Christine (book) - Christine As Propaganda

Christine As Propaganda

Christine, while playing on the existing prejudices against the Germans, was also a small part of a larger British plan to induce the United States into entering the Great War. Other sections of this British plan included the Bryce Commission (also known as the Committee on Alleged German Outrages), the propaganda surrounding Edith Cavell and Gilbert Parker, and the Zimmerman Telegram.

World War I began in the summer of 1914, and the original combatants were Austria and Germany versus Serbia, Russia, France, and England. The original plan of the Germans, the Schlieffen Plan, called for the German troops to march through Belgium to penetrate the French border and capture Paris, and collapse the French government within three to four weeks. The previously neutral Belgium fought back against the German soldiers as they were marching through the country, leading to the failure of the Schlieffen Plan and violent attacks against the Belgian people. The atrocities in Belgium led to British involvement and eventually the British government sought assistance from the United States who had been skeptical about entering European wars up to that point. Christine was published in 1917, the same year the British convinced the United States to enter the war.

The novel utilized the rhetorical framework laid out by Aristotle that focused on pathos, ethos, and logos as a means to persuade the audience. Von Arnim mostly appeals to Pathos in the letters, which focuses on and plays on the emotions of the audience. Then novel’s introduction begins with a sentimental summary of the supposed origin of the letters:

“My daughter Christine, who wrote me these letters, died at a hospital in Stuttgart on the morning of August 8th, 1914, of acute double pneumonia. I have kept the letters private for nearly three years, because, apart from the love in them that made them sacred things in days when we each still hoarded what we had of good, they seemed to me, who did not know the Germans and though of them, as most people in England for a long while thought, without any bitterness and with a great inclination to explain away and excuse, too extreme and sweeping in their judgments.” (von Arnim, foreword)

Even the foreword to the novel creates an emotional impact on the reader and an attachment to the main character, whom they have not yet met. Most of the novel consists of similar quotations that play on the maternal instincts of mothers and the hopes and expectations of young families during the war time era. The character Christine’s eyewitness accounts of the German people is an example of logos, which lends a sense of validity to the narration. Both the portrayal of the heroine as young, innocent, studious, and independent as well as the descriptive and observant writing style give an example of the use of ethos by von Arnim.

The letters also follow the rhetorical framework of Ronald Reid, particularly the use of ethnocentrism, which is the creation of an “us” by way of constructing a definitive “them.” Christine’s depiction of the German people, which parallels the prejudices previously mentioned, creates a definitive “us” by separating her from the Germans’ reactions to the outbreak of the war and defining herself as a foreigner. Her depiction of the German people creates juxtaposition with her quiet and mature nature from her British upbringing and portrays them as a wholly barbaric people.

After publication, the letters were widely accepted as true by the British and U.S. audiences. Despite the fact that it was widely known to be fiction, it was reviewed by many sources as being a truthful depiction of the German people. The portrayals in the novel mirrored the pre-existing prejudices held by the British and U.S. citizens against the Germans. A lot of British propaganda portrayed them as being barbarians and heathens, which was largely contributed to by the violence against Belgium during the Shlieffen Plan. These stereotypes made it easier for the public to consider the novel to be more fact than fiction. One article("Germany Vividly Portrayed in Fiction") from the New York Times describes the letters as “a book that is true in essentials though it wears the garb of fiction- so real is it that one is tempted to doubt whether it is fiction at all.”