The Smell of War
The text uses an extensive amount of sensory imagery in order to create a vivid atmosphere with as much sights, sounds and smells of war as possible. Among the most difficult things to do, for any writer, is the task of describing the true conditions of the setting. Alcott seems cognizant of the importance of such a step, for she resorts to the use of creative juxtaposition between aroma with odor:
“The first thing I met was a regiment of the vilest odors that ever assaulted the human nose, and took it by storm. Cologne, with its seven and seventy evil savors, was a posy-bed to it; and the worst of this affliction was, everyone had assured me that it was a chronic weakness of all hospitals, and I must bear it. I did, armed with lavender water, with which I so besprinkled myself and premises, that…I was soon known among my patients as `the nurse with the bottle.’"
Why Everybody Hates Hospitals
In a beautifully written passage, Alcott paints, by dint of vivid imagery, an answer to the universal question of why does everybody hate hospitals. No matter what type of illness is at one's own door, and regardless of the hope, which medical assistance might bring, everybody seems to hate the prospect of going to a hospital because deep down everybody knows it is where death dwells:
"My three days' experiences had begun with a death, and, owing to the defalcation of another nurse, a somewhat abrupt plunge into the superintendence of a ward containing forty beds, where I spent my shining hours washing faces, serving rations, giving medicine, and sitting in a very hard chair, with pneumonia on one side, diptheria on the other, five typhoids on the opposite, and a dozen dilapidated patriots, hopping, lying, and lounging about, all staring more or less at the new "nuss," who suffered untold agonies, but concealed them under as matronly an aspect as a spinster could assume, and blundered through her trying labors with a Spartan firmness, which I hope they appreciated, but am afraid they didn't.”
Shell-Shock
The imagery used in the book brings to life one of the grim realities connected with the nursing of war victims in a field hospital. Some patients who were gradually recovering, for instance, and who were expected to go back shortly to the routine of their usual daily lives, were in fact facing an even more threatning danger than immediate death in the long desolate road of mental and psychological illness:
"Looking over my shoulder, I saw a one-legged phantom hopping nimbly down the room…whose wound-fever had taken a turn for the worse, and, depriving him of the few wits a drunken campaign had left him…When sane, the least movement produced a roar of pain or a volley of oaths; but the departure of reason seemed to have wrought an agreeable change…for, balancing himself on one leg, like a meditative stork, he plunged into an animated discussion of the war, the President, lager beer, and Enfield rifles, regardless of any suggestions of mine as to the propriety of returning to bed, lest he be court-martialed for desertion.”
Conscience Doth Make Heroes
Shakespeare was only half-right. Conscience may sometimes make some people cowardly, but it also has the power to inspire them with heroic actions and designs. The author combines personification, visual, tactile and auditory imagery to produce a metaphorical representation of conscience prompting a bashful woman to go forth and never stop until her goal is achieved:
"`I never can do it,’ thought I. `Tom will hoot at you if you don't,’ whispered the inconvenient little voice that is always goading people to the performance of disagreeable duties, and always appeals to the most effective agent to produce the proper result. The idea of allowing any boy that ever wore a felt basin and a shoddy jacket with a microscopic tail, to crow over me, was preposterous, so giving myself a mental slap for such faint-heartedness, I streamed away across the Common…where I beheld the Governor placidly consuming oysters, and laughing as if Massachusetts was a myth, and he had no heavier burden on his shoulders than his host's handsome hands.”
The Reader in the Hospital
Alcott is a skilful authoress who did not stop at the level of an ordinary description of her heroine’s adventures. She was cognizant of the fact that a hollow account would fail to touch the reader, and produce in him the desired effect. Therefore, she combined the use of so many types of figurative language, in an admirable manner, in order to make of the reader the constant companion of Tribulation, and a dweller in the same field hospital. The following passage is a vivid example which affirms her literary talents,
“The sight of several stretchers, each with its legless, armless, or desperately wounded occupant, entering my ward, admonished me that I was there to work, not to wonder or weep; so I corked up my feelings, and returned to the path of duty, which was rather "a hard road to travel" just then. The house had been a hotel before hospitals were needed, and many of the doors still bore their old names; some not so inappropriate as might be imagined, for my ward was in truth a ball-room, if gun-shot wounds could christen it."
