Comparison - Manhunt and The Solider Flashcards
What are the things similar about Manhunt and The Soldier?
- both have the context of war
- both show something that the soldiers love
- both talk in 1st person
- both use structure to get their idea across
What are the things different between Manhunt and The Soldier?
- one portrays a realistic idea and another shows idealistic ideas
How is the context of war similar in Manhunt and The Soldier?
- Context of both is about War but Manhunt is written after war and The Soldier is written before war
What are the ideas supporting the context of War in Manhunt and The Soldier?
Manhunt:
- Shows the emotional distance and detachment caused by the experiences of war
- Written from the perspective of a wife of a soldier who sustained serious injuries in the Gulf War
The Soldier:
•The Soldier conveys the message that it is noble to fight and die for your country. To get this across, it misses out on the gruesome deaths and the reactions of these soldier’s families. Instead, it focuses on how great England is and how the soldiers will get eternal peace after the war, whether they return to England or go to heaven.
• Has more references to patriotism than war
• Excessively sentimental and unrealistic
• Dying is honourable and a chance as redemption
• Noble sacrifice to die in war
• Idealised and romanticism shown by Brooke
• Links war to religion – war is holy?
• The solider is thinking of going to war, the language is extremely positive language = idyllic as persona never discusses the reality of war (Rupert Brooke was enlisted to fight in WWI in 1914 but he died even before WWI started and never fought it in = he had a fantasied idea of war) - misses out the gruesome death, ‘if’ implies that it probably won’t happen again
• people at home weren’t aware of it because it brings to light the awful after-effects and how they affect the landscape today.
• Brooke has a very imperialistic view
How is the theme of love similar in Manhunt and The Soldier?
Both poets show the love that each soldier experiences. Manhunt shows the love in marriage and Mametz Wood shows the love in patriotism for his country
What are the quotes supporting the theme of love in Manhunt and The Soldier?
Manhunt:
- ‘porcelain collar bone’ = Delicate and beautiful = Shows that relationships are fragile and care is needed to rebuild them
- ‘only then did I come close’ = - Emotional distance and detachment caused by war
- ‘he let me trace’ = - He gave her permission and shows that she can also feel his hurt and empathise with him
- ‘only then could I picture a scan’ = - Imagery of a child – connections to their own child
- ‘trace’ = Verb shows that she is analysing his body and exploring his slowly – is he not the person she knew before
- ‘bind the struts’= As his wife she is trying to put him together
The Soldier:
• ‘‘plot of land that is forever England’ = Even the act of burying the solider there links to imperialism as if he is buried there he will be taking over the land
• ‘in that rich earth a richer dust concealed’ = - Foreign soil is rich but richer soil remains – nationalistic pride and ‘richer dust’ may be a euphemism for death – is the persona not ready to die?
• England repeated many times in 2nd stanza = Shows deep love and maybe even obsession for his country – devotion
• ‘English heaven’ = - Heaven has to be English to be good? – suggests dying for the country is glorious and righteous - semantic field of Utopianism = patriotic thoughts of a soldier
• Sonnet form = Love for country
- ‘ a pulse in the eternal mind, no less’ = The solder who dies who leaves a memory and legacy in the eternal mind = god = a soldier always has a good afterlife – propaganda for WWI
How is 1st person used in Manhunt and The Soldier?
Manhunt:
- ‘Only then did I come close’ = written in first person about a wife whose husband returned from Bosnia where he served as a peacekeeper
The Soldier:
• ‘think only of me’ = Only remembered as his role as a soldier
• ‘the soldier’ = His only identity is being a soldier
• 1st person = Direct effect of the solider – only his views and only focused on this one soldier’s biased and patriotic views – all soldiers may not feel the same way about war
What are the quotes supporting the use of structure in Manhunt and The Soldier?
Manhunt:
• ‘the parachute silk of his punctured lung’ and ‘damaged porcelain collar-bone’ = Show the fragility of human life using metaphors
• ‘phrase’ and ‘days’ = • Focusing on one part of the body at time dehumanises the soldier
• Line length contrasts with each other = esp 15 and 16
• Lack of proper rhyme scheme and uses ‘and’ to drag the continuous process of healing
The Soldier:
• Sonnet = type of love poem = 14 lines long
• Iambic pentameter (mostly) except a few lines related to England which have 11 syllables instead of 10- England gave them so much it’s overflowing?
• Octet shows soldier might die
• Volta then sestet to what England gave to the persona
• Almost a perfect sonnet – reflecting perfect England?
• 2nd stanza justifies the first, showing why it’s worth dying for
How is war shown differently in Manhunt and The Soldier?
In Manhunt, Armitage writes in a realistic way but in The Solder, Brooke writes in an idealistic way
What are the quotes supporting the realistic and idealistic ideas of war presented in Manhunt and The Soldier?
Manhunt:
• ‘blown hinge’ = • Total destruction
• The parachute silk = • Military reference
• The foetus of metal behind his chest = • Metaphor for a bullet and ties life to death = juxtaposition (similar to Sheers writing ‘the broken bird’s egg of a skull’)
• Unexploded mine = • Shows him as a time bomb so he is suffering internally
The Soldier:
• ‘English heaven’ = more superior
• ‘there is some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England’ = his death will be positive because the place that he falls (on the earth) will win land
• England bore, shaped , made aware = personification highlights the motherly nature of land and that the solider is loyal to it
• ‘there’s some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England’ = Brooke wrote with a positive view and is sure that his sacrifice will bring victory - not be in vain
• ‘all evil shed away’ = Shed has connotations to the snake – biblical creatures may show the idea that dying for your country means you will be rewarded in the afterlife too
• ‘flowers roaming’ ‘blest by suns’ ‘heaven’ = - Eden like = worth dying for?
