Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

4.5 Irony & Anti-War: Cobb's Paths of Glory

                                                                        Cobb's Paths of Glory

        "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, and all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, awaits alike the inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave."  In Paths of Glory   (Viking Press 1935),  Humphrey Cobb uses this passage from Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" to depict  the horror and  absurdity of war, its cruelty,  and the vanity of those who wage it.  The novel begins with a description of Duval and Langlois watching a company of tired and war-torn soldiers marching  in the 181st Regiment in which they are destined to serve (4-5).  Cobb  also uses the dreary weather to parallel the gloomy mood of the officers (97), as the exhausted, angry, and frustrated lieutenant trudged along through the mud and rain with his men (12). As Langlois witnessed their passing  along the road, he carries a letter written to his pregnant wife expressing his hopes for a baby girl (13).  Cobb uses irony, in this case, to contrast the birth of child with the death and carnage surrounding them. Like Zola's Downfall and Tolstoy's War and Peace, The Paths of Glory expresses Cobb's aversion for war, its madness, its motives, and its profiteers.

               Cobb  next  utilizes image of war and death in the attack at The Pimple.  In this section, the Army Commander orders General of Division Assolant to attack the Germans at a location called The Pimple, a place where two generals have already failed to defeat the enemy.  Recognizing that his  men have probably slept more than the other soldiers, Assolant reluctantly accepts the order (26).    Cobb next shifts the narrative   to an image of Didier, a soldier in Number 2 Company (26). At this point, Cobb describes the fatigue of the officers when he says, "Even the newly joined recruits had had some of their spirits taken out of them by marching and counter-marching" (28). The author characterizes an old woman who sits along the side of the road and "watches the aimless movement of the armies" for the past two years (29). Colonel Dax, Commander of the 181st Regiment, is also experiencing the tension and "fear" which could easily transform into "panic," a fear that he often felt before going into battle, despite the three thousand men under his command (31-33).   Dax recoils from the "thought" of "flesh" being "torn open and over which blood is pouring, his flesh, their flesh, lying about still alive, but dying, dying so slowly, dying so fast" (34).

                Cobb uses the image of the chalk pit to further intensify the  the death and isolation of war. Duval and Langlois approach a horrifying place known as the chalk pit as they near the German boundary (42). As the soldiers 'flatten" themselves on the ground to avoid bullets whizzing over their heads, Duval undergoes and emotional transformation which he later describes as "the moment . . . he "ceased to be a boy" (43). In this chalk pit lay Lieutenant Paolacci, wounded from piece  of "jagged revolving metal"that "tore through his pelvis" and left him there crying for help and subsequently dying there, suffering and alone (45).  The shrapnel had literally torn through his body, and he could not even feel any flesh beneath the second buttonhole of his uniform! As he goes in and out of consciousness, Paolaci tries to cry for help but soon his impending death brought  "its own anesthetic  with it" (53). There, in the pit, great swarms of rats feasted on the bodies of men and animals; and just after the Lieutenant's death, one of the loathsome creatures lowered it head and began to eat Paolacci's under lip" (53). Cobb uses this horrifying image to counter the illusion of war as a glorious experience.  Like Orwell's rat cage that O'Brien used to terrify Winston, the image of a rodent consuming the flesh of one's face evokes a terror more gruesome than death. 

             Cobb's next employs the image of the forty-nine soldiers who died and the indifference of nature and society's warmongers to enhance the  tone of loss and isolation. The author says that  as vast numbers of soldiers died, they were quickly replaced, one by one; however,  it made little difference to a rat who they were or what they wore.  In essence, the"innumerable caravan" of death continued thus, as did the rats, their beneficiaries. Cobb's cynical use of the rodent in this case, as in Paolacci's, represents moral corruption and indignation associated with the act of war itself. Roget, Didier, and Lejeune's night mission to the German line compels the soldiers to crawl near and around numerous "French corpses " that make Roget vomit, and leave him feeling "defenseless and afraid in a hostile world" (70). Roget, seeing a mound, decides to "split the patrol" (71). Cobb, at this juncture, contrast the sun and its beauty with man and his intemperance. It is Nature who is indifferent to the whims of insignificant man. Cobb says, "The sun, to whose coming all this inferno had been but a prelude, moved higher in the cloudless sky, unmindful, so its seemed, of the havoc caused in honor of the event" (77). The image of an indifferent sun places Cobb  in the naturalistic tradition of Crane, Dreiser, Dos Passos,  Norris, and London. In that same paragraph, the "delicate blades of grass," "birds making love," "light breezes," and the "pleasant sound of larks" contrast with "the bodies his comrades fertilized," "smoke puffs of shrapnel," 'flying metal,"and the "zenith of trajectories" (77). Ironically,  Cobb ends the paragraph by saying, "There was something profoundly saddening about it. It all seemed so fragile and so absurd" (77). 

           Cobb utilizes the  conflicts among the soldiers to enhance the tone of betrayal.  Cobb uses the images of flies that were "feeding at the eyes, nostrils, mouths, and open wounds" of  dead soldiers, and the indifference of officers like Herbillon who had "no pity" to intensify the naturalistic tone of loss and betrayal (81). Didier expresses morbid humor over the death of Lejeune and casts doubts concerning man's plan for men's lives when he says that God is "not a part" of the war (86). Didier subsequently accuses Roget of being drunk and throwing the bomb that killed Lejeune, and Roget , in turn, accuses Didier of insubordination and attempting to shoot an officer. Didier had long been jealous of Roget's promotion and was vengeful toward him (89-90). Didier relents, and Roget offers a truce and a contrived explanation for LeJeune's death (90).  Didier agrees, yet declares his hatred for Roget to his face! (91).

             Finally, Cobb uses the concept of fate to to illustrate the victimization of the characters trapped in an existential environmental over which they have no control. Facing combat the following day, Langlois says, "It takes a fool to make war, if you judge by those who are making this one. This attack they're pushing us into now, it's just plain murder" (117). The men assume the odds are against them (116), and they are right. As the German machine guns slaughter them, many of the soldiers were "mutinying" and "refusing to advance" (134). As a result, General Assolant is so angry that he orders three companies of his own men to be shot. He is later persuaded  to shoot only four men, at the officers' request (160). In war, madness reigns, not common sense. This is Cobb's theme, his message.  Captain Renouart denies the allegation that any soldier in his company is guilty of cowardice (166), but the madness increases as  Officers Arnaud and Sancy try to determine whether Meyer or Ferol should be executed for the entire regiment. Cobb suggests the absurdity of a war that allow its leaders to choose a random victim  (176). Demanding a scapegoat for the regiment's behavior and their own humiliation, the military leaders decide to draw lots to determine who will be tried (199). Didier, Langlois, and Ferol, three innocent men, are charged and condemned to death by firing squad! They all three refuse to confess, and all three are shot and killed (241-242).  Sadly, tragically, Cobb expresses his intense criticism of war, its madness, it motives, and its profiteers. 

         *Paths of Glory is loosely based on a true story in which four French soldiers were executed for the actions of their regiment. 

*Please see Chapters 1, 70, 125, 126, 127, 133, 135, 137, and 148 for other anti-war novels.

                                                                                     Works Cited

Cobb, Humphrey.  Paths of Glory. New York: The Viking Press, 1935.

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