Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (Book Analysis)

This practical and insightful reading guide offers a complete summary and analysis of Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves. It provides a thorough exploration of the book’s plot, characters and main themes, as well as a useful discussion of the context in which it was written. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.

This clear and detailed 60-page reading guide is structured as follows:

• Biography of Robert Graves
• Presentation of Goodbye to All That
• Summary of Goodbye to All That
• Social and historical context
• Analysis of Goodbye to All That
  • Lack of understanding of those at home
  • Questioning the war
  • Siegfried’s protest
  • Domestic life with Nancy and children
  • Socialism

About Goodbye to All That

Goodbye to All That is Robert Graves’ autobiography, written when the author was 33, shortly before he left England for good. In it, he details his unhappy years at public school, his experiences as an officer in the First World War and the early years of his first marriage. It is much more than a straightforward autobiography: Graves’ vivid account of the horrors of the trenches, the blind jingoism of the conflict’s supporters at home and the social upheaval following the armistice make it one of the most illuminating and compelling works written about the Great War.

About Robert Graves

Robert Graves was an English poet, novelist, critic and classicist. He was born to an affluent family in London in 1895 and enlisted to fight in the First World War shortly after leaving school, serving as an officer in France. This had a major impact on him, and the conflict and its aftermath led him to become a socialist and a pacifist. Graves is known in particular for his poetry, his historical novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God, his autobiography Goodbye to All That and his academic studies of mythology.