Passage by George Orwell, Spanish Civil War

Essay by bethrodriguezHigh School, 10th gradeA, October 2006

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We get several impressions from the battle, which are conveyed to us by Orwell. Through his words, he describes a critical and dangerous situations for him and his partners, and make us feel involve with them. There are many factors by which he makes this happen.

First, he situates us in a real space by describing the environment and the atmosphere. Throughout all the text, he shows that the actions happen at night. He also uses phrases that include the surroundings to show how the group is, phrases like "no moon to go by" show us, not only the time at which the action happens, but also it tell us that how lost they are. The author mentions the darkness, which helps us to know how his situation is: uncertain and full of confusion. The author also talks about a "devilish fire" or about "fresh steams of bullets". Phrases like this give the idea that the men are very scared and have a lot of fear, suffering form the scenes and what occurs in the battle.

Another thing that the author uses to communicate to us his impressions of the battle is the people. Lots of characters are introduced to us through the story, and many of them tell us something. For example, Kopp show us how desperate and confused people are by trying to find other ones, like Jorge. People are gone and lost, scared and injured. Lots of them are missing, and because this the desperation increases. We can get different feelings from each one.

Many actions take place and are described to us. Bullets are shut, the men run away from the enemy, people are screaming and bomb sounds are made. People are lost and fighting. Many of the actions help us to understand the severity of the battle. Through the descriptions of what happens at that fragment, we, readers, can feel that we're in the battle, in a tense and full of chaos area.

We can get many of the feelings of the men, both told directly or indirectly by the author. We get the disorder and the confusion of the situation; we get the uncertainty of where the rest are, and if the other men survived. There are phrases like "we were completely lost" or "...knowing nothing", which prove us the anguish and panic of the characters.

It is by great descriptions of the situation, the people and the actions that occur at the moment the way the author conveys his feelings to us. His main impressions of the battle is a negative one, where there where times when he didn't know what to do. By his descriptions, he seems desperate and full of fear. He conveys that feeling that he's trapped in a very difficult and hard situation, and he just want to get out of it. Something very important that he tell us is "the truth was that our nerves were all to pieces". This tells us that all the feelings together, all the suffering just began to make them weaker and destroyed their nerves.