Blue Bible 5 poems Flashcards
“Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn, voices of play and pleasures after day”
Disabled
“rang saddening like a hymn” - simile, rang like echoes in his mind, memories from when he was young. Flashbacks are depressing as he is now alone. Hymns are usually sang in a group, furthermore emphasises his loneliness and isolation.
“voices” - anaphora, soldier deeply understands that he is alone. He knows he is abandonned and the voices will never be him ever again due to his experiences in war, hopeless and dread
“Threw away his knees”
Disabled
Hyperbole, his regret and fustration at the shallow reasons he signed up to war. Mocks himself and war, as a waste of time and energy with nothing to return
“Leaps of purple spurted from his thigh”
Disabled
Plosive alliteration, vivid imagery, implies the huge amount of blood loss to result in his amputation. The blood pumped from his thighs rapidly, almost as rapidly as he feels as if he has aged. It all happened quickly and he realised he will not live a life as before ever again
“He thought he’d better join. — He wonders why”
Disabled
Caesura, very long pause, symbolises the soldier’s regret and dispair towards the decision he made in the heat of the moment.
“to please the giddy jilts he asked to join. He didn’t have to beg”
Disabled
Enjambment, fast paced events happened, no thought process was put through of what he was signing up for. It was a blur to the soldier and he is puzzled and regretful of why he made the decision of joining the army
“And soon he was drafted out with drums and cheers. Some cheered him home”
Disabled
Juxtaposion between before war and after war. He was treated as a hero and a respectable young man before he joined the war. After he fought for his country and lost his legs, only some cheered him home. The soldier have been abandoned and forgotten. He is no longer a hero despite fighting for his country. Irony about his treatment. He is now truly alone and in solitare.
“Snarled and rattled”, “snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled”
Out out
Repetition, personification, onomatopoeia, omen and forshadowing something awful and frightening will happen because of the saw, animalistic and devilish spirit
“As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, leaped out at the boy’s hand”
Out out
Personification, animalistic, beast, saw is the beast instead of boy being careless, boy is blameless
“Saw all”
Out out
Bitter pun, sees everything and has an epiphany that he was going to die and he also cut everything, chaotic and panic
“Big boy doing a man’s work, though a child at heart”
Out out
Alliteration, he has been encouraged to act like an adult and be treated as an adult in the area even though he is only a child at heart
Underage yet still doing a man’s work, contrast, he should not be working
“Don’t let him, sister!”
Out out
Direct speech, frantic and forshadows the doctor being the final cause of his death by ether, more worried about losing hand and not realising completely that he will die soon, shock and horror
“Little-less-nothing!-and that ended it. No more to build on there.”
Out out
Caesura, life has ended, short sentences for the suddenness and surrealness of the moment. Brief and life ended just like that. Community is dismissive and moves on from such horror
Disabled form, structure and rhythm
Disabled
Elegy, irregular rhymes, mostly iambic pentameter but some are trochaic
Messy as the soldier is a mess, unsettling and uncomforable
Mourn for soldiers’ deaths of the souls becasue of war
Out out form, structure and rhythm
Out out
Dramatic monologue, 1 stanza, meant to represent normal human speech, no rhyming scheme and iambic pentameter
