The second half of Brittain’s narrative deals with mourning and loss; the loss of loved ones but also a loss of self. After Vera discovers that Roland has died on the front, her words stand out when she states: “from that moment Roland ceased – and ceased for ever – to be Roland” (242). These words are quite profound. She does not say that Roland passed away or died, (and makes no speculation about the existence of his soul after death) but rather that he completely ceases to be or to exist, and furthermore, he ceased to be Roland. All those traits and aspects of his person that comprise his sense of selfhood are effaced and wiped from existence. The sense here of finality and the totality of the lack of his existence is incredibly stirring emotionally, but also quite important, I might argue, in the context of Vera’s continually rising disillusionment.

Vera’s preoccupation with this sense of self and existence continues in other areas of her narrative as well, when she worries about loved ones and their fate on the battlefield, but also when she encounters them after they have changed. When Edward has not corresponded after his great offensive battle she asks “was Edward still in the world – or not?” (277). She doesn’t ask whether he is alive (as one might expect), but whether he, and the things that make him Edward still exist. When she does see him again, one of her first observations is that “the Battle of the Somme had profoundly changed him and added ten years to his age” (283). The Edward who returned from the battle is not the same Edward that Vera remembers. Later, too, with Victor, Vera distinguishes between the Victor who physically “was there as usual” and the “real Victor” who seems to have disappeared in light of his growing delirium (357). She also explores the ways in which she herself has changed in response to the losses she faced in the war (though she is ultimately able to carry on and continue her life slowly and painfully but surely). Continually, though, she questions and connects this sense of selfhood and existence, linking them together in a way that comes across as both unusual and profound. Though death is one means by which selfhood and existence cease, war and the effects of war certainly produce similar echoes of this type of loss on Vera and the members of her generation.