Mametz Wood Flashcards
they tended the land back into itself
cycle of life
Earth can recover, but soldiers can’t
Image of tending
A chit of bone, the China plate of a shoulder blade
Objectifying
Emphasises fragility
War stolen humanity
The relic of a finger
Body of a soldier is a relic because patriotism so yeah
Blown and broken bird’s egg of a skull
Fragility subverts the readers expectations
Alliteration illustrates fragility
Avian -> they would free but they were still eggs so they couldn’t
Eggs -> innocent, didn’t know what they signed up
Twenty men buried together in one Long grave
Going to war together, dying together
Unity , loyalty, patriotism
Volta- descriptions of earth -> people.
The notes they had sung
High morality and joviality
Avian imagery
CONTEXT
modern tv show presenter, actor
welsh
About battle of sommes, 5 day battle
Form
Tercets
Third person - distance and detachment. To think directly about what happened is too painful?
Complex sentences, enjambement create a reflective tone. There was so much death and destruction, the number of lives lost
Caesura split up descriptions of body parts, symbolising the obliteration fo the soldiers
Structure
Chronological, linear
Fifth stanza -> description of a mass grave
Thoughtful tone and slow pace are constant, as well as images of the past- emphasises lasting effect of war and time it takes the earth the heal
Personification
The earth is personified both as someone who needs healing and as someone guarding the soldiers’ memory- emphasises how long it takes to recover from the damage war causes
Stressed the importance of remembering those who fought
Images of brokeness
Detailed injured body parts in the second stanza and later descriptions of the damage to the skeletons - shows how war can dehumanise people. Allusion to how men are used as inanimate objects/pawns for political gain
Contrasting images
Violent images of war
Images of human fragility
Soldiers humanity, horrifying conditions
Inhumanity in forcing men to kill other men
How men are victims of those in command
Nesting machine guns
Juxtaposition of life and death imagery
War is a part of human nature?
The earth stands sentinel
The earth preserves the bones in a determined and calm way
Like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin
Prolonged simile of the earth being wounded
Soldiers are the foreign body - they shouldn’t be there, they’ve died too young