When Isabelle runs away with Stephen, her decision to leave is in large part due to her dislike for her husband, not merely her love for Stephen. Many of the characters in Birdsong are motivated by hate, through which Faulks highlights the power of this negative emotion on human behavior. While it is hate that keeps Stephen alive, he is ultimately saved by an act of love, through which Faulks effectively argues the power and triumph of love over hate. The men Stephen fights with and against are likewise motivated by their emotions however, unlike Stephen, the troops are guided by love for their country, love for their families, and love for each other. Later, entrenched in the gruesome violence of the Great War (World War I), Stephen’s hate for his German enemy-and for the very troops he commands-compels him to stay alive and keep fighting through unimaginable odds. As a young man before World War I, Stephen is motivated by his forbidden love for Isabelle Azaire, the wife of a French textile manufacturer he has been tasked to observe by his British employer. The characters within Sebastian Faulks’ novel are overwhelmingly driven by these two conflicting emotions, each in different ways and to very different ends, and Englishman Stephen Wraysford is one such example. From the passion of young lovers to the deadly animosity of war, Birdsong is an intimate look at the many forms of love and hate.

Birdsong faulks