Vera Brittain`s Testament Of Youth - Extract Analysis

The commonly held assumption that the youth`s initial enthusiasm for war was replaced by pessimism and grief is clear in Vera Brittain`s Testament of Youth, where her negative experiences are set out. However this extract also demonstrates the important difference between contemporary first-hand experience and post-war reflection. Brittain is attempting to `write history` by rescuing something `of value` from her personal experience, `some element of hop and truth and usefulness`. This indicates her belief that writing history is not an attempt to record experience, but rather an attempt to learn lessons from the past.

Writing in 1933, Brittain is able to sum up her experience of war, accusing it of `smashing up` her own youth. She develops this further, going from first person singular into first person plural, speaking of her `depleted generation` and doing this she extrapolates her personal experience into the experience of her whole generation, which she presents as united. This clearly jars with existing research indicating that class and gender divisions within her generation divided people and meant that experiences of war differed extremely. However, Brittain ignores this and places herself within the powerful concept of the `lost generation` of young male intellectuals and future leaders, this concept being usually reserved for the young officers killed on the battlefield. This interesting self-identification may demonstrate Brittain`s clear affinity with the men in her life who were killed during the war. It may also demonstrate a certain reconsideration of the concept of the `lost generation` in the 1930s which included women.

Of particular importance in the extract is Brittain`s concentration on the future and her generation`s `control of public affairs` (again including herself). We can clearly see the influence of the date on this focus; the looming danger of another war must have been a key concern and thus Brittain`s main concern is to use her war experience to prevent a repeat of the First World War. Of course, her testament of youth cannot be considered representative of all in her generation, however the extract does present an interesting example of how negative war experience and `smashing up` of youth had to be reconsidered and utilised to serve a political and social purpose in the 1930s. War experience did not become `history` after 1918; this extract emphasises the fact that war experience was still a current issue between the wars.