Explore the significance of the Home Front in ‘Birdsong’
One way in which the Home Front in ‘Birdsong’ is significant it through Weir’s visit home to his parents. Due to the affects that war bought upon men, this makes Weir struggle to re-connect with his parents again. The awkward distant conversations with his father using formal language like he is talking to a guest, ‘I’ll get the maid to make up a bed if you’re stopping’ presents the awkwardness and exemplifies the struggle men had to face when they came back home, showing that it wasn’t as easy as expected. Furthermore the use of ‘if’ makes Weir’s father sound even distant like it is a burden for him to stop and that it is an inconvenience for him to be back home. This makes the reader feel incredibly uncomfortable as we have read the men in action and have connected with separate characters in an emotional way. So to see the men being treated unjustly for what they are doing makes the reader feel just as uncomfortable as the conversations between Weir and his father. However this is not an unusual thing, as many of the soldiers were neither celebrated nor got the recognition they deserved from fighting at war. The awkwardness is furthermore highlighted when Weir himself ‘could think of nothing to say’ to his father. The lack of colloquialism used between these two characters, connotes the experience and horrors men faced at war and how they have been sculpted into his mind. Whereas his father is very dismissive and oblivious to what his son is doing. This is further emphasised by the argument that unfold between father and son. ‘No it’s been worse’. ‘Worse than what? Worse than it says?’ ‘No it not that. Its....I don’t know’. The callous accusation’s from his father establishes the compassion that Weir was shown when he returned home. This shows to the reader that the men returning to the Home Front was