Teacher`s Notes - Eleven Eleven

 Teacher’s Guide Eleven Eleven by Paul Dowswell **These notes may be reproduced free of charge for use and study within schools, but they may not be reproduced (either in whole or in part) and offered for commercial sale** SYNOPSIS: IN BRIEF It is November 11th 1918, the last morning of the Great War, but not everybody has been told the war is over. In the deadly chaos of Germany’s bitter rearguard action, with snipers, booby traps and hostile Belgian civilians surrounding them, three teenagers from different nations will face each other, will fight each other, and will ultimately find themselves struggling to keep each other alive . . . From Paul Dowswell, whose Ausländer was nominated for the 2009 Book Trust Teenage Prize, the 2010 Carnegie Medal and the Red House Book Prize, Eleven Eleven is a thrilling human drama as well as a gripping depiction of the confusion of war and the ever relevant truth that wars are often fought by very young men. SYNOPSIS: IN DETAIL Axel is a patriotic German teenager about to spend his first day on the Western Front. Will is an English boy who, under pressure from his girlfriend’s disapproving father, lied about his age to sign up and has been fighting for several months. Neither of them knows that the armistice is about to be signed. Eddie is a privileged young American fighter pilot of German ancestry stationed nearby. Eddie has heard about the armistice but he needs to shoot down one last German to become an 'Ace', so he ignores his orders and takes off into the cold November sky. 1
Axel and another young compatriot are sent up a tower to keep watch for advancing British and American troops. They are tired, hungry and afraid. Will sets off on a reconnaissance mission under the command of his brother, Jim. This swiftly turns into a terrifying ordeal as his fellows are picked off by a pair of German snipers. Eddie can’t find any German planes to attack, so he decides to drop his bombs on a front line German position, where Axel is awaiting the American attack. Axel sees an American plane approaching. Shrapnel from the bombs the plane drops kills his compatriot, but Axel hits its engine with a lucky shot. Eddie survives, badly injured, and crash-­‐lands nearby. Axel comes to finish him off but finds him struggling in the deep mud of a bomb crater. Eddie tells him the war is ending. Axel is enraged that Eddie fought on knowing this, but Axel cannot kill in cold blood and tries to save Eddie. Soon they are both desperately mired in the mud. Will has fled from the sniper, losing contact with his brother and fellow soldiers. He comes upon the crater. Remembering how his brother drowned in just such a crater, he helps the others escape. When they hear cheering in the distance, Will learns from Eddie that the war is over. Will and Axel carry Eddie to the safety of a Belgian village, but Axel then recognises it as the place the Germans booby-­‐trapped on their way through the previous night. The train station is wired with explosives that are timed to go off that morning. Surrounded by vengeful Belgian civilians who want to kill Axel, and with Eddie lying severely wounded, Will races to inform the British military command before the bomb explodes. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Eleven Eleven is Paul Dowswell’s sensational seventh historical novel for Bloomsbury. It follows The Adventures of Sam Witchall, a gripping trilogy about a nineteenth-­‐
century powder monkey, The Cabinet of Curiosities, a tale of alchemy and skulduggery in Renaissaince Prague, as well as the multi-­‐prize-­‐nominated Ausländer, and Sektion 20, a spy thriller set in Cold War East Berlin. Learn more at www.pauldowswell.co.uk 2
AUSTRALIAN HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM USE •
Year 9 History -­‐ ‘The Great War’ •
Year 7 English – Thematic Unit ‘Adventure’ •
Year 9 English – Thematic Unit ‘Heroes and the Quest Narrative’ •
Year 10 English – Thematic Unit (Elective) ‘Heart of Darkness: What is Evil?’ DISCUSSION 1. ‘Axel struggled to understand why this kind of behaviour was being tolerated by the greatest army on earth […] but now the High Command had lowered the combat age to sixteen he had been able to enlist […] Germany was winning, wasn’t she?’ (Ch 1, p.1) What is Dowswell telling you about Axel on the opening page? Does he understand what is going on around him? If not, why not? Because of his age? German propaganda? 2. ‘William Franklin could sense the earth tremble beneath his feet […] This was a deep, heavy rumble – the sort that only a large armoured vehicle would make.’ (Ch 2, p.10) How does this, and the description of Will’s tiredness, emphasise the difference between Axel and Will, the fresh new soldier and the veteran of a few months? 3. ‘Boys have been shot fer less.’ (Ch 2 ,p.14 ) ‘The executions provoked a great deal of impotent rage, but they had ensured minimum resistance and even a measure of surly cooperation.’ (Ch 5, p.46) What do you think of the fact that soldiers were shot for cowardice? Or civilians for resisting the Germans? Are these things equivalent? How effective would they be? Would the fear of being shot make you do something you didn’t want to? 4. ‘It had taken them over four years to get back here. Four whole years.’ (Ch 2, p.17) ‘It didn’t take long for Will to realise that his German adversaries were almost certainly being told the same thing.’ (Ch 4, p.35) Does this mean the war was pointless? What would you have thought about it if you were Will? Was there any difference between the sides? What does Eleven Eleven reveal on these points? 3
5. ‘Eddie Hertz slept in a plush feather bed in a farmhouse in Prouvy.’ (Ch 3, p.21) How different is Eddie’s life to those of Axel and Will? Both in the war and at home? 6. ‘He was only first-­‐generation American himself.’ (Ch 3,p.23) Eddie seems completely loyal to America. What do you think his parents think? What would your parents think if you were growing up as an immigrant and fighting against their country of birth? 7. ‘Will realised then and there that Dr Hayworth’s real motive was to get him away from Alice.’ (Ch 4, p.33) What do you think of Alice’s father? Will is sixteen. In World War I you were conscripted at eighteen but many younger boys lied about their age. Today you can join the UK army at sixteen and can engage in combat when you are seventeen, but you cannot vote until you are eighteen. Is that right? 8. ‘Every hour, every minute, brought more needless deaths. The German delegation had been arguing on every point, but the British and French were giving nothing away […] The Boche had asked for it, thought Atherley. They had started the war.’ (Ch 6, p.49) Why were these deaths more pointless than the other ones? Is it right to punish the aggressors? 9. ‘The bombardment this morning resulted in the loss of Private Atherton, who died gallantly saving the horses in his care. I would remind you all that, even though we may cherish and care for the packhorses, they are not worth the life of a trained soldier.’ (Ch 8, p.70) Do you agree? If you have read or seen War Horse, does Eleven Eleven change the view of the war you had from that story? 10. ‘Corporal Entwhistle had never liked Heaton. He was always too eager to obey the officers. And those books he read […] That was all right for an officer.’ (Ch 8, p.76) Entwhistle sends Heaton on the dangerous mission because he doesn’t like him, and Heaton dies. Is Entwhistle a bad man (someone had to go, after all)? Why doesn’t he like Heaton? Why does Dowswell tell you about Heaton’s character and then kill him off straight away? 4
11. Why does Dowswell choose a pilot as one of his central characters? Why does he choose a sniper to battle against a small scouting party? What advantages does this have over describing a general battle? Is it descriptive of the war as a whole? 12. ‘His lungs fill with chlorine. His eyes are streaming now, he is retching and bent double in breathless agony.’ (Ch 11, p.97) The sniper dies because he is unlucky and finds himself in a pocket of gas. How important is luck in the book? In life? 13. ‘Poor dead Moorhouse has been his pal for the whole wretched war.’ (Ch 11, p.98) Does this make Moorhouse’s death worse than a normal death during the war? Is it worse to die on the war’s last day? 14. ‘It was a cold-­‐blooded business, and a single plane could destroy the lives of hundreds of men with a well-­‐placed bomb […] Shooting down planes was far better. Each man had a chance, not like the poor sods trapped in a train carriage or a cattle car.’ (Ch 12, p.110) Do you agree with Eddie? But which military action was more crucial to winning the war? What is more important: fairness or winning? 15. ‘He had a horrible sinking feeling about the Americans. He hoped the Feldwebel was right about them being soft […] He knew it wasn’t patriotic but Axel felt exasperated with his rulers.’ (Ch 13, p.117) How does Dowswell hint at the change in Axel’s mental state. What is changing his mind? How mature does he seem? 16. ‘He knew it was a medieval building – had stood there for six hundred years – but this country was full of churches like that, and sparing this one from the war was not worth the American lives he would save by destroying it.’ (Ch 13, p.119) Is Eddie right? Should you care about buildings? 17. “I came out to help our boys,” he lied to Axel and to himself.’ (Ch 15, p.143) 5
Why does Eddie lie to himself and Axel? Did he really think through the consequences of his actions? If not, why not? Because he killed at a distance? Because he is young? Because it is a war and all’s fair in war? 18. ‘He was the reason Will no longer believed in God.’ (Ch 16, p.148) Would it shake your faith if a nice priest was randomly killed? Why does it shake Will’s faith? Some of the Eleven Eleven deaths feel more significant than others – the veteran who has survived for years, the priest, the man killed on the last day of the war and so on – but are they really? 19. ‘Will tried to put Jim out of his thoughts and felt a renewed determination to save this pilot.’ (Ch 16, p.159) Why does one person matter so much when so many have died? Why does Dowswell keep focusing on little stories? Is that the only way to get a feeling for the war as a whole? Does it achieve that? Or is he saying that even in a big war, small things matter? 20. ‘“But he hasn’t had anything to do with that,’ shouted Will desperately. “He is Boche,” said the man plainly.’ (Ch 17, p.170) Is it reasonable to blame one man for his nation’s crimes? Do you think they are entitled to be angry? What would be the right response? How much do you blame an individual soldier fighting in a war for the war itself? How different is a soldier in WWI from one of Hitler’s army or a member of a terrorist organisation? 21. Why do you think Dowswell chose to write about World War I instead of World War II? Would it have been as easy to sympathise with a German fighting for Hitler? 22. What do you think of the fact that, of the three protagonists, it is Eddie who dies? Did he deserve to? Should stories be about rewarding the most deserving? Is that a truthful view of a war? Do you like the author’s decision to kill Eddie? BEYOND THE BOOK: Creative Writing Ideas Dowswell sets his story against the background of WWI, which lets him put recognisable and ordinary young men into a completely extraordinary situation. But he could have chosen another war, or another 6
time. He chose WWI because it is the great example of a war which seems on many levels to have been futile. He can therefore focus not on the rights and wrongs of the war so much as on what war does to individuals. If he had wanted to examine other issues – intergenerational conflict, race, or whatever – he would have chosen a different setting. •
Choose Your Setting Do you have a specific setting you are keen on? Or do you have a particular story to tell? If the first, you must then work out what themes you will address – for example, a story set on a slave plantation will almost inevitably be about race. If the second, you must find a setting – for example, if you want to write about families torn apart by conflict, then the Civil War might be a good subject. •
Research Can you make your book feel realistic? If you are writing about Elizabethan England, you will need to be able to describe the clothes, food, transport and so on. But what about the gritty streets of London in 2011? Do you know enough to write about them without research? •
What triggers the action? Why is your story happening? Has someone moved? Or has a new character entered an established setting. Does someone have to learn a new fact or discover a secret? Or does the whole world change? Whatever it is, something has to happen to get things going. •
Dialogue is very important. It tells us what characters are like. If you are setting your story in the past, or in another part of the country, how are you going to show this? Is it enough to include a few words here and there, like ‘Stone the crows’ or ‘Achtung’ just to remind people of the setting? Or would you make your characters speak the way you do now? •
Who is your protagonist? It is a very good rule of thumb that every character in a story is the protagonist as far as they are concerned, but that cannot be the case with your story over all or it will have no focus. What is the thing you want the reader to care about? What does your protagonist want? Does he or she make mistakes that cause problems? Who else gets in their way? It cannot all be easy or the story will be boring. •
What is the conflict? Conflict is vital to stories. People want different things and will plot and scheme to get them. How do they do this? Do they fight? Do they steal? Is the conflict more 7
subtle? What happens when they meet? How do people from different worlds speak to each other and get what they want, especially if they are very different in age, wealth and experience? How does a lowly eighteen-­‐ year-­‐ old soldier speak to a fifty-­‐ year-­‐ old Major General? •
Real people make mistakes! It is tempting to write about perfect characters who never get anything wrong, but this almost always makes a story less exciting. If your hero fails the first time he tries to talk to a girl because he is shy, or because he has had bad advice from his friends, then it can be more satisfying when he finally gets it right. •
How long is your story? This will have a big effect on how complicated you can make the themes. In a short story, you will probably focus on a single event with a clear impact on your characters. A longer story can deal with more characters, twists and turns. You must know what sort of length you are working towards when you are deciding on what story to tell, and how to plot it. •
What is the ending? The end of your story rewards people for reading it. You must know what the resolution is. In this book, we are always unsure who will live and die, and what the survivors will have learnt from their experience. You need to know what is going to happen so you can shape your book and make clear to your readers how the characters have been changed. LEARN MORE •
There are many places online to learn about the World War I. Two very good starting points are the BBC’s clear story of the events and debates which surround the subject, along with video. The website www.greatwar.co.uk includes excellent collections of links to more specific sites dealing with things like battleground visits and cemetery locations. •
For an article that discusses the boy soldiers of the Great War, including Private Lewis, who fought on the Somme aged twelve, go to: www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWboy.htm. Child 8
soldiers are tragically common still. Child Soldiers International (www.child-­‐soldiers.org) is a charity campaigning on this issue. •
George Lawrence Price, shot through the heart by a sniper at 10.58 on 11/11/1918, is traditionally regarded as the last man to die in Great War action (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lawrence_Price). But did you know that the Spanish flu pandemic which immediately followed the Great War, and devastated a weakened Europe, claimed more lives than the Black Death (virus.stanford.edu/uda/)? FURTHER READING •
Ausländer and Sektion 20 by Paul Dowswell •
Remembrance by Theresa Breslin •
Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly •
Private Peaceful and War Horse by Michael Morpurgo •
My Brother’s Shadow by Monika Schröder •
Skellig by David Almond •
The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier 9