Bayonet Charge

Question 1

Key Idea:

Answer 1

Questioning the point of War, explains that the realities of war cannot be understood by those who haven’t been in a war. A soldier’s realisation of their insignificance in this world.

Question 2

Context

Answer 2

Ted Hughes was a famous war poet, never saw war firsthand but grew up in a post-war era and its influence in Yorkshire. His poems were a way for him to make sense of the events he never saw but the effects he lived through,

Question 3

‘In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations’

Answer 3

Language device of mechanical imagery is emphasised by alliteration and shows the dehumanisation of the soldier and their insignificance, a miniscule fragment of a whole machine.

Question 4

‘King, Honour, Human Dignity, etcetera, Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm.’

Answer 4

The soldier, whose mind was previously tarnished with false misleading propaganda has abandoned his upheld values and motivation to fight, abandoned his indomitable human spirit to relentlessly charge forwards

Question 5

‘The patriotic tear’ + ‘Sweating like molten iron out the centre of his chest’

Answer 5

Shows he only came to war out of a sense of duty to protect his country, mislead and now this ‘patriotism’ has shown him the true horror of war. The patriotism he had has now left from his chest. Shows how it is hard to keep fighting once disillusioned.