Analysis Of The Forbidden Zone By Mary Borden

In Mary Borden’s compilation of poems from, The Forbidden Zone, she focuses on the denial of the cruelty and dehumanization effects of the Great War as a coping mechanism. Not only does she provide the perspectives of women, but also the different experiences of the infantry men and the officers. Borden presents two specific types of women throughout her poems. The women who sacrificed their lucidity to become nurses and the women who remained at home with a romanticized idea of war. In her poem, “The Square,” she notes, “Below my window in the high bright square a struggle is going on between the machines of war and the people of the town,” (17). Limousines meant to carry ladies to “places of amusement,” now carry generals to “places of …show more content…
Instead of choosing one single character in denial, Borden presents this town almost as if it was in blissful ignorance. “War had that day the aspect of a county fair. The armies were gipsy caravans vagabonding over the country… Here and there near a stream, a cluster of tents, gaudily painted, suggested a circus,” (21). Borden’s town is romanticizing the image of war as an exciting event, ignoring its consequences. Consequences such as the dehumanization Borden imposes on the old French regiment in the poem. The regiment itself is only referred by the pronoun, “they.” They are not assigned individual identities, but are represented as one single unit. “And they were all deformed, and certainly their deformity was the deformity of the war… The same machine had twisted and bent them all,” (23). In this sentence Borden figuratively refers to their psyche. The knowledge that the old men of the regiment have outlived their sons and that their future is death in the trenches is what has debased them. “They accepted the war. It was a thing to be endured. They were enduring it,” (24). This contrasts, the original idea of the war as an anticipated event. These soldiers expect their