War. The novel as a whole.

The novel as a whole is mostly about war. It is about the gruesome, horrible, sad, and miserable parts of war. The parts that are usually left out and untold of, the parts that we are not proud of as Canadians. It explains what happens to those who have to kill in war. How soldiers of war are changed physically, mentally, and spiritually. Everyone's experience in war is different. Everyone deals with war in different ways, and justifies their actions however they can, that is if they feel their actions can be justified. Boyden pulls all this together and it become a huge theme in the novl.