kamikaze

Question 1

kamikaze

Answer 1

relates to japanese suicide pilots - has patriotic connotations

Question 2

summary

Answer 2

about a daughter’s reflection on her connection and relationship with her father who was a kamikaze pilot in WW2 and decided not to complete his suicide mission. it is clear that her father turned around and she imagines it’s because he saw the beauties of nature and remembered his innocent childhood. the pilot was shunned when he got home, even by his family, due to the cultural expectations placed upon them in japan

Question 3

context

Answer 3

wanted to explore motivations as to why people decide to die for their countries; kamikaze pilots flew manned suicide missions into military targets
- backdrop for WW1
- conflict within families
- conflict between nature and man
- it explores the futility of avoiding fate set out for you by an authority or government

Question 4

structure

Answer 4

• consistent and ordered
• 6 lines and stanzas
  undermined by free verse and enjambment
• changing narrative perspectives

Question 5

form

Answer 5

• third person - absence of father’s voice he has been cut-off and emphasised the distance between him and his daughter

Question 6

language

Answer 6

• sibilance
• allusion
• themes of patriotism, nature and memory

Question 7

“full of powerful incantations”

Answer 7

almost under a spell, hinting at the influence of patriotic propaganda that kamikazes were exposed to, that it was an honour to die for your country

Question 8

“she thought”

Answer 8

daughter’s thoughts, there is no voice of the pilot meaning his voice and reasons are never heard

Question 9

“they treated him as though he no longer existed”

Answer 9

irony - as they treat him as though he is dead, even though he survived

Question 10

“wondered which had been the better way to die”

Answer 10

either way both of the ways the pilot’s story could’ve ended both end in a kind of death

Question 11

comparison with poppies (jane weir)

Answer 11

• similarities: both poems show the grave impact on civilians that war and conflict can have, including the psychological impact; poppies - the mother is grieving and suffering from loss; kamikaze - the daughter is suffering from a life where she can’t know her father and is a struggle against her culture
  they both present characters that are trying to process memories
• differences: one is loss of a father, not because of war, but because of the culture’s rejection of him. whereas in poppies it is the physical loss of her son to war, and the memories of him

Question 12

comparison with checking out me history (john agard)

Answer 12

• similarities: both poems express the importance of a person’s history and origins in forming their identity
• differences: kamikaze presents conflict with her culture; comh shows conflict with those restricting his culture, fighting for it, not against it

Question 13

themes

Answer 13

• power of nature
• effects of conflict
• loss and absence
• memory
• identity
• individual experiences