A Fable

As the non-linear structure of the novel returns to the moments when the false armistice first broke out, the nature of the corporal’s message becomes clear. The idea of simply refusing to fight is as appealing as it is shocking to the enlisted men who have spent years following orders. The mass refusal of troops to attack is inconceivable to the men who have not spent months listening to the gentle preaching of the corporal and his disciples. For some time, these men have been moving behind the lines of both sides to spread their idea. This idea takes on the property of a contagion that infects everyone who comes into contact with it and reinforces the novel’s theme of Myth and Glory as the men become transient between fronts unharmed. For the officers in charge of the armies, this contagion poses an existential threat. It has the power to radically undermine their position by reminding the men that they can simply choose not to follow orders. If they do so in large enough numbers, the balance of power will tip in their favor. The same contagion which spreads hope among the enlisted men spread anxiety among the officers. Their different reactions to the same idea demonstrate how the war is not necessarily between Germany and France, Britain, and America. Instead, it can be reframed as a Class War in which the officers send the enlisted men to die in the name of the war itself.

The theme of Class War appears again when the German general arrives on the British airbase. After being flanked by Levine and the other British pilots on the way to the base, the General’s plane lands unharmed. On landing, the German general exits the plane to be greeted by his fellow officers. Once out of the plane, he shoots his own pilot. For a German pilot to successfully land an undamaged plane on enemy territory is considered a treasonable offence and, by law, the general is required to shoot his own pilot. He does so without flinching, then precedes to have a meeting with his counterparts on the other side. To the German general, the actions of officers are very different to those of the lower-ranked men. While he believes himself right to shoot the pilot, he sees no hypocrisy in having order the man to land on the base nor in his meeting with his military enemies. He is part of a different class and thus exempt from judgment, while the lower-ranked men are forced to live by different rules.

Levine witnesses the arrival of the German general with confusion. When he takes to the sky and flies alongside the German plane, he is relieved to take part in his first mission. Levine is utterly invested in the officers’ idea of war as a glorious venture and, should he return home without flying a mission, he claims that he would be ashamed. His investment in this idea, however, is as useless as his own tracer rounds. He fires ineffectively at the German general, hoping to achieve glory, unaware that there are far larger stakes at play than his own desires. Levine is an inconsequential man with glorious ambitions. The more he struggles to comprehend what is happening, the more he is struggling with the idea that the war cannot be as glorious as he hoped. His first and only mission involves firing blanks at an enemy plane because he does not understand his place in the theatrics of the war. His belief in war as a glorious venture is as impotent and meaningless as the rounds he fires at the general and the very mission itself. The mission, the one thing which gave his life purpose, is revealed to be a sham and Levine must reckon with the reality that everything he believed is part of a larger theatrical performance, the true meaning of which is denied to him.