Out of the ashes of fire, new life may yet emerge. Fire, so closely associated with destruction, is a large part of E.L Doctorow’s novel, The March, in which the bloody civil war of America threatens to result in the complete decimation of civilization on both sides. Fire was the main tool used to reduce the landscape of a region to nothingness. But fire does not only symbolize the destruction of a physical landscape to nothingness, it also extinguishes with it the very identity and cultures of the region. Out of this barren land a new civilization is formed. One that consists of those cautiously entering the new world, those searching for their place, and those who wish to return to the past. As Union troops march and burn their way across
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Colonel Sartorius, even in his efforts to save lives, grew distant to how society was changing around him. He did his job solely for the purpose of the bloodshed to be diminished or stopped. Yet if the bloodshed stopped, the slaves and the very principles the Union was fighting for would come back. Even as a well-respected member of the Union, Sartorius did not care much for the advancement of civilization, showing the dehumanization aspect of war, even on the side fighting to for the bettering of humanity. Thus, he represents those within the war, both black and white, who were just a pawn of the war itself, lost in their true purpose, and just following orders. This accurately reflected the feelings of many slaves, who suddenly getting their freedom, had no direction in life but to follow the army’s orders. Many wanted nothing more than the bloodshed to stop so they could start a fresh life, independent of authority, in the new world. Mattie on the other hand was an affluent women already established in the South. “Yet to someone watching the processions of men and wagons …became apparent that not merely an army was on the move but an uprooted civilization… white citizens of the South in their fine carriages overloaded and creaking with bundles and odd pieces of furniture” (Doctorow 239). The war resulted in a complete uprooting of her Southern life and beliefs. She wanted the war to end not so the bloodshed would stop, but so she could have the old world back, in which she lived in comfort cared for by
Colonel Sartorius, even in his efforts to save lives, grew distant to how society was changing around him. He did his job solely for the purpose of the bloodshed to be diminished or stopped. Yet if the bloodshed stopped, the slaves and the very principles the Union was fighting for would come back. Even as a well-respected member of the Union, Sartorius did not care much for the advancement of civilization, showing the dehumanization aspect of war, even on the side fighting to for the bettering of humanity. Thus, he represents those within the war, both black and white, who were just a pawn of the war itself, lost in their true purpose, and just following orders. This accurately reflected the feelings of many slaves, who suddenly getting their freedom, had no direction in life but to follow the army’s orders. Many wanted nothing more than the bloodshed to stop so they could start a fresh life, independent of authority, in the new world. Mattie on the other hand was an affluent women already established in the South. “Yet to someone watching the processions of men and wagons …became apparent that not merely an army was on the move but an uprooted civilization… white citizens of the South in their fine carriages overloaded and creaking with bundles and odd pieces of furniture” (Doctorow 239). The war resulted in a complete uprooting of her Southern life and beliefs. She wanted the war to end not so the bloodshed would stop, but so she could have the old world back, in which she lived in comfort cared for by