16 pages • 32 minutes read
Dunya MikhailThe War Works Hard
Nonfiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Omnipresence of War
Because the war is so “eager / and efficient!” (Lines 2-3) in sowing the seeds of chaos and misery in the unnamed country of “The War Works Hard”, it manages to affect every aspect of life for its human victims: physical, emotional, political, and social.
In a physical sense, the war brings death to some, injury to others, and pain to everyone. In imagery describing the war as “swing[ing] corpses through the air / [and] roll[ing] stretchers to the wounded” (Lines 8-9) the speaker alludes to the way in which bombardments and shootings either rob victims of life or damage their bodies, sometimes temporarily and sometimes permanently. The reference to “coffin makers” and “grave diggers” (Lines 46 & 47) emphasize war’s ultimate price: the end of life itself. Emotionally, no one escapes unscathed, as the speaker describes the power war has as it “summons rain / from the eyes of mothers” (Lines 10-11) who are crying over the loss of their children, while also splitting couples and families apart: it “teaches lovers to write letters” and “accustoms young women to waiting” (Lines 40-41). It disrupts the normal cycles of life through enforced separation.
Politically and socially, the war is a disaster for this unspecified country. It undermines the social fabric of the country by killing the young and forcing citizens to flee abroad, as it “urges families to emigrate” (Line 24) to other lands. Because it “accustoms young women to waiting” (Line 41) for soldier lovers who are away at the front, it makes continuing the cycle of life through pregnancy and child-rearing either difficult or impossible to accomplish. Politically, the war empowers the worst elements of human leadership: “it inspires tyrants / to make speeches” (Lines 30-31) as well as “paints a smile on the leader’s face” (Lines 49), suggesting a dictator who cares nothing for his people’s suffering and who uses the war as a means of shoring up his own power. Faced with a war-torn present in which the usual cycle of life is destroyed or suspended, and in which a tyrant can only tighten his grip, the very survival of the country appears to be jeopardized.
The Splintering of the Family Unit
War brings disruption to the family unit in different ways. In the first place, it disrupts the bond between parents and their children. The speaker writes of the grief of bereaved mothers, describing the “rain” – the tears – that the mothers weep after losing their children, while later offering a glimpse of loss from a child’s point of view in describing the war as “build[ing] new houses / for the orphans” (Lines 44-45). Some mothers are left mourning the loss of their children, while some children are left mourning the loss of their parents (“the orphans” in line 45).
The war also brings disruption to marital and romantic relations, jeopardizing the future of the family unit in the country. In describing how the war “teaches lovers to write letters” and “accustoms young women to waiting” (Lines 40-41), the speaker emphasizes how the war puts the usual cycle of life on hold: with children dying prematurely in bombardments and couples separated by the war effort, families are both getting destroyed while simultaneously failing to be easily replaced by new births.
Violence as History and Narrative
The violence of war is both an ever-present reality in the lives of its human victims and a narrative that can take on a detached, almost mythical quality when divorced from its immediate contexts. The speaker alludes to this narrative aspect of war twice. In the first instance, the speaker describes how war “adds pages to the history books” (Line 37), suggesting that this conflict will end up ossified in the historical record just like every other conflict, inevitably robbing it of some of its emotional impact in the process. In the second instance, the war is also a present-day narrative, as it “fills the newspapers / with articles and pictures” (Lines 42-43) in the national and foreign press. Although the speaker does not describe the reaction to such stories, a possible implication of this narrative is that the war can become merely a source of curiosity, or even entertainment, to those who are not directly impacted by it. The war is something that is happening ‘over there, and the visceral, everyday realities of its effects are lost to outsiders. By becoming a narrative and only a narrative, whether through a historical lens, or as a mere news item for contemporaries, the true horrors of war can become muted – perhaps even ignored.
