Your Death Would Be Mine Written By Martha Hanna Tells

Your Death Would Be Mine written by Martha Hanna tells the story of life in France during World War I through the intimate correspondences of Marie and Paul Pireaud. Marie and Paul were newlywed’s who wrote daily letter correspondences during World War I. Paul was a French soldier who spent the entire duration of the First Great War, from 1914-1918, on the front lines. Marie was on the home front working the land and pregnant with the couples first child, who was born through a difficult childbirth. The Pireaud’s were two peasants from rural France in the Dordogne region. Hanna uses over two thousand correspondences between Marie and Paul to illustrate what life was like. Marie and Paul’s letters covered a wide variety of topics such as:†¦show more content†¦Paul’s experience of the Great War was not identical in all details to that of every other French soldier mobilized in defense of the nation; Marie’s was not that of every young woma n waiting at home. But theirs is a story– rich in detail, passionate in its expression–that is worth retelling. Hanna consistently maintained the thesis through out the book because the letters allowed readers to see what it was like to live as a peasant in rural France during War World I. Hanna consistently shows why the Pireaud’s story should be told. Hanna used the letters to explain different things that were happening militarily; Hanna described Paul’s experiences in some of France’s bloodiest battle, such as the Verdun and the Somme. Hanna’s use of Paul’s description of the battles is one of the many examples of how the thesis was maintained through out the book; the examples keep with the part of Hanna’s thesis that mentioned how terrifying the First Great was. Hanna also provided readers with historical context, which supported the thesis because it allowed readers to see how the war came