Bayonet Charge Flashcards
In what cold clockwork….. Was he the hand pointing that second?
Enjambent helps to emphasise the importance of the rhetorical question. Here the reader is forced to question whether the soldier is at war by his own choice or is a mechanical clog in a constantly ticking clock. The mechanical imagery is also emphasised by the harsh alliteration that implies the soldier has been dehumanised in his role.
Raw. In raw seamed hot khaki
Repetition of raw stands out against the strength of his other vocabulary conveying the soldiers intense suffering and desperation. Repetition is also reminiscent of stuttering as if the soldier is experiencing a breakdown in rationality as a result of their anxiety and stress.+ raw has connotations of animalistic which denotes a lack of humanity in the situation
“Suddenly he awoke”
By opening in Medias Res there is no warning of the fighting to come and therefore the reader has no chance to prepare for it emphasising the vulnerability of the soldier. The reader is also left feeling lost and confused reflecting the panic of the soldier and allowing the reader to empathise with their experience. The use of awoke may also have metaphorical meaning: during war sleep is a time of safety and protection, the act of waking up involves waking up to a danger and realising one’s own mortality. The soldier may have literally “awoke” in response to a threat or figuratively gained awareness of the reality of war. This is also suggested through the ‘patriotic tears’ that place the soldier under the illusion that fighting in war brings honour and pride but now fear has taken over his patriotism and he is awoken to the harsh reality of war.
“Numb as a smashed arm”
“Bullets smacking the belly out of the air”
” cold clockwork of the stars and the nations”
Referencing the horror of war and how soldiers become desensitised
Blurs lines between human and weapon suggesting that the government is using the soldiers as tools or weapons
Air is personified, having a belly adding to the confusion of war
Humans become weapons and nature becomes a human like victim in the face of war. This mixing of roles within the poem can be interpreted as a demonstration of the meaningless waste of human life in war.
‘Patriotic tear’
“Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest”
“Sweat heavy”
He came to war with a sense of duty but now he has seen war for what it really is his sense of patriotism leaves him though his tears and sweat. Both have connotations of pain suggesting the soldier is physically pained by the realisation that his ideals have been disproven. “Sweat heavy” shows how it becomes harder to fight once disillusioned and without patriotic motivation.
The Hare
A symbol of the soldiers collective suffering. Hughes projects the violence of war onto an innocent creature accidentally caught up in the war
“Threshing circle” “mouth wide, open silent”
Hughes is showing that the soldier is so immune to the death of humans that it takes a new kind of suffering- an innocent animal- for him to be shocked out of his trance and into instinctive action.
The personification of the Hare through Hughes’ description of its eyes and open screaming mouth helps the reader to associate the hare’s suffering with that of the human soldiers and their innocence and vulnerability.
It also serves to emphasise the Injustice of war as organisms completely unconnected to the conflict are being harmed
