What is meant by 'the theme of war'?

Question:It's for my homework and i don't get it. HELP!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: It's for my homework and i don't get it. HELP!

Look at how it's being used in the book you're reading. Is it describing the action, or does it make a backdrop? For example, in The Illiad or Saving Private Ryan, the "theme of war" is about warriors, glory, death, victory and defeat. In something like Cold Mountain or M*A*S*H, the war acts as a backdrop. It means that people are separated from loved ones, starving, worried, struggling to survive-- not actually fighting, but affected by the violence.

http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/5290....

try this

hope it helps

The cause of it

Any poetry which has something to do with war: anything by the war poets (Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen etc), for example, or a poem which on the face of it has nothing to do with war but contains martial images or has an underlying theme of war: eg Charles Causley's "Innocents Song" or Robert Lowell's "Fall 1962".