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What is the deeper meaning to "War" by Luigi Pirandello?

One of the symbolic meanings to Pirandello's short story is how war is the source of endless pain.


Pirandello's short story shows how there is nothing restorative in war. The small train carriage is filled with people who will never experience the battlefield. However, they all experience the hurt intrinsic to the war experience.  The justifications behind war do not alleviate any of their pain.  The mother who sends her son to the front can find no solace in his departure.  The other passengers on the train are more interested in displaying how their pain is worse than anyone else's.  The passenger who enters and speaks with authority might be the only one who shows a conviction about the necessity of war.  When he talks about "good boys" who leave to "serve their country," it galvanizes the other passengers. When he speaks of the message in his son's final letter, it provides a temporary relief from war's pain.  This is undercut with the mother's question of whether the man's son is "really dead."  The "incongruity" of the question with the speech that preceded it overwhelmed him.  The weight of war's pain was too much, as he breaks down in "uncontrollable sobs."


The symbolic meaning of the story is that there are no winners in war.  It kills the young and creates a legacy of pain and hurt in those who survive.  In contrast to the standard depiction of "the great war," Pirandello's story cdepicts the profound hurt that is war's inescapable reality.

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