Bayonet Charge

Question 1

Who wrote Bayonet Charge?

Answer 1

Ted Hughes

Question 2

What is the opening phrase, containing an adverb, that sounds as if he’s in a confused, vulnerable state & suggests the events seem like a nightmare that is actually real?

Answer 2

“Suddenly he awoke”

Question 3

What adjective has a double meaning that suggests discomfort and inexperience?

Answer 3

“Raw”

Question 4

What phrase uses alliteration of ‘h’ sounds to Initiate the soldiers heavy breathing as he runs?

Answer 4

“Hot” “his” “heavy”

Question 5

What quotation uses violent imagery and onomatopoeia to describe the sounds and impact of the shots?

Answer 5

“Bullets smacking the belly out of the air”

Question 6

What simile suggests his rifle is useless and foreshadows the injuries he’s like to get?

Answer 6

“A rifle numb as a smashed arm”

Question 7

What quotations show that his patriotism has turned to fear and pain and his heroic ideals have been replaced by painful reality?

Answer 7

“Patriotic tear”
“Sweating”
“Molten iron from the centre of his chest”

Question 8

What quotation shows that the second stanza pauses the action and focuses on the soldiers wondering why he is there?

Answer 8

“He almost stopped”

Question 9

What quotation emphasises the soldier’s insignificance and his lack of control of his situation and implies that the people in charge of the war don’t care about individual soldiers?

Answer 9

“In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations”

Question 10

What simile creates an image of someone blind and irrational - suggesting there’s no rational reason for war?

Answer 10

“He was running Like a man who has jumped up in the dark”

Question 11

What phrase suggests it’s as if the soldier is turned to stone by his bewilderment?

Answer 11

“Statuary in mid-stride”

Question 12

What does the caesuras in stanza 2 show?

Answer 12

The caesura ends his period of thought and forces him to return to reality

Question 13

What simile in the last stanza emphasises the hare’s frantic movement and hints at the danger the soldier is in?

Answer 13

“Rolled like a flame”

Question 14

What quotation connotes a distressing image of out-of control movement and uses and agricultural term to suggest that nature is affected by war?

Answer 14

“And crawled in a threshing circle”

Question 15

What phrase suggests pain and fear beyond expression?

Answer 15

“open silent”

Question 16

What quotation shows reasons to go to war, using etcetera to suggest it is not worth listing?

Answer 16

“King, honour, human dignity, etcetera”

Question 17

What simile shows that he’s been reduced and that he’s attacking out of desperation not moral principle?

Answer 17

“dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm”

Question 18

What is the final line of the poem which shows the soldier seems to have become a weapon rather than a human being and that he’s driven purely by his terror?

Answer 18

“his terror’s touchy dynamite”

Question 19

What is the poem about?

Answer 19

The poem focuses on a single soldier’s experience of a charge towards enemy lines. It describes his thought and actions as he tries to stay alive. Overriding emotion is fear which has replaced patriotic ideals that he had held before the violence before.

Question 20

Whats the poems form?

Answer 20

Uses enjambment and caesura and has lines of uneven length. Irregular rhythm which mirrors the soldiers struggling. Universal figure keeps the soldier anonymous

Question 21

Whats the poems structure?

Answer 21

In medias res. First stanza sees the soldier acting on instinct. Stanza 2 the soldier thinks about his situation. Stanza 3 he gives up - lost to humanity

Question 22

What type of imagery and language is present?

Answer 22

Violent, natural imagery and figurative language

Question 23

What are the feelings/attitudes to the poem?

Answer 23

Terror and confusion