Summary

The reason I want to investigate my title is due to a few factors; the most prominent reason being that in the summer, I visited my Great-Uncle's grave near Arras in France. He died fighting to defend the country and is now remembered by nothing more than a small tombstone amidst countless others just like it, and ever since then, I've wanted to know how he felt during the Great War and how those around him coped with the mass killing that were a part of their day to day lives. To carry out my EPQ, I want to try and find as much primary source evidence as I can (for example, I already have several postcards sent by soldiers to their family, friends and partners) as I believe the best way to understand how they really felt is by reading their direct thoughts in words.

I also plan on reading a variety of literature from a variety of different authors writing about World War One, I will compare those written by participants of the war and those of professional writers who used their imagination and research to write about the war that was before their time. I have already made a start on the reading and have read numerous different styles of book, for example, Pat Baker's 'Regeneration' or 'Birdsong'.

I think the more primary sourced evidence and artifacts I can collect on the subject, the better, as I can use them to give a more interesting talk at the end of the project. For the main bulk of my work, I had planned to do an essay as I think to talk about a wordy subject requires a lot of words to analyse the details, however, I am not certain on that yet and will investigate if there are any other options.