Fighting from Home
Kim Stevenson 1110690
University Canada West
Professor: James Wood 305 / History
June 15, 2014
Fighting from Home In the novel ‘Fighting from Home’ Durflinger illustrates the war effort made by the people of one city in Canada, specifically one city in Quebec ‘Verdun’. The book contains detailed information of linguistic, family life and living standards. To me, Durflinger uses one side of the story and that is from an English language point of view. The book illustrates that there was 2 significant languages in the town of Verdun and 2 different religious beliefs but it talks about the one point of view and that is from the English perspective. Durflinger talks about articles that are wrote from an English speaking newspaper, ‘ The Guardian that had allegiance to Britain and it talks about notes from a English speaking political party and healso indicates in the book that there was very little writing from the French speaking people about the Second World War. The book talks about the federal and local government and the information that they brought forth in the recognition of Verdun. In the book ‘Fighting from Home’ it starts off with the explanation on how the town of Verdun population was split 58% of the people being English and 42% being French speaking people. It talks about how the people of Verdun’s were united in the local level to the war and how in the First World War the town of Verdun was united with the war effort and letting the linguistic differences set aside to move forward as one did to community values and identity. By the Second World War it was again brought to the forefront and again the united front from a local level prevailed but for different reasons. From the English-Speaking side it was to the allegiance of mother Britain, so the enlistment rate was upfront and most had enlisted before 1943 at the beginning of World War Two. From the French speaking most enlisted after 1942 and it was from the honor of the First World War that drove the people to enlist in the Second World War. The book talks about the disadvantages the French-Speaking people had with enlisting as the war recruitment was in English and very little if any information in French language. If you were French, you had to learn the English language either before or as you go in the war. The enlistment stations were focusing on English as this had the higher rate of enlistment at the beginning. The book had a number of articles and information from the newspaper ‘The Guardian’, were they talked about the residents of Verdun and the number of people that Verdun had in the war. The Guardian kept daily contact on the war efforts and ensured people were kept apprised of the war efforts in Verdun. This newspaper appealed to the English-speaking people and had daily and weekly articles about the war and the unity Verdun played. Although Durflinger shows that, through their home front activities as much through enlistment, French speaking Verdunites were partners beside their English speaking neighbours in the prosecution of Canada’s war. The experiences and class similarities facilitated the development of common local identities. The Guardian had allegiance to Britain, and needed to keep the patriotic advantage to this. As mentioned earlier in the essay the majority of the population of Verdun was English speaking and the Guardian needed to continue to appeal to the majority. Although typical war related stories talks about the war patterns and technology, Durflinger takes the approach from ground level and takes it from the perspective of the grass roots, what effect it has on the people directly. With all the information regarding housing issues, families are separated, children growing up without both parents the unity of the war still brought all groups of people together and enlisted support not only for the war effort but to each other not taking into account the difference in language or
