Bayonet Charge Flashcards
1
Q
What is the context of Ted Hughes’ ‘Bayonet Charge’?
A
*About a nameless soldier going over the top in the trenches
*Bayonets would be attached to end of their rifles to stab enemy soldiers
*His actions very animalistic
*Ted Hughes former RAF serviceman, includes great amount of natural and historical ideas in his poems and often looks at man’s impact on nature
2
Q
“bullets smacking the belly out of the air-“
A
- personifies bullets and semantic body parts - blurs the line between weapons and man - dehumanises soldiers and personifying weapons
3
Q
“he lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm”
A
-
4
Q
“patriotic tear”
A
- juxtoposition of noble patriotic tears with “sweating like molten iron” - further dehumanises soldier - likens to machines
5
Q
“a yellow hare that rolled like a flame and crawled in threshing circle”
A
- metaphor - real hare? coward?
- yellow is the colour of fear and hares are pray
- natural and juxtaposes machine like nature
- another soldier shot? dehumanised
6
Q
“king, honour, human dignity, etcetera”
A
- list of key motivations for war
- emphasises that here and now they are second to rush of battle
