Style and Themes
The novel focuses heavily on the futility of war and how many of the soldiers were merely naive young boys, fighting fruitlessly for meaningless ideals. Generals and civilians spew patriotic slogans without ever truly understanding the horror of trench life. Like the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, or such European novels as Henri Barbusse's Under Fire, or Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, Generals Die in Bed attempts to strip war of its romance and glamour, to show the real experiences of men at war.
The story possesses a unique style in that we learn next to nothing about its main character and first person narrator, aside from the fact that he is eighteen years old. Therefore, it could be argued that his function is merely to serve as a surrogate for the audience.
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