KMC Forums - Birdsong

What seem to you to be the main themes and concerns of Part One of Faulks� �Birdsong�?

There are many themes to Part One of Faulks� �Birdsong�. The most apparent themes are love, lust and relationships, but it is not simply these things. Each has many different types and differences, diverse, obvious and subtle.

There are several different types of love apparent in �Birdsong� � love of another person, love of self, love of your country, love of money, love of love.
The love of another person is shown primarily by Isabelle, who seems to have an enormous capacity to love. She loved her first love, Jean, dearly, and she loved her parents, although they ruined the relationship. She showed love for her sisters, especially Jeanne, and she even had a small amount of love for Azaire, as she is described as an �affectionate� wife. She cares for Gr�goire and Lisette, even though they are not her own children. And, above all else, she loves Stephen, if only for a short tie.
Stephen and B�rard are the best examples for the love of self. Stephen is obviously a young man very confident in his attributes, believing that Madame Azaire returns his affections unequivocally. B�rard is a vain, ageing man, clearly thinking he is better than he is. This is shown in his musical renditions to the other characters, who clearly not under the same pretences.
Love of your country also seems to be an important theme of the book. Again, B�rard is the best example of this. He loves to prove that France is better than England, spouting ridiculous facts and uneducated retorts. He believes that �in England you eat meat for breakfast every day� and that �it rains five days out of six in London.� Also, he seems to sing whenever appearing at the Azaire�s house, and the songs are most likely to be patriotic, idiotic and sappy � �to instil a fighting valour in the hearts of our soldiers.�
Azaire is, without competition, the one character most in love with money. He exploits his workers � as Meyraux puts it, he �attempts to use slave labour at diminishing levels of pay.�
Lisette, the young daughter of Monsieur Azaire, is, like many young girls, in love with the idea of love. She wants to it experience it, and to be treated as the woman she is sure she is, rather then the child that others believe her to be.

In contrast to love, lust is also an important theme to Part One. Lust is principally shown by Isabelle, Stephen and Lisette, and there seems to be an utter lack of lust on Azaire�s part.
Isabelle and Stephen�s lust mostly surfaces in the Red Room, the red seeming to symbolise their passion for each other.
Lisette wants to be a woman, and is perhaps copying Madame Azaire in order to achieve this. She knows far more about physical love than young, upper class, French girls were supposed to at this time, but is still irritated by her own ignorance. She pounces on Stephen by the river, using her knowledge of him and Madame Azaire as blackmail. She wants him to show her what womanhood means, and wants his body and what it can do for her more than anything else he can offer.
Azaire obviously has very little lust left in his body. Isabelle tells Stephen �he [Azaire] could no longer make love to me�, showing that not only is Azaire barren, he is also dry of emotion. He even resorts to violence in a vain attempt to excite himself, but Isabelle admits that it has been �almost a year� since she and Azaire last made love.

The relationships in Part One are both simplistic and complex. For Isabelle and Stephen, it is a simple matter of raw human emotion, a longing which they cannot deny.
The relationship between Azaire and Isabelle, however, is a more difficult and delicate matter. Isabelle feels no love for him, and professes that the marriage was arranged by her father � she is but duty bound to Azaire. Azaire seemed to originally feel love for her, or at least lusted after her � she was young, beautiful and poised. When his own inadequacy failed to bring him a child, he refuses to blame himself, and transfers the blame to Isabelle, who shoulders it without complaint. He humiliates her nightly, and offers her no remorse or compensation � she is trapped in the house until he chooses to release her, which he never does. He seems to think of her as nothing more than property. Perhaps this is why he hates Stephen taking her so, not because he loves her, but because she is �his�.