Bayonet charge

Question 1

“Bullets smacking the belly out of the air”

Answer 1

• Metaphor
• Bullets and air are anthropamorphised
• The gerund “smacking” has connotations of child-like amusement: is the soldier happy because the bullets aren’t hitting him? Shows how untrained he is as he is not fighting back
• Child-like amusement juxtaposes the contstruct of war - belly is smacked out of the air instead of the air out of the belly: suggesting that fear and war upturns everything in the world and ruins it

Question 2

“He was running like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs”

Answer 2

• Simile creates an image of someone that is blind and irrational: suggests there is no rational reason behind war
• “Dark” symbolises blindness and mystery: suggests that he cannot see the reason of why he is there.
• Soldiers have no power yet they are put in a situation of power: war is chaos
• Enjambment and fast pace emphasises the unknowningness of war (not knowing why they are fighting)
• Metaphor for enlisting into the war: don’t know what you’re enlisting yourself into

Question 3

“King, honor, human dignity, etcetera dropped like luxures in a yelling alarm”

Answer 3

• “Etcetera” undermines all previously mentioned honors: mocking the reason for war. Suggesting the reasons are not worth listening to
• Euphamism of the actual horror of war
• Criticising war propoganda
• “Etcetera” = bathos - deliberately humorous and anti-climatic let down to show that there is no honor in war
  “Dropped like luxuries” = he is redued to a basic level. Attacking out of desperation rather than moral principle

Question 4

structure, form and context - BAYONET CHARGE

Answer 4

• Written in free verse with no rhyme scheme - parallels the unpredictable nature of war
• Written in third person singular: the soldier is the only person in the war, emphasising his loneliness and suffering. Could be done as Hughes was born after the war
• Opens in media res: shows how confusing and disfragmented war is