Compare and contrast essay – Frank Earley and Albert Smith
In the Frank Earley letter, it is clearly shown to the audience that the English soldiers are fighting with the last sense of hope they have as they have been fighting the war a lot longer compared to the Americans, which is shown in the Albert Smith letter. The audience have a real sense of empathy as Frank Earley admits to ‘how close death is to us’ which shows a feeling of near defeat in the morale of the soldiers. However, in the Albert Smith letter, the feeling of defeat and lowness of morale is non-existent as Albert writes to his little brother ‘ready to come home after the war but not before’ highlighting to the audience that he isn’t exhausted by the war yet and wants to continue fighting, showing that the Americans haven’t been in the war long and so haven’t experienced what the English have.
Following on from this, the use of semantic field in the Albert Smith letter denotes a feeling of how bad the conditions were for the Americans, ‘wettest’ ‘muddiest’ ‘raining’ ‘wire entanglements’ ‘up to my waist in mud’. This evokes a feeling of empathy from the audience as we usually complain about the weather and these men dealt with it night and day whilst fighting for us and their own lives.
Furthermore, in the Albert Smith letter, the war is described as ‘slaughter’ which is a very optimistic view to take compared to the Frank Earley letter where he describes his friend being killed ‘in a moment’ and that it was ‘God’s will’. Exploring this point further, Frank Earley has a deep connection with religion as he mentions ‘Our Lady’ which refers to the Virgin Mary and the ‘Sacred Heart’ which a Roman Catholic term. He also states that it was God’s will for a Catholic man to be killed in the war and that he is putting himself and his life in God’s hands. This contrasts quite well with the Albert Smith letter because there is no mention of a God or Religion, even though in1918 in Tennessee, Christianity was a huge part of society for the people. This gives the audience the impression that Albert Smith is too busy focusing on the war and his family to ask God for help, which is the opposite of Frank Earley’s letter.
The Frank Earley letter is written with impeccable grammar and shows the intellect of the young man who had written it, for example he never refers to the Germans as ‘the Hun’. We know he was a journalist from Derby and this gives the impression that he had a very good educational background. This contrasts heavily with the Albert Smith letter as it is written in mostly sentences without punctuation and the grammar isn’t very well placed.
Even though Albert Smith grew up in 1900s Tennessee, he shows a lot of respect for black soldiers, ‘Negro infantry’ which is shocking due to the fact that the Deep South still remained in favour of slavery in 1918. This highlights to the audience that the war does change people, and not all for the worse. Albert Smith seems to have matured through the war, even though the Americans had only just joined. This contrasts to the Frank Earley letter because that one is very patriotic to the English soldiers in the war.
Furthermore, both the letters are written from the perspective of Western countries, but both have very different feelings towards the war. The Frank Earley letter is very pessimistic; he talks a lot about his inevitable death and failure, trying to prepare his family back home for the news of his death. This is because he has been in the war since the very beginning. In comparison, the Albert Smith letter is very optimistic; talking about small victories all nearing to the final goal he believes will come to the allies. He talks about how no more troops are needed and how blacks and whites have joined together to take down ‘the Hun’ and claim victory.