Letter between Edward and Helen Thomas 1917

Question 1

“Here I am”

Answer 1

Register is more colloquial and personal
Writing in present tense
Choice of syntax also creates the personal, informal register

Question 2

“The artillery is like a stormy tide breaking on the shores of the full moon”

Answer 2

Synaesthesic smilies (sounds vs physical element)
Coupled with a metaphor of the shores of the full moon

Question 3

“white cirrus clouds”

Answer 3

Alliteration, poetic description removes the reality of the place he’s in and makes Helen feel secure and at ease

Question 4

“The pretty village among trees that I first saw two weeks ago is now just ruins among violated stark tree trunks”

Answer 4

Juxtaposition

Question 5

“O.P” , “the Bosh”, “shells”

Answer 5

Employing semantics of trenches and war without explanation, assuming Helen is familiar with this discourse

Question 6

“he is going to surprise us”

Answer 6

Personalising the germans as a whole, referring to them as singular

Question 7

“shone and larks and partridge and magpies and hedgesparrows”

Answer 7

Semantic of nature

Question 8

“Made love and trench was being made passable for the wounded”

Answer 8

Oxymoronic language

Question 9

“I am tired but resting.”

Answer 9

Short sentence highlighted against previous dramatic description

Question 10

Syntax

Answer 10

Thomas’ syntax also creates the personal, informal register with his sentences being simple or compound, usually structured with co-ordinating conjunctions such as “but” and “and”. The use of simple and compound sentences in most of the text and the asyndeton gives a sense of impressionistic note like observations

Question 11

“Yesterday afternoon”

Answer 11

Uses temporal discourse markers to divide and highlight his non-chronological structure

Question 12

“You should have seen Horton and me dodging them”

Answer 12

Choice of collocations such as “you should have seen” mixed with use of second person convey intimacy with his reader
“dodging” is an aggressive verb

Question 13

“We shall be enormously busy now”

Answer 13

Uses past, present, future tense retrospectively

Question 14

“Violated”, “harvested”

Answer 14

Both surprising lexical choices- harvested is a biblical metaphor

Question 15

“Jolly”

Answer 15

Pragmatics, language change

Question 16

Lexical choices

Answer 16

Generally informal, particularly his use of colloquial, perhaps vague modifiers and verbs

Question 17

“All and always yours Edwy”

Answer 17

Valediction is rushed, familiar form of his name

Question 18

Form

Answer 18

Writes in the form of a prose letter

Written text

Question 19

“Dearest”

Answer 19

warm letter salutation

Question 20

Purpose

Answer 20

Written as a private letter to his wife (even though his letter might have been opened and censored)

Question 21

Context

Answer 21

Thomas was a junior officer in WW1 trenches, in one of the highest risk casualty groups
Produced in extraordinary circumstances as he was close to his own death

Question 22

“moon riding among white cirrus clouds”

Answer 22

Juxtaposition of artillery, balances the sound of artillery and the sights of the trenches

Question 23

“Farewell and God bless you”

Answer 23

Church was extremely important then

Question 24

“Beloved”

Answer 24

Doesn’t need to name or address, she is effectively writing to herself

Question 25

“Darkness and despair”

Answer 25

Alliteration

Question 26

“I saw the Spring come sweet heart. Such a Spring of flowers”

Answer 26

Sibilance- soft sound to the introduction of spring

Semantic of nature

Question 27

“do you remember!”

Answer 27

Exclamative, knows she won’t get an answer from him

Question 28

“touched the moist green grass”

Answer 28

Sensory imagery, reaches to nature to be close to him

Question 29

“Content”

Answer 29

Repetition of content which is ironic as she is not content

Question 30

“This is my fear”

Answer 30

personal pronoun ‘my’

Question 31

“I am so unstable”

Answer 31

Negative, gendered word. Women are unhinged, unstable etc. This fulfils gender stereotypes of the time period

Question 32

“alone, but wonderfully at ease”

Answer 32

Semi- oxymoronic
Alone= loneliness
Ease= content

Question 33

“my beloved, my precious one”

Answer 33

Sense of ownership

Question 34

“Do you”

Answer 34

Repetition, almost fanatic

Question 35

Purpose of postscript

Answer 35

Therapy

Question 36

“your beauty, your beautiful face, your voice, your soul”

Answer 36

Obsessive and sad tone

Question 37

“terror and death”

Answer 37

Tone shifts

Question 38

“cruelty the pain the ugliness of it, the beauty and strength and courage”

Answer 38

Oxymoronic

Question 39

“Never”

Answer 39

Repetition

Question 40

“Farewell”

Answer 40

Final, certain