Analyzing R. Kipling's The War in the Mountains: Themes and Narratives

R. Kipling The War in the Mountains Group 4: Cadenaro M, Contin L, Cumm G, De Paoli A, Mauri A. 5ALS Polo Liceale A. Einstein

PROJECT AIM Analysis of the idea of war and of soldiers in R.Kipling s The War in the Mountains The War in the Mountains Steps: 1. Analysis of R.Kipling s text Objects of analysis Narrator, register, narration (telling / showing), lexis and tone, overall effect 2. Comparative analysis between the English and the Italian version 3. Discovery of R. Kipling s idea of war

What is The War in the Mountains ? It is a collection of R.Kipling s articles about the Italian front during the First World War Written in 1917 at the invitation of British Ambassador Sir Rennel Rodd The articles include: The Roads of an Army; Podgora; A Pass, a King, and a Mountain; Only a few steps higher up; The Trentino Front.

Our expectations Fear Tunnel Sacrifice Death Courage Experience The The W War ar in the in the M Mountains ountains Trenches Front Cold Stone Weapons Alpines

What is the idea of war in The Roads of an Army? War is seen as a machine where everyone has to play their role. Topic: War is based on the principle of rapid communications. Structure: article and argumentative text. NOT CLEAR Introduction: R.Kipling shows and describes the three major Italian s fronts On the first, the Isonzo front, our On the second, the Trentino, our Those are the Julian Alps there troops can walk, though the walking troops must climb and mountaineer we fight, also is not good and the Italian troops. They are a hard people habituated to The innumerable grey-green troops They seem more supple in their handling hard stuffs, and, I should in the bright fields moved collective movements and less loaded imagine, with a sense of property as sympathetically among the crops down with haberdashery than either keen as the Frenchman s. French or British troops.

What is the idea of war in The Roads of an Army? Development: R. Kipling illustrates the work made by the Italian soldiers One of them only a few feet lower than we stood had been taken and lost six times. 'They cleared us out with machine- guns from where we are now,' said the officer, 'so we had to capture this higher point first. It cost a good deal. 'They are working up the steep side of the ridge, but they might have warned us! The Carso the Carso, for a spade's depth below the surface the unkindly stone turns to sullen rock, and everything must be drilled and blasted out. For the moment, because spring had been wet, the stones were greened over with false growth of weeds which wither utterly in the summer, leaving the rocks to glare and burn alone And tells about the death There were many fights. Whole regiments lie there - and there - and there. Some of them died in the early days when we made war without roads, some of them died afterwards, when we had the roads but the Austrians had the guns. Some of them died at the last when we beat the Austrians As the poet says, the battle is won by the men who fall. God knows how many mothers' sons sleep along the river before Gradisca in the shadow of the first ridge of the wicked Carso. Narration Narration: Mostly showing, rarely telling???, the Italian s war scenery. Tone Tone: a tone of admiration in contrast with the ordinariness that connotes the soldiers

What is the idea of war in The Roads of an Army? R.Kipling is impressed by the work of the Italian people, troops and soldiers Each few hundred yards, and old man and a young boy worked together, the one with a long spade, the other with a tin pot at the end of a pole. The instant that any wear showed in the surface, the elder padded the hollow with a spoonful of metal, the youth sluiced it. Half-a-dozen embrasures gave light through thirty feet of rock. 'These are some of the new gun-positions,' said the officer. 'For six-inch guns perhaps! Perhaps for eleven. ''And how'd you get eleven-inch guns up here?' I asked. He smiled a little - I learned the meaning of that smile up in the mountains later. 'By hand,' said he He describes the Italian army formed by hard people and make comparisons with the other countries troops: They are a hard people habituated to handling hard stuffs, and, I should imagine, with a sense of property as keen as the Frenchman s. The flavour of mules, burning fuels, and a procession of high-wheeled Sicilian carts, their panels painted with Biblical stories, added to the Eastern illusion. If the Matoppos had married the Karroo they might have begotten some such abortion of stone-speckled, weather- hacked dirt. They seem more supple in their collective movements and less loaded down with haberdashery than either French or British troops.

What is the idea of war in The Roads of an Army? Comparison Comparison English and English and Italian version Italian version The Italian version is more praising than the English one, there are no other significant differences: in ogni altra parte esse debbono pure inerpicarsi e fare dell alpinismo where the enemy comes nearest to our plains, our troops must climb and mountaineer They are a hard people Loro sono un popolo tenace

What is the idea of war in Podgora? R.Kipling shows/tells? the reader the different way of living at the Austro-Italian front, over Mount Podgora, in Gorizia and along the ridges. War needs the collaboration of everyone involved. Topic: Kipling describes the Italian way of living around Podgora and Gorizia. Topic: Narrative technique Narrative technique: First person narrative text. Introduction: Podgora, the mountain of mud, is a little Gibraltar about eight hundred feet high, almost sheer on one side, overlooking the town of Gorizia, which, in civil life, used to be a sort of stuffy Cheltenham for retired Austrian officers. What Podgora is, where it is placed, who is settled on it and how citizens and soldiers lived in it. R.Kipling walks with the regiment by the roads built by the italian soldiers. If all the setting were not so lovely, if the lights, the leafage, the blossom, and the butterflies mating on the grassy lips of old trenches were not allowed to insult the living workmen of death, their work would be easier to describe without digressions.

What is the idea of war in Podgora? Development: R.Kipling arrives in Gorizia and sees the chaffeurs driving skills and their ability in building roads through the mountains. Are all Italian born driving motors? .. No, but we, too, have been at the game for a long time. I expect all the bad chaffeurs had been killed . When he arrives on top of the Mountain, he sees the big amount of cannons and gunnery that the army had placed there. And here were batteries upon batteries of the heaviest pieces, so variously disposed and hidden that finding one gave you no clue to the next. Tone: R.Kipling uses a tone that is mostly admiring of Italian soldiers work.

What is the idea of war in Podgora? Conclusion: Even if Italian people/soldiers? had different roles depending on the place where they were settled, in the text they are always connoted as strong men, skillful and expert of alpine climate. They are hard people, these Latins, who have had to fight the mountains and all that is in them, metre by metre, The Italian version sounds more praising than the English one, especially in the use of lexis: IT IT Vi erano nella citt alcune centinaia di borghesi, che non ritenevano ancora opportune di allontanarsi, perch in questi frangenti l italiano tenace quanto il francese. EN EN There are several hundred civilians in the city who have not yet cared to move, for the Italian is as stubborn in these things as the Frenchman.

What is the idea of war in A Pass, a King and a Mountain? Topic: The regiment located on the mountains and the means of transport. Text type? Structure: Argumentative text?/Narrative????? Introduction: R.Kipling describes the landscape and the dialogue with a commandant. Meanwhile, the Commandant pointed out its beauties, for it was his possession, you see, by right of eminent domain, and he dispensed the high, the low, and the middle justice over it.

What is the idea of war in A Pass, a King and a Mountain? Development Description of the vehicles, the roads, the building techniques and the work of Italian soldiers. 'Believe me, we do not lay one stone more than we have to. You are seeing the roads in spring. We make them for winter in the mountains. They must be roads to stand everything. From the wire rope and its cradle, to the mule who carries two hundred pounds, to the five-ton lorry or the cart, to the rail-head, is the way of it for every ounce of weight that travels up or down this battle-front. Except the big guns. They arrive at their proper place by the same means that Rome was built.

What is the idea of war in A Pass, a King and a Mountain? Tone: R. Kipling seems to admire and praise the hard work of the Italians Conclusion: The writer describes the sounds of the war and their effects on the people But it was most awful when it died down to a dumbed beat no louder than the pulse of blood in one's ears after a climb, or that hint which a mountain-slide might give before it chose to move into action on its own. A very little thing starts an avalanche when the snow is ripe for it. Perhaps a rifle shot. And yet,' he added grimly, 'we must go on and shake all this atmosphere with our guns. Listen!

What is the idea of war in A Pass, a King and a Mountain? Comparison with the Italian version The English version is more effective than the Italian one, due to the use of a lot of alliterations and rhetorical figures of sound. Esse si avviticchiavano al versante del monte su archi calcestruzzo; erano rivestite e foderate, per trenta o quaranta piedi in gi , da opere di muratura a punta; protette in alto da scarpate, che spuntavano fuori dalla roccia stessa e ancor pi in alto, ad un quarto di miglio, da muri ad ala, per dividere o far deviare le incerte frane di neve ed i ciottoli rotolanti dall alto. They clung to the hillside on hanging arches of concrete, they were riveted and sheathed thirty or forty feet down with pointed masonry; protected above by stonewallings that grew out of the rock itself, and above that again, by wing walls to part and divert uneasy snow-slides or hopping stones a quarter of a mile uphill. pendenti fatti in

What is the idea of war in Only a few steps higher up? War is seen as an intimate experience. Topic: The Alpine regiment Structure: Argumentative textNOOOO Their talk is the slang of mountains, with a special word for every mood and state of snow, ice, or rock, as elaborately particular as a Zulu's talk when he is describing his cattle. Introduction: description of the Alpine regiment valued for their youth and experience For a special job, specialists, but for all jobs, youth above everything! They wear a smash hat adorned with one eagle feather (worn down to an honourable stump, now); the nails upon their boots resemble, and are kept as sharp as, the fangs of wolves; their eyes are like our airman's eyes; their walk on their own ground suggests the sea. and a more cheery set of hard-bitten, clean-skinned, steady-eyed young devils I have never yet had the honour to meet.

What is the idea of war in Only a few steps higher up? Development: Juxtaposition between Alpines and narrator: They took me by car above the timber-line on the edge of the basin, to the steep foot of a dominant rock wall which I had seen approaching, for hours back, along the road. Twenty or thirty miles away the pillared mass of it had looked no more than implacably hostile - much as Mont Blanc looks from the lake. [ ] Every monstrous detail of its face, etched by sunshine through utterly clear air, crashed upon the sight at once, overwhelming the mind as a new world might, wearying the eye as a gigantically enlarged photograph does. We are working a few steps higher up the road. It is only a few steps. I looked up again between the towering snowbanks. There were not even wrinkles on the face of the mountain now, but horrible, smooth honey-coloured thumbs and pinnacles, clustered like candle-drippings round the main core of unaffected rock, and the whole framing of it bent towards me. It isn't quite finished, so if you'll sit on this mule, we'll take you the last few steps, only a few steps higher. Narration: mostly telling that moves to showing when he (WHO?) explains the Alpine s work. Tone: Joyous tone of the Alpines juxtaposed to R.Kipling s admiring tone.

What is the idea of war in Only a few steps higher up? Conclusion: Alpines see war as ordinary, while Kipling sees their actions as heroic. Alpines see war as ordinary, while Kipling sees their actions as heroic. The last I saw of the joyous children was a cluster of gnome-like figures a furlong overhead, standing, for there was no visible foothold, on nothing. [ ] Those rounds must be taken in every weather and light; that is, made at eleven thousand feet, with death for company under each foot, and the width of a foot on each side, at every step of the most uneventful round. [ ] these are a few of the risks they face going from and returning to the coffee and gramophones at the Mess, 'in the ordinary discharge of their duties . A turn of the downward road shut them and their world from sight - never to be seen again by my eyes, but the hot youth, the overplus of strength, the happy, unconsidered insolence of it all, the gravity, beautifully maintained over the coffee cups, but relaxed when the band played to the enemy, and the genuine, boyish kindness, will remain with me. But, behind it all, fine as the steel wire ropes, implacable as the mountain, one was conscious of the hardness of their race. Austrians Austrians are are not not seen as an enemy to destroy, but only as inferior: seen as an enemy to destroy, but only as inferior: And now would I, please, come and listen to a little music from their band? It lived on the rock ledges - and it would play the Regimental and the Company March; but - one of the joyous children shook his head sadly - 'those Austrians aren't really musical. No ear for music at all. [ ] I told you they had no taste,' said a young faun on a rock shelf; 'still, it shows the swine have a conscience.

What is the idea of war in Only a few steps higher up? Comparison English and Italian version The Italian version is more solemn than the Englishone frequent repetitions, different syntax ???, expressions and lexis. Per un lavoro speciale son necessari, bene inteso, gli specialisti; ma per tutti i lavori occorre la giovinezza su ogni altra cosa! For a special job, specialists, but for all jobs, youth above everything! [ ] che ha una parola adatta per significare ogni a- spetto e ogni capriccio della neve, del ghiaccio e della roccia;essi vi parlano con tanta esattezza di ogni pi minuto particolare, da sembrare gli stessi Zul , allorch vi descrivono la qualit del loro bestiame. [ ] with a special word for every mood and state of snow, ice, or rock, as elaborately particular as a Zulu's talk when he is describing his cattle. Our real work is a little higher up - only a few steps,' they urged. But I recalled that it was Dante himself who says how bitter it is to climb up and down other people's stairs. Il nostro vero lavoro trovasi un po pi in su, soltanto di pochi passi, essi insistevano. Ma io mi rammentai che fu Dante stesso che disse: ...e com e duro calle lo scendere e l salir per l altrui scale .

What is the idea of war in The Trentino front? War is a negative event but it has been useful to build Italy. Topic: The danger of the Trentino front. Structure: Argumentative text.NOOOO Introduction: Description of the Trentino Front and references to events that marked the history of the territory. That's the Trentino. Garibaldi's volunteers were in full possession of it in our War of Independence. Prussia was our ally then against Austria, but Prussia made peace when it suited her - I'm talking of 1864 - and we had to accept the frontier that she and Austria laid down. The Italian frontier is a bad one everywhere - Prussia and Austria took care of that - but the Trentino section is specially bad.

What is the idea of war in The Trentino front? Development: The difficulty of fighting on the Trentino front due to its physical structure and natural factors. mist is mentioned many times: Mist wrapped the plateau we were climbing. Scotch moors, red uplands, scarred with trenches and punched with shell-holes, a confusion of hills without colour and, in the mist, almost without shape, rose and dropped behind us. A good deal. And on that mountain across the gorge - but the mist won't let you see it - our men fought for a week - mostly without water. The mist thickened around us, and the far shoulders of mountains, and the suddenly-seen masses of men who loomed out of it and were gone. We headed upwards till the mists met the clouds, by a steeper road than any we had used before. The mists obscured among them.

What is the idea of war in The Trentino front? Conclusion: The formation of Italy is also the aim and resultof war efforts. Add to this the consciousness of the New Italy created by its own immense efforts and necessities - a thing as impossible as dawn to express in words or to miss in the air - and one begins to understand what sort of future is opening for this oldest and youngest among the nations. The English version, compared to the Italian one, makes it easier for the reader to understand the hostility of the Trentino front and the war resorting to repetition of raw sounds and the use of personification Scendemmo per una montagna frantumata di macerie, dalla cima alle falde, ma che conservava ancora, come rughe sulla fronte, le sagome di trincee che avevano seguito i suoi contorni. Uno stretto e basso fossato, (poteva essere stato un condotto d acqua) scorreva verticalmente sull altura, tagliando ad angolo retro le trincee scolorate. We descended a mountain smashed into rubbish from head to heel, but still preserving the outline, like wrinkles on a forehead, of trenches that had followed its contours. A narrow, shallow ditch (it might have been a water-main) ran vertically up the hill, cutting the faded trenches at right angles.

Conclusion What is the idea of war in Kipling s text? R.Kipling s idea of war is contradictory His idea is mostly positive, but from our analysis negative aspects come to surface, too intimate experience everyone has a role to follow creates another world War won by the ones who fall fallen ones are heroes useful unifying