“THE PRIME O’ OUR LAND LIE CAULD IN THE CLAY”: WORLD WAR ONE IN LEWIS GRASSIC GIBBON’S SUNSET SONG

Resumo

This paper aims at analyzing how Lewis Grassic Gibbon portrays World War One in his novel Sunset Song (1932). In the narrative, Gibbon depicts the influence of the war on the fictional village of Kinraddie, which functions as a representation of the Northeast of Scotland. Although the conflict seems distant from the characters at first, its impact reaches the rural community, mainly in the form of propaganda and loss. The war brings drastic changes to the village, with economic transformations and the end of the peasants’ traditional way of life.