The Pasture of Rats: Verminous Bodies of the First World War

This paper examines competing notions of the revitalising and degrading effects of conflict in writing of the First World War through soldiers’ encounters with vermin. I argue that the proliferation of verminous animals, such as rats and lice, and their accompanying ill-effects challenge muscular ideals of military discipline and self-possession. In writing of the First World War, there is a recurrent focus on the slow erosion of the body, either through instances of spectacular violence or the drudgeries of soldiering of which vermin form a significant part. Soldiers’ bodies itch, ooze, shiver and ache; when they are dead, they are destined to become what Frederic Manning calls ‘the pasture of rats’ in 'Her Privates We' (1930). These experiences shape war writing in significant ways, expressing anxieties around the transformation and destiny of the body under warfare