The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Essay Sample)

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The Wind That Shakes the Barley
1.
Life in the Irish Republic is tough under British rule. The people are treated rudely by the British army. There are a lot of executions going around for those who refuse to betray their loyalty to the country by collaborating with British rule. The kind of life in Ireland is a clear definition of slavery; a kind of leadership where one has the option of collaborating with the army and losing their lives in a brutal manner, like in the case of summary execution. The Irish suffer a lot at the hands of the Black and Tans who do not understand the meaning of the word mercy in their lives. They are arrogantly executing the people, and life is no longer meaningful for the republicans as the nation has been covered in blood for far too long. The Irish Republicans are in a war, a fight for freedom from the leadership of the British. The Republicans are fighting to end slavery in their land by foreigners. They want a government where they can design and run their laws without compromise from the British army, which is running the government with brutality. They want a united Ireland, where they decide on their own, under their empire and not the British empire, under the blended name of freedom.
2.
For the sake of attaining independence, the Irish Republicans used guerrilla warfare tactics to fight the British army out of their land. They plan to attack the British army while they don’t expect it and get back into hiding. They formed anti-treaty groups and stole weapons from the British, which they used to train their troops in the mountains and later attacked the army unawares. This kind of tactic did help them to some extent in fighting for their freedom, since they couldn’t just sit and wait for freedom while the British continued to take control and torture the locals in their land. It, however, did cost them a lot of lives as they caused a lot of panic, even among the locals, who, out of fear of execution, revealed the plans of the troops to the British army. This kind of action from the locals compromises the operations of the republicans and is a big deal as some are arrested and taken into custody for questioning, which doesn’t echo well with them. Some locals are, however, supportive of the revolutionaries, and they help them get to the betrayers, who are taken and executed in the mountains by their leader, Damian. As the war progresses, there is an obvious shift in the behavior of most army officers, as they appear to adopt the British army's brutality in executing those who oppose British rule.
3.
The British army lures the Irish forces to sign a treaty that is supposed to give them freedom and bring peace to the land. The army, on the other hand, is hesitant to the treaty's terms, and they disagree among themselves with some opposing the treaty and others supporting it. Those against the treaty argue that they should still be under the British umbrella, and that is not what they have fought for all that time. They feel that getting half freedom from the British which still puts them under their leadership is not worth the kind of fight they have put up with the number of lives they lost in the process. This kind of disagreement between the Irish troops acts to the advantage of the British army as they utilize the divide and rule tactic to win over the Irish republicans. A war ensues between those accepting the treaty terms and those who refuses it. This gives power to the British, making the Irish republicans weaker and leading to the loss of more lives and soldiers in the hands of the British. The civil war continues for a long time, and even as it gets tougher, with the leaders of the revolution being arrested and executed, the war does not seem to end as the people yearn for freedom in their land.
4.
Women actively play a role in romance. Sinead is in love with Damien, who is in the armed forces. Sinead is one of the women who give information to the IRA. This is contributed to by the fact that she is in love with one of the officers, and as tension goes up due to the escalating war, the only help they can give is to inform the forces. The role of women can also be seen as being spy objects. They find out information and give it to the forces that in turn help them fight for their freedom. The forces sometimes died at the hands of their loved ones, their wives, and they carried the responsibility of taking care of the situation. The women go through a lot of suffering as they watch their husbands die by execution for the sake of their freedom, which also puts them in the position of freedom fighters.
5.
The Irish Republicans want total freedom from the rule of the British. They claim that the treaty signed would only give them dominion while under the rule of the British army. This is not what they had been fighting for, according to them. They wanted independence, away from the other leadership. They wanted a state where they could make their own laws and design a flag of their own. This is not what the treaty intended to give them as per the terms. They, therefore, opted to fight further till they obtained real freedom from the colonial rule of the British.
6.
Social classes play a significant role in this movie. When Damien becomes a prisoner, he meets a driver who shares the same thoughts with him socially about the kind of situation in Ireland. The Irish republicans felt that the kind of government in place and the peace treaty were not the right government to steer change in their country and that there would only be continued slavery blended in the name of peace. The loyalties of the British rule, however, felt that change would eventually come at a later time after peace was obtained from the signing of the treaty. This is where social class is seen at its peak. The Irish republicans were unable to correct in their argument, but their voice is suppressed by the existing political power. They can’t change what is already on the table, so they have to keep fighting for their freedom. The lead character, Damian, develops from a skeptical student to a full-blown revolutionary through his experiences of violence and oppression. His brother Teddy is the leader of the group whose single-minded determination to drive the British out of Ireland blinds him to the bigger political picture.
Dan, who was once a trader in the union and a sociologist, is the voice of the revolution group which is against the British leadership, the group which holds the top list in Irish history. In addition, Sinead, the girlfriend of Damian, also demonstrates the extent of social class impact in the movie. This film is a mirror of the inhumanity with which the people of Ireland were treated during the war for the sake of freedom. There is the presence of the Black and Tans group, the military group that executed people during the civil war. This group tortured and butchered innocent civilians in the name of betrayal, which paints an evil image of their actions as an army group. The film demonstrates how the actions of those in power killed the attitudes of the people towards humanity, and how racial differences led to poor decisions, which led to resistance movements. This contri