Explore and Compare the Content and Style of “charlotte Grey” and “disabled” Bringing out the Powerful and Moving Exploration of the Theme of Loss

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There is a lot of loss of trust in “Charlotte Grey”. It is mostly portrayed in the form of betrayal. The best example of this is the “ Gendarmeries”. These are French people who have agreed to help the Germans enforce their laws and rules. The Gendarmeries are sent to collect the children who do not want to be taken away “when the gendarmes were sent up to fetch them”. There is also a sense of betrayal from inanimate objects such as the Parisian bus. “a familiar sound to many of them, the homely thudding of a Parisian bus.” To many of the people who are waiting to be taken a way this is a very disheartening thought. That one of the buses you youse all the time voluntarily is now being used against you, against your will. This is a good example of harsh irony, one of the main types of imagery used to portray the loss of trust in both “Disabled” and “Charlotte Grey”

Our character lost the majority of his youth to war. In a time of his life where he is meant to be free and be able to do what he wanted it is ironic how he is the exact opposite of these things. One specific paragraph tells of a classic teenagers life. The first half is very joyful and then instantly the stanza starts to describe what life was like after becoming disabled, “In the old times, before he threw away his knees “.The stanza abruptly changes its tone from positive, to negative. The character’s life was also abruptly changed from a positive life to a negative one. He instantly had his youth taken away. The character doesn’t try and hide the fact that his youth is no more. “All of them touch him like some queer disease” All of these girls he used to spend time with now think of him as some second-rate person who they cannot touch. The author also describes how much the character has matured because of his injury. “And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race”. This “the hot race” refers to war as because of the war the characters life lapsed in several years . He lost half his lifetime because of the war and his younger years are physically behind him but mentally and on paper they aren’t.

There are really no examples of loss of youth in “Charlotte Grey” This is because, in a sense, the children have already lost their youth since they have been placed in an orphanage they have lost their parents and a level of freedom that comes with living in your own home. Some people would say that a part of youth is spending time with your parents and that when your parents go from your life you are forced to mature. These children have already lost their parents, and therefore part of their youth. They are going to lose all of their youth as they arrive in the concentration camps, but that is not included in the extract.

There is a sense that the character has lost hope for future and happiness in “`Disabled”. He clearly has no intentions for the future. There are a few times the poem has imagery that could be taken as suicidal. “How cold and late it is! Why don’t they come And put him into bed? Why don’t they come?”, and ” waiting for dark,” Both of these extracts seem to imply that going to sleep literally means dying. In the first extract the character is asking why the carers don’t just let him die. He is having these thoughts because he has lost everything; he has lost his hope, future and humanity. Things that used to bring him happiness, like socializing with girls now make him unhappy because he cant do them. “Now he will never feel again how slim Girls’ waists are, or how warm their subtle hands”

In “Charlotte Grey” the children and adults have a very bleak future ahead of them. Even though some of them have an idea of what to expect none of them know how bad it will actually be. In the end of the passage the people are tempted with things from their normal lives only to find out that they are being used against them. When the bus drives past the Cafe it is like they are seeing their old lives for one last time “lighting up the café opposite before the driver turned the wheel and headed for the station”. After leaving this last sign of their old lives they really have no hope for the future. The people in “Charlotte Grey” are repeatedly treated like animals. This is because they have lost their humanity

The main ways that “Charlotte Grey” and “Disabled” explain the theme of loss if through imagery. The imagery used most often in both poems is irony and contrast. In “Disabled” The author contrasts things before the war and thongs after the war to show a harsh irony “one time he liked a blood-smear down his leg”. This is less evident in “Charlotte Grey” but is still used to contrast what the adults and children thought of things before being taken prisoners and after being taken prisoners. The theme of loss is explored very deeply in both poems and they both bring the harsh realities and losses in war to life.