A Fable

Alcohol appears frequently throughout A Fable. Characters from every background indulge their vices by drinking alcohol. Doing so functions as a form of social bonding and a way to ratify connections between disparate characters. Alcohol has different meanings depending on the social class of those involved, however; the characters’ relation to alcohol is affected by their status. For the officers, alcohol is an indulgence which separates them from the enlisted men. While those in the trenches must scrimp and save whatever cheap alcohol they can acquire from the local French civilians, the officers on both sides sip fine brandies as a way to relax after a long day of sending enlisted men to die in battle. This is in evidence during the meeting between the French, American, British, and German generals. The men settle into a familiar pattern of drinking, even those who do not usually drink. They toast one another and they toast their vision of war, reaffirming their shared ideologies and status as a way to communicate across divides such as language and nationality. They may be on separate sides that have spent four years trying to exterminate one another, but there is nothing that should stop civilized, polite officers from sharing a drink.