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Charles Yale Harrison’s, generals die in Bed characters demonstrate the dehumanising nature of war. The Characters in the novel enter the war as normal civilians with morals and values, however, as the war progressed on these qualities were forgotten and replaced with brutality, resentment, cowardliness and merciless.
Harrison’s characters show that they have little respect for the dead. This is shown from brown as he salvages a boot from a dead soldier that was used to support a trench wall. “I found them near the –house.” Only the protagonist knew of its origin and was relentless to tell the other soldiers so that Brown would not be looked down upon. There is also no respect for the death of friends either. Brown stands up to reach for the spoon to divide the sugar and he is shot by a sniper. The soldiers are not sorry for the loss of their friend nor do they feel resentment towards the sniper. Broadbent takes brown’s rations and shares it with the other soldiers. “Anyway,” he explains, “he can’t eat no more...” The soldiers do not accept or disagree that this is disrespectful towards Brown; they are just hungry and thankful for the additional food that they will receive.
Clark has no respect for his troops and this leads to resentment towards Clark. Brown is angry towards Clark; Clark gave brown “silent insolence” because brown tore his uniform. “I’ll kill the bastard thats what I’ll do. I’m just waiting until we get into a real scrap. I’ll plug him right between the shoulder blades.” Brown thinks that Clark is being unreasonable and abusive towards his authority as brown tore his uniform while doing fatigues. Clark has no mercy towards his men which ultimately leads to his death. The recruit Renaud is seen to be in terrible pain while the troops are marching and he “falls out.” “You yellow-livered little bastard. Fall in.” This approach from Clark provides us the reader that he shows no mercy to the suffering of his own men. The unmerciful Clark...