Hilliard's Acceptance at End of the Novel

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Throughout the last few pages of Strange Meeting, Hill cleverly deploys unique techniques to convey Hilliard’s tranquillity and acceptance. Hill was a young, bright female writer who had the power of hindsight due to many men’s stories along with other past successful literature poets about war. Her novel was a microism of the disgusting realities of war. Immediately from reading the last few pages it is clear the change in Hilliard and awareness that he has changed dramatically from the beginning. We are introduced to him as being “…afraid to go to sleep.” As this was the very first words we see- it emphasises the difficulties he was suffering from the realities of war from the start. The adjective “afraid” highlights that although he was physically exhausted- his brain was damaged from the war and as a result he couldn’t sleep due to the mental damage. Therefore he was worsening his health by sleep deprivation. However, within the last few pages the adjectives describe him to be “…happy and soothed…” Immediately this is a shock to the reader as these adjectives seem very ironic to what we’ve ever known Hilliard to be. It is evident the tranquillity and change within Hilliard- we can see how Barton has rubbed his optimistic attitude off on him. The idea that one man, can change another man’s perspective on life, entirely. Hilliard was always a quiet, awkward person who was known to never have enthusiasm about anything around him. Within Part one, Hilliard is described as “…slightly embarrassed…” when all Barton was doing was being friendly- expressing Hilliard’s lack of social-able skills and the awkwardness he had. The adverb “slightly” highlights that no other man would find it embarrassing but Hilliard did which was significant. This massively changes as we know him to be a blocked out from the world figure, whereas expressed towards the end to have

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