Chandler's text "Letters form the Trenches" it presents to us the life of the author, in the trenches of France during WWI. Through the use of textual features which include setting and the style in which it is written in are used by the author to help us, the reader, to understand their text. The author's values and attitudes towards his experience in the trenches are also portrayed to us in this text, plus how the readers understanding of historical and social context are shaped.
The historical and social context are illustrated by the way Les Chandler depicts through his letters the effect of war on the French landscape, the weather which they are experiencing and how he is going, like his health and how much sleep he is getting. He also shows to us, the reader, and the conditions that the soldiers had to live with and put up with. For example the fact that they only had a bath and got a new change of clothes once and a while as Les states "I"m felling particularly well today as I had a good bath & change of clothes." This shows us that although times were hard, it was the norm as in that time as people didn't know or have the luxuries we have today and people in general were used to hardship. He also shows us in bits and pieces what his role in the war was and these are spread throughout the letters. Some of these are " work of a cold footed A.M.C man- (A.M.C = Australian Medical Core) and this is backed up by the fact that he doesn't really tell directly about the death but rather the saving of the wounded, for example " carrying stretcher cases to the advanced dressing station- and " return journey with the wounded-. He shows us more positive things about the war rather than the negative ones.
The attitude that Chandler conveys to us is a positive one. This helps us to understand the good things about war rather than the evil. He also includes a poem:.
"I asked him what he was doing & what he was looking for,.
