Bayonet Charge Flashcards
what is the poem about?
a sing soldiers experience of a charge towards enemy lines
‘suddenly he awoke’
sounds as if he is confused and in a vulnerable state. the events seem like a nightmare but this confirms that they’re real
‘bullets smacking the belly out of the air’
violent imagery and onomatopoeia describes the sound and the impact of the shots
‘patriotic tear’ ‘sweating’ ‘molten iron from the centre of his chest’
his patriotism has turned to fear and pain, his heroic ideas have been replaced with painful reality
‘in what cold clockwork if the stars and the nations’
emphasises the soldiers insignificance and his lack of control of his situation, ‘cold’ implies that the people in charge of the war don’ care about individual soldiers’
‘like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs, listening between his footballs for the reason, of his till running’
simile creates an image of someone blind and irrational - suggests there is no rational reason for war
‘and crawled in a threshing circle’
a distressing image of out of control movement. ‘threshing circle’ is an agricultural term used to suggest that nature is affected by war
‘dropped like luxuries’
he’s been reduced to a basic level - he’s attacking out of desperation not morel principle
‘his terror’s touchy dynamite’
the soldier seems to have become a weapon rather than a human being. he is driven purely by terror
what are the themes in the poem?
conflict, fear, individual experience
conflict in ‘Bayonet Charge’?
the soldier is presented as a confused and helpless victim, physical descriptions of the battle create a sense of noise and confusion, patriotism and principles are no use to him in the heat of the battle
fear in ‘Bayonet Charge’?
the beginning of the poem immediately alerts the reader to the soldiers fear, the final metaphor of ‘his terror’s touchy dynamite’ suggests his fear has overwhelmed him
individual experience in ‘Bayonet Charge’?
there are no other soldiers present in the poem - the soldiers seem isolated and alone
what is form of the poem?
the poem uses enjambment and caesura, and has lines of uneven length. this creates an irregular rhythm, which mirrors the soldier struggling to run through the mud, ‘he’ is used so keep him anonymous
