42 pages • 1 hour read
Generals Die In Bed
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Béthune”
The narrator and some 700 Canadian soldiers march for the grimy French mill town of Béthune, where they wait to begin leave. They sing smutty, dark-humored songs as they march. The soldiers look forward to food, wine, and hiring sex workers. Before they can start their leave, however, they are required to stand for inspection by the chief of staff. The general is old and tired. One of the men says, “Generals die in bed” (80). All the men except for Anderson hold contempt for the generals and the upper class in general.
After a few days without fatigues, the narrator takes to walking along the French roads at night. He eventually ends up at the home of a peasant family. After the daughter of the family asks the narrator to give her father a supply of tobacco, she takes him to her bed. In the morning, the narrator quickly returns to his unit and discovers they have been granted leave in London.
Chapter 8 Summary: “London”
In London, the narrator meets a woman named Gladys. They go to a vaudeville show where the performers tell jokes about the war with scantily clad women dancers. The narrator is uncomfortable with the experience and notices that many of the men in the audience are not in the military.
That night, the narrator asks Gladys if he can stay with her for the entire 10 days of his leave and she agrees. When the narrator asserts that he is a criminal because he has killed someone, she is startled. When he tells her it was in the trenches, she says, “I thought you had really murdered someone” (95), as if killing a German soldier did not count.
Later, the narrator goes to Westminster Abbey. He runs into an Anglican curate who asks him to have tea, and the narrator agrees. The curate goes on and on about how high the morale of the troops is, although he knows nothing of what goes on in the trenches. The talk of heroism and spirit makes the narrator very uneasy.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Over the Top”
Abruptly, the narrator finds himself back at the front and his battalion is making feverish preparations for moving. No one knows for sure where they are headed, but rumors are flying that there is to be a new offensive. The narrator’s battalion has been joined by new recruits from Canada.
They begin marching, growing increasingly weary and out of breath. Captain Clark harasses the men, and when Renaud, a young French Canadian recruit falls in pain, Clark accuses him of cowardice and “takes him by the scruff of his neck and hauls him to his feet” (101).
The scene shifts, and the men are in dugouts at the front. They have been told they will be going “over the top” soon (101), meaning they will have to leave the comparative safety of the trench and charge through No Man’s Land. The men wait. A rat tries to eat food from the narrator’s pocket while he sleeps.
In a series of one-sentence paragraphs, the narrator describes the growing intensity of the waiting and the gunfire. The men go over the top behind a line of Allied fire. When they reach the German line, they find no soldiers. The Allied artillery has destroyed the German front line. When they enter a forest, Broadbent notices a sniper in a tree and shoots him.
The men continue their march in drenching rain. They must cross a field made almost impassable with mud. Finally, they reach deserted German water-filled trenches. The rain stops and the men begin to repair the trenches and have their rations.
Suddenly, the Germans charge in a counterattack. Although the narrator’s unit manages to hold them off, the Germans come in waves, singing. Again, the Canadian troops manage to repulse them, but the loss of life grows greater by the minute. There is screaming and moaning from the wounded and dying in the muddy field. Again, the men begin repairing their trenches. The Germans resume shelling, but their shots land in the mud among the dead and dying, resulting in a spray of body parts into the trenches.
With the simple line, “We are lost” (109), the tide turns. The narrator’s unit is running out of ammunition and the Germans once more charge the occupied trenches. One of the Germans employs a flame thrower and fires into the trenches. Renault is badly burned.
Fry and the narrator try to retreat, but Clark jumps into the trench and orders them to stay. Clark draws his revolver and threatens to shoot Fry. When Clark is distracted by Broadbent, Fry shoots the captain in the back. The men begin their retreat. Fry loses both of his legs. By the time the narrator and Broadbent get back to their trenches, they are the only two survivors of the unit.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Structurally, this section is organized using the same pattern Harrison used in the previous section. Just as the earlier chapters first showed the narrator and his unit on rest period followed by front-line battle, this section amplifies the pattern.
The narrator goes on leave in the French city of Béthune followed by a longer leave in London, bringing a new angle to his developing sense of Disillusionment and Distrust of Leadership. While in London, the narrator is disturbed by the stark contrast between the realities of frontline warfare and the way the war is perceived by civilians still safe at home. The irreverent jokes during the vaudeville show mock the war and make light of the very real suffering the soldiers are experiencing, which leaves the narrator feeling alienated and uncomfortable. Likewise, his tea with the curate reinforces his sense that the civilian population is living in ignorance about what the war really entails: The curate speaks with confidence about the troops’ morale and the army’s supposed heroism. The curate’s idealized assumptions are far removed from the pain and distress the narrator is actually feeling. The narrator walks alone at night, a ghostly figure, trying to forget the front and death.
The narrator also experiences disillusionment and loneliness as he tries to connect with Gladys during his leave. While he is at first eager to have her company, he soon realizes that Gladys, like the curate and the vaudeville performers, simply does not understand the realities of war. She cannot respond sympathetically to the narrator’s guilt over having killed the German soldier, with her dismissive remark—“I thought you had really murdered someone” (95)—reflecting her view that the German enemy are not truly human and that, therefore, killing them does not count as murder. Gladys’s inability to understand the true nature of killing forms an important contrast to the visceral, deeply traumatized response the narrator experiences.
Back at the front, the narrator’s distrust of the war’s leadership is exacerbated by The Dehumanization of Common Soldiers inflicted upon the men by Captain Clark. The upper-class Captain Clark manhandles Renaud, forcing him to march when the young recruit is in great pain, most likely from a hernia caused by the weight of the gear he is required to carry. That Renaud is a French Canadian further adds to the disparity between the Captain and Renaud, as French-speaking Canadians were often discriminated against and looked down upon by their English-speaking officers.
The most significant moment comes when Clark insists that the men go back over the top when it is clear they need to retreat. Fry snaps: He knows that Clark will kill him if he refuses a direct order, and he knows that he will be killed by Germans if he goes back over the top. His response is to shoot Clark in the back. Fry’s insubordination is presented as an act of self-preservation in the face of an unjust order, but his murder of his officer illustrates the growing rift between the common soldiers and the men who are supposed to lead them.
Finally, all the men suffer to a greater or lesser degree from The Psychological Impact of Combat, as evidenced by their “terrifying” singing. The narrator depicts these men as having lost touch with their former sense of human decency and morality, brought on by the nihilism of battle: “Tomorrow we may be dead. The world is shot to pieces. There are no ten commandments. Let ‘er go!” (77). In a world devoid of meaning, the men can no longer determine what is truly good or bad. This moral fracturing develops in tandem with the men’s psychological fragmentation. In the next section, this growing sense of amorality and hopelessness will lead to the looting of Arras and their reckless behavior during the Battle of Amiens.
Unlock all 42 pages of this Study Guide
Plus, gain access to 9,150+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: