When a player is hit, ‘his language echoed all over the ground.’ The suggestion that his bloody nose and bulging eyes speak his truth is a profoundly effective image. In theory, rugby should allow safe fulfillment of man’s aggressive tendencies. However, the disturbingly calm and numb quality of description of violence suggests something more sinister. The idea of pain as ‘professional’ detaches violence from its human sphere and its consequences for others. As such, Arthur is so acclimatised to professional violence it affects his relationship with Lynda. Violence and language have become so interchangeable that when she speaks against him ‘the shortest way of stopping it I found was to hit her.’ Perhaps normalisation of violence during war has dangerously pervaded the post-war man’s fragile
When a player is hit, ‘his language echoed all over the ground.’ The suggestion that his bloody nose and bulging eyes speak his truth is a profoundly effective image. In theory, rugby should allow safe fulfillment of man’s aggressive tendencies. However, the disturbingly calm and numb quality of description of violence suggests something more sinister. The idea of pain as ‘professional’ detaches violence from its human sphere and its consequences for others. As such, Arthur is so acclimatised to professional violence it affects his relationship with Lynda. Violence and language have become so interchangeable that when she speaks against him ‘the shortest way of stopping it I found was to hit her.’ Perhaps normalisation of violence during war has dangerously pervaded the post-war man’s fragile