1. Deconstruction Essay
Gajan Langeswaran
Mr. Devereux
ENG 4U0
May 11, 2013
The Role of Binary Linguistic Oppositions in the Context of War
Most novels on war usually perceive only one side in the realm. An author like Timothy Findley can
make a novel less about war but more about the physiological impact on ones mind because of war.
The Wars is a very powerful and disturbing book with plenty of linguistic contexts. Timothy Findley's
Governor General's Award–winning novel of the First World War tells the story of Robert Ross, a
young Canadian who enlists himself in the army after the death of his sister, Rowena. Robert has to
cope with challenges of war, and make the transition into manhood and develop new beliefs in order
to survive the war. Robert...show more content...
It grants the reader with the ability to choose which characters should be crowned as mentally strong
or weak according to their actions; it runs in a close relation to the distinction of friend and enemy,
which is another psychological battle that many soldiers encounter during the war.
In the novel, The Wars, Findley frames the distinction of friend and enemy in a manner that is
unavoidable. Similar to sanity and insanity, the deconstruction of friend and enemy becomes
apparent after the physical war comes into play. One of the predominant events containing the
friend and enemy opposition is illustrated when Robert encounters the young German soldier. The
young German soldier was wearing "[...] a pair of woollen mittens that had no fingers"(Findley
128). It becomes evident to the readers that the description of the German soldier is in close
relation to one of Robert's friends: Harris. In fact, earlier in the novel, the archivist states, "[...]the
men who took your fire(and returned it) wore blue scarves or had grey mittens like your
own"(Findley 82). Findley uses these events as critical points in order to get the readers to disrupt
their thought patterns, and question their beliefs of friend and enemy. Although the German soldier
is armed, he
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2. Deconstruction Draft
Learning to create a deconstruction draft with Microsoft word was a very important skill that I
learned this year. This fits the literacy criteria of reasoning well because the process requires you
to completely break down your essay allowing you to make key revisions. When writing an essay,
it is important that you take time to make drafts. There is a clear difference between a first draft
and a final draft of an essay. Having a deconstruction draft is vital to success in writing an essay.
The process of creating a deconstruction draft was a great learning experience for me, I would
recommend it to all other writers. As a class we learned how to create a deconstruction draft when
writing our college essay. After writing my first draft, my
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