WW1 and its aftermath: exemplar student response band 2

Below you will find an exemplar student response to a section A question in the specimen assessment materials, followed by an examiner commentary on the response.

Sample student response - band 2

Examine the view that women's attempts to write from a male combatant's point of view are unconvincing.

In this essay I am going to explain why I think that women cannot write like a soldier because they did not go to fight in the war. Some of the women poets have written poems as if they are soldiers in the middle of battle and I am going to write about two of these poems, 'From a Trench' by Maud Anna Bell and 'Over the Top' by Sybil Bristowe.

The title 'From a Trench' suggests that the person writing the poem is a soldier. The first stanza describes the battlefield using words such as 'spoilt and battered fields' but these words are not very gory and do not describe the real horror of the war because a woman can only imagine what it was like and uses more gentle words than a soldier would have done. Later on Bell uses a simile to describe what it was like living in the trench 'we live in holes, like cellar rats' but I think a soldier would have described the conditions in much more horrible detail.

What shows this poem is written by a woman is the way that most of the poem talks about home in Nottingham and the crocuses.

'There are crocuses at Nottingham!

Bright crocuses at Nottingham!

Real crocuses at Nottingham!

Because we're here in Hell.'

Bell could not talk from experience about the battlefield and so she describes home and just says that is nicer than the battlefield, such as the grass is green at home but is red on the battlefield because of all the blood.

'Over the Top' is another poem which pretends that a soldier has written it. This soldier is also in the trench waiting to go onto the battlefield. Again there is not really any gory description of war only 'bits of plant from bloody sod'.

Instead Bristowe is imagining how nervous the soldiers must have been when they were waiting to go into battle and uses a countdown from ten backwards to show this. She repeats 'Ten more minutes!' to show there is not long until the battle starts. The minutes are going by quickly which sometimes happens when you are nervous and don't want something to start which we can see when the soldier says

'Ow they creeps on unawares,

Those blooming minutes.'

and

'Nother minute sprinted by

Fore I knowed it;'

Bristowe also uses a simile to show how nervous the soldier was when she writes

'It's like as if a frog

Waddled round in your inside'

And this helps the reader to think about the feeling you get in your stomach when you are afraid. Although the soldier says that he isn't frightened, he drinks 'grog' and says his prayers which are both things that you do when you are scared to try to comfort yourself. In some ways then this poem sounds more like it has been written by a soldier than 'From a Trench' but I don't think that either of them are very convincing because they do not use gory language and detail of what it was like on the battlefield. I do not think it is fair though that male poets like Siegfried Sassoon blamed women for not being able to write about the battlefield properly because they were not allowed to go to fight and it is good that we can read their better poems which describe how women also suffered because they were left at home to look after everything and had to do jobs they wouldn't normally have to do like bus and taxi drivers, farming and working in factories.

Examiner commentary

AO1

The response is structured simply and relates to the task. A number of relevant points are made but not always concisely. Some generalised use of literary critical concepts is evident. Expression is simple.

AO2

Since this is an open-book examination, the candidate has been able to quote accurately from the text. Quotations provide apt support but writers' methods are not analysed in detail. A simple understanding of authorial methods is offered and generalised engagement with how meanings are shaped by these.

AO3

The candidate makes frequent but simple reference to the context in which women poets were working and offers a personal response to the criticism levelled at their authenticity.

AO4

The central issue of the position of women in WW1 is acknowledged in a generalised way.

AO5

In a fairly simplistic way the candidate has shown that women's attempts to write from a male combatant's point of view are unconvincing. An alternative viewpoint for 'Over the Top' is tentatively suggested but not fully explored.

Overall: simple and generalised. This response seems to fit the Band 2 descriptors.

This resource is part of the WW1 and its aftermath resource package.