Tuesday 16 June 2015

CLASS XII ATM WKBK PGS 188 TO 190

5 (i) : Raina had first seen Bluntschli as a one of the defeated Serbian soldiers seeking refuge. At that time we were told that he was "in a deplorable plight", in a "desperate predicament". He was bespattered with mud and blood and snow". "his belt and the strap of his revolver case" were keeping together "the torn blue" Serbian soldier's tunic. Those were the details which described his "unwashed unkempt condition" at that time. In Act 2 when he returns after the war we are told that he is "clean, well brushed, smartly uniformed, and out of trouble". This is the change that Raina notes of Bluntschli's condition.

(ii) : The reasons which Bluntschli gives for his changed condition was that he had had the opportunity to have got a wash, whereas previously he was coming in after fleeing from the Bulgarians who had just defeated them in a battle. He had been able to take care of his appearance (brushed) and that he had had slept well - unlike the previous time when he had not slept for the previous forty-eight hours as he had been engaged in battle. He was also well fed (breakfast) whereas the previous time he was famished, having finished eating all his "chocolates".

(iii) : The morning Raina is referring to is the morning after the "midnight adventure" when after she had given him refuge in her room and hidden him from the Russian officer and the Bulgarian soldiers, she and her mother had disguised him in Paul Petkoff's coat and sent him off.
           "That morning" Bluntschli had made his way to Pirot. We do not know for sure how he got there, but Bluntschli does mention a railway cloak room, so he might have gone there by train. However, whichever way he traveled he was disguised to look Bulgarian by Raina and her mother.

(iv) : Raina thinks that Bluntschli fellow soldiers from the Serbian army, of the specific artillery regiment which had been defeated by Sergius,  would have been angry with him. She resumes that they would have been angry with him because she expects that they might have been true soldiers being supposedly courageous and who would have stood their ground and faced their enemy rather than Bluntschli running away to save his life.

(v) : Bluntschli says that his fellow Serbian soldiers of his regiment were glad to see him, because like he had done, they had also all run away after being routed by Sergius cavalry regiment.
        It tells us that soldiering is not as romantic a life as we might think it is. While we may expect soldiers to stand up to their enemies and sacrifice their lives for their countries, soldiers probably are not so courageous and self-sacrificing. they too are practical and judge when it is better to stand up and fight and when it is better to count one's losses and flee.

(vi) : The story Raina is talking about is the story of how Bluntschli was given refuge bu Raina and Raina had been taken up by his manner; of how Catherine (Raina's mother) was also taken up by Bluntschli's behaviour and that they had helped him escape. Of course, when the story was told the identity of Raina and Catherine were not known.
          Sergius had told the story - the story that he and Paul had been told by Bluntschli.
          The story had been told to Raina and Catherine when they were recounting their acquaintance with that "bagman of a captain" (Bluntschli) in Act 2, shortly after Paul and Sergius had returned home.

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