Barry Hines: A Kestrel for an Infantryman The novel "A Kestrel for an Infantryman", by Barry Hines, is set in 1968 in an industrial area of ​​the north. It's about a boy named Billy Casper who is under pressure at home and has trouble at school. The only time he can escape is when he escapes to the countryside to experience nature in all its splendor. The title of the novel is a play on words of sorts, as in the Middle Ages there was a group of people called knaves who were, like Billy in the novel, the lowest class around. Their bird to hunt was a kestrel hawk, and in the novel Billy finds a kestrel hawk and trains it. The author, Barry Hines, uses many contrasts early in the story to emphasize the difference between Billy's disadvantaged life and the lives of upper class people. Billy's house is cramped, dirty, uncomfortable, and generally not a very pleasant environment for Billy to grow up in. His family is poor and Billy has to share a bed with his older brother Jud - we can tell there is a bed from the description, 'The wardrobe and the bed were blurry shapes in the darkness'. His family can't even afford the bedroom curtains: “There were no curtains up.” They have no central heating and have to depend on a fire every day for both heat and light that Billy finds in the pantry, "a packet of dried peas and a half bottle of vinegar." It is clear that there is no car in their garage when he says that Billy "kicked an oil can the length of the garage". This is completely different from the countryside, which is clean and seems to be the place where Billy can get away from home and school life. When Billy is in the countryside, in the early hours of the morning, the air takes on a fresher, more sparkling. The way the campaign descriptions are written shows no negative points