| Popis: |
The main purpose of this study was to bring history to life in order to contribute to a greater understanding of historical characters. Being able to relate to historical individuals will greatly increase student's interests in relation to the subject, and thereby their knowledge. This is one of the main struggles amongst history teachers, which would make a study like this significant in regards to history as a school subject. This was done by analyzing personal documents belonging to five individuals of the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War One. These documents consisted of seventeen letters which were sent from the western front to the families of these five men. The process of gathering these letters also made sure to involve letters sent from the beginning and end of the particular soldier's war. The analysis was comprised of three main questions which were answered and eventually contributed to the fulfillment of the main purpose. The three questions were as follows. What did these servicemen choose to involve in the letters to their families? Why did they choose to involve this particular content? How was the initial content changed in comparison to the latter? The letters were examined using a qualitative content analysis which made it possible to identify three main themes of content, and thereby answering the first question. The why and how question however, required the use of a theoretical starting point and some previous research. Sigmund Freud's theory about the so called death drive proved to be an intriguing jumping-off point to these questions. Not only did it provide the study with the conclusion that soldiers are driven by a will to live, and being reunited with their families. It also implied that the procedure of reaching this goal might result in the desire of inflicting harm upon others, although in a non-personal way. The analysis came to the conclusion that letters are a good way to bring history to life, which were strengthened by the small details in each letter. This study can also function as a template for future studies, meaning that the backbone of this study can be applied to any theatre of war which contains a correspondence between family and soldier. |
