sample of Sources Used:

Bailey, Nancy I. "The Corriveau Wake: Carrier's Celebration of Life." Reprinted in ENGL 432: Modern Canadian Fiction: Supplementary Readings. Burnaby: OLA, 1998. 1-5.
Carrier, Roch. La Guerre, Yes Sir! Trans. Sheila Fischman. Toronto: House of Anansi Press Inc., 2004.
Gerson, Carol. "Unit 6: La Guerre, Yes Sir!" Revised Fifth Ed. Engl 432: Modern Canadian Fiction. Burnaby, OLA, 1998.
Northey, Margot. "Sportive Grotesque: La Guerre, Yes Sir!" Reprinted in ENGL 432: Modern Canadian Fiction: Supplementary Readings. Burnaby: OLA, 1998. 1-6.