When I read the mention of Mercutio in Aldington’s story, I immediately know what I wanted to comment on (Not because of the fact I took Shakespeare’s Early Plays class with Dr. Mauthur). Mercutio is a witty and cynical character, aware of the senseless violence between the Capulets and the Montagues. The line “They have made worm’s meat of me” comes from his curse he places, “A plague o’ both your houses! They have made worm’s meat of me.” The fued between the two families has caused his pointless death, and by placing that curse on them, Mercutio had sealed the houses foreshadowed demise.

That in that retrospect, Lieutenant Hall identifies with Mercutio. Throughout the diary entries we see Hall spiral and unable to conform m back into normal life. He was surrounded by senseless violence in the war, and it even haunts him. Hall himself says that the Germans (uses Boche at the beginning) he killed he didn’t know why he killed them and deeply regretted it. Another instance of Hall beginning to criticize the war, “But that is all covered over with decorations such as Honour, Country, Glory, Duty, and the like. It takes a little shrewdness to see that the people who own the land and the factories also run the Army. The Army is Tweedledee pretending to be Tweedledum, with a very big DUM!” It’s just so witty like Mercutio who was so quick to call out Romeo for his actions and the Capulets in turn. But the nail on the coffin to Hall identifying with Mercutio, is both are reduced to worm’s meat after all they have done. Mercutio, who came to Romeo’s aide with Rosaline, Juliet, and Tybult. Lieutenant Hall who killed and attempted to conform to society after the war like ordered. Both were left to rot because of senseless violence, and Hall commends Shakespeare for ‘foreseeing’ the armies treatment of soldiers after the war, of Mercutio’s after the war.