(symbolism and foreshadowing)
It foreshadows what the front is going to be like and that they will come under shell fire. There is symbolism in him saying “The front is like a whirlpool…I feel the whirl of the vortex sucking me slowly, irresistibly, inescapably into itself.” This tells you how the war sucks you in and destroys men physically and mentally. The earth is symbolic because it is like the womb from which they came and then they end up in it when they die.
p 56-59 “An indigent looking wood receives us… he hesitates is blinded and falls”
(Atmosphere, Irony, Foreshadowing)
The atmosphere outside is a clear moonlit night with some mist and it is calm. Some foreshadowing is when he talks about the geese and later in the story they steel some geese. The irony in the passage is that they put out their pipes and cigarettes so they are not spotted and then flares light up the night anyways.
p 62-64 He goes off… “I tell you it is the vilest baseness to use horses in the war”
(symbolism, foreshadowing, Irony)
The horse symbolizes innocence of man.