History 355H

Discussion Questions

March 26, 2014

 

  1. What is the tone and purpose of Canon Scott’s speech in 1937?  Does Scott in any manner perpetuate a myth of the war and Canadians, and if so, what is it?

 

  1. What is the purpose of war art?   What do you think was the role of the exhibit held in 1919?  What impact would it have had on ‘the memory’ of the war for Canadians?
     
  2. How effective do you think war art was in capturing the Canadian war experience?  If you had to pick a single painting to define that experience, what would it be, and why?

 

  1. According to Winter, “…there are so many ways that the First World War is still around, that it’s become part of the landscape.”   What does Winter mean by this?  Why, and in what form is it still around?  Do you agree with Winter?

 

  1. Winter argues that “the 11th of November….symbolizes the fact that it didn’t end.”  What does he mean?   How does this apply to Canada?

 

  1. One of the problems of remembering the war, according to Winter, is trying “…to establish what is the purpose of commemoration.”  We have November 11th, but as Winter asks “What does it mean?  It’s still there.”  What does it mean ninety years after the event?  How do you think that meaning has changed in that time, and why?

 

  1. Why has “In Flanders Fields” become so much of the basis on how we conduct modern remembrance ceremonies?  Does it have the ability to bridge time and experience, and if so, how?

 

  1. According to the historian David Beckett, “the collective memory of war…can be can be interpreted as a shared myth….”    What do you think is the “shared myth” to which he refers?  

 

  1. What is the manner of the “myth of the dead” that McCrae, the cenotaphs, and war cemeteries support?
     
  2. According to Vance, “There may have been disagreement about the meaning of the war, but there can have been no disagreement that the real tragedy was the loss of 60,000 Canadian lives.  Providing consolation for that loss, rather than rational explanation for the war as a whole, was the goal of the nation’s memory of the war.”  To what degree does that hold true today?  How?  Why?