Bayonet Charge

Question 1

‘Suddenly’

Answer 1

Thrusts the listener into the action and relates to the idea of waking up.

Question 2

‘Raw in raw-seamed hot khaki’

Answer 2

Use of repetition creates a sense of desperation. Connotations of ‘raw’ with being animalistic, hence a lack of humanity in the situation.

Question 3

‘Bullets smacking the belly’

Answer 3

Metaphor, creates a tense and violent atmosphere and alludes to someone being winded and unable to breathe.

Question 4

‘Patriotic tear’

Answer 4

Fear has taken over the soldier’s patriotism.

Question 5

‘He almost stopped -‘

Answer 5

Hyphen creates a pause, imitating the soldier who was about to stop.

Question 6

‘Cold clockwork’

Answer 6

Mechanical imagery emphasised by the harsh alliteration and implies that the soldier has been dehumanised in his role.

Question 7

‘Listening … for the reason of his still running’

Answer 7

The soldier begins to further question the reason for him fighting.

Question 8

‘Shot-slashed furrows’

Answer 8

Rural imagery is subverted to create a juxtaposition between the nourishing connotations of farming and the life being taken away in the same place. Also use of a compound adjective and alliteration.

Question 9

‘Threw up a yellow hare’

Answer 9

Violent connotations of ‘threw up’ contrast the innocence of a hare.

Question 10

‘King, honour, human dignity, etcetera dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm’

Answer 10

The soldier completely abandoned his previously upheld values and motivation to fight. Also use of asyndetic listing to show how the soldier gains honour for fighting for his king and country.

Question 11

What is the perspective and how does it affect the poem?

Answer 11

It’s written in third person singular, giving a limited narrative perspective. It allows the reader to focus on the individual impact of war. It also emphasises the isolation felt by soldiers in war, as the soldier is isolated from any source of help or comfort, intensifying the suffering of the speaker.

Question 12

What is the structure and how does it affect the poem?

Answer 12

• Hughes uses a chaotic structure, mirroring the chaos and panic of war.
• Enjambment is used to quicken the pace by stopping the reader from taking a break or pause. The whole of the first stanza is a single sentence, matching the tense action of the poem and maintains the momentum of a bayonet charge. The enjambment emphasises the importance of the rhetorical question, “Was he the hand pointing that second?” The reader is forced to question whether the soldier is at war by his own choice or is a cog in a constantly ticking clock.
• The fast pace created by the enjambment in the first stanza starkly contrasts with the second stanza. The pace is much slower as it’s broken up with lots of caesura. The soldier stops to consider the philosophical meaning of war, and the pace of the poem is paused to imply that the soldier is overwhelmed. This also causes the reader to pause and consider the reality of war.
• The repetition of ‘raw’ stands out against the strength of his other vocabulary, conveying the soldier’s intense suffering. It’s also reminiscent of stuttering as if the soldier is experiencing a breakdown in rationality due to anxiety and stress.

Question 13

How does Hughes use metaphors?

Answer 13

He infuses the physical actions of the soldier with metaphorical meaning. During war, sleep is a time of safety and protection, so by starting in Medias Res of the soldier waking up shows the danger and his own mortality. There are multiple meanings to him having ‘awoke[n]’, the literal being in response to a threat, but there is the figurative being him waking up to the reality of war.

Question 14

How does Hughes use similes?

Answer 14

He portrays the soldier as unsuitable for his role by using a simile to liken his rifle to a smashed arm, “He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm.” This implies that the soldier seems disconnected from his weapon and is uncomfortable holding it, showing his physical unsuitability for his role. The rifle is presented as numb and cold showing how unnatural the soldier deems committing acts of violence. There are six similes in the poem, implying there is no way for Hughes to accurately describe what war is like.

Question 15

Quote the similes.

Answer 15

• “He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm”
• “Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest”
• “He was running like a man who has jumped up in the dark”
• “His foot hung like statuary in mid-stride”
• “That rolled like a flame and crawled in a threshing circle”
• “Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm”

Question 16

How does Hughes use natural imagery?

Answer 16

• The hare is used as a symbol of the soldier’s collective suffering. He projects the violence of war onto an innocent creature accidentally caught up in the war. The soldier is so immune to the death of people later on in the poem (seen from the lack of explicit violence and graphic descriptions of war being missing) that it takes a new kind of suffering, from an innocent animal, for him to be shocked out of his trance and into instinctive actions as “he plunged past” away from danger.
• Hughes proposes that nature is a victim of war through personification, e.g. “Bullets smacking the belly out of the air.” Smacking (active verb) demonstrates the violence inflicted on the air. The plosive sounds in ‘bullets’ and ‘belly’ emphasise this.
• Peaceful images are juxtaposed with the violence of fighting, showing the contrast between life and death. The simple description of a ‘green hedge’ provides a peaceful symbol of plant life, but it’s transformed into the focus of the bayonet charge, a symbol of death.
• It’s set in the countryside, showing how farmland has become a battleground.

Question 17

Which poems should it be compared to?

Answer 17

• Charge of the Light Brigade: both criticise the leaders of war and there’s implications in both that propaganda is a powerful tool in the public attitude to war. However, CotLB praises the blind obedience of the soldiers (“When can their glory fade?”) but the perception of honour is challenged in Bayonet Charge.
• Exposure: the sense of duty imposed by patriotism disguises the true nature of war in both poems, both present unprepared soldiers. However, Owen actually experienced war whereas Hughes did not.
• Remains: both present the psychological impact of war upon a soldier (anthropomorphism in “Its mouth wide”) (“His blood-shadow stays on the street”), the soldiers in both are presented as scared (“His sweat heavy”) (“I blink and he bursts again through the doors”), and both poems are written by poets with no first-hand experience with war. However, Remains shows the impact after war once the soldier is ‘home on leave’ whereas Bayonet Charge shows the effect while the soldier is still ‘stumbling across a field’.