Question

Imagine yourself to be child Peterkin from the poem 'After Blenheim'. Write an account of your conversation with Old Kaspar and of your feelings after the conversation.​

Answer 1

Answer:

"After Blenheim" is an anti-war poem that talks about the devastations of the war.

Explanation:

• If I were the little Peterkin, I would have been asking the same questions like what's war, why it happened.  
• I would have been curious to know more about those skulls.  
• The old Kaspar who told children about the horrors of the war; how people were killed and burned, it would be so terrifying to hear about such things.

Answer 2

Answer:

If I was to be child Peterkin my conversation with Old Kaspar would go as follows:

Peterkin: Look grandfather I have found this object beside the stream while playing. What is it?

Old Kaspar: It is a skull of a soldier who was killed in the war. I have found many such skulls all over the farm while ploughing, because many thousand men were killed in the battle field that is known for its victory.

Peterkin: Now tell me why was the war fought and what they fought each other for.

Old Kaspar: I don't know about all that but I know that everybody said, "That was a famous victory." At that time my father lived at Blenheim. The soldiers burnt my my father's house and was forced to live the place with his wife and child. The war itself was terrible--- fire and sword destroyed everything; many pregnant women and newborn babies died.

[Peterkin in his mind: But the things like that will take place in every war.]

Old Kaspar: The duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene won great praise for the victory.

My feelings after the conversation:

My grandfather said me that it was a skull of the soldier who lost his life in war; but he can not explain why the belligerents went to the war. He unquestioningly accepted the loss of women and children in war and says it was a famous victory. To me it appeared a mute testimony to the truth of "Man's inhumanity to man". He blindly believes that it was a famous victory without thinking about the loss it has caused.