Charles Yale Harrison’s Generals Die in Bed vs Colin McDougall’s Execut

Charles Yale Harrisons Generals Die in Bed vs Colin McDougalls Execution As with any genre, all novels termed fight stories share certain elements in common. The place and time settings of the novels, obviously, take in at least some aspect of at least bingle contend or conflict. The characters tend to either be soldiers or are at least immediately affected by the military. An ever present sense of blame with punctuated moments of peace is almost a standard of the war novel. Beyond the basic similarities, however, each of these battle books stands apart as an individual. Charles Yale Harrisons World War I novel, Generals Die in Bed is, in essence, quite different than Colin McDougalls Execution. Coming years earlier, Generals can almost be seen to hold the wisdom one would expect see in an older sibling, plot Execution suffers the growing pains that the younger child inevitably feels. Most war novels center on themes of valor and heroism. Some concen trate on the opposites of these virtues in an attempt to display raw realism. Harrison, right from the beginning of his novel, shows us both. The narrator of this first-person narrative paints a present of a totally un-heroic bunch of soldiers preparing for debarkation. The drinking and debauchery are followed the next morning by a parade that the suffering soldiers must march through, while the people watch their heroes leaving to bravely fight the good fight. While this clearly demarcates the innocent civilians from the savvy soldiers, it also shows the reader that the narrator is going to filtrate to tell the real story.Execution starts with what is seemingly a journal entry, implying that it will be a first person narrative much the same as Ge... ... enough contrasts between them that allow them to stand out as completely individual from one another. Each of these novels, then, is able to both expand upon the other, while creation free in its own expression at the same time.Works CitedHarrison, Charles Yale. Generals Die in Bed. Waterdown Potlatch Publications, 1999.Lenoski, Daniel S. Morning Glory Execution and Romance. American Review ofCanadian Studies. Volume 23 (1993) 387 406.Mason, Michael A. Execution Heroism in a Modern War-Novel. English Studies inCanada. Volume 5 (1979) 94 - 104.McDougall, Colin. Execution. Toronto Macmillan, 1958.Thompson, Eric. Canadian Fiction of the capacious War. Canadian Literature. Volume 91(1981) 81 96.Vance, Jonathan. Death So Noble Memory, Meaning, and the First World War.Vancouver UBC Press, 1997.