# Death — Now It Can Be Told character guide

> Death in Now It Can Be Told by Philip Gibbs.

**Role:** minor

**First appearance:** 0003-i

## Who they are

Personification of death, a recurring motif.

## In the story

### [XIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/chapters/xiii)

Implied presence as the ultimate fate awaiting the condemned soldiers, with the dawn execution marking the end of their lives.

### [The New Army Arrives](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/chapters/iii)

Personified as narrowly missing a soldier in a billet, highlighting the randomness of survival.

### [XIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/chapters/xiv)

Death is personified as a reaper who is busy in the harvest fields, taking soldiers and civilians alike.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/chapters/iii)

Personified as the hunter tracking the soldiers with hunted looks in their eyes.

### [XIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/chapters/xiv)

Personified as a lurking specter that men try to ignore or escape, yet which is ever-present in the battle zone.

### [Part VIII: For What Men Died](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/chapters/part-viii-for-what-men-died)

The constant presence of death is highlighted, especially the fate of the nineteen men killed at Arras.

### [VIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/chapters/viii)

Referenced as a constant presence in the trenches, cheapening life.

### [IX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/chapters/ix)

Death is invoked through the memory of the 900,000 British boys who died in the war.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters/death
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/now_it_can_be_told_se/characters