mametz wood Flashcards
what are the themes of mametz wood?
power, war, time, place, man and death
“afterwards the farmers found them –“
End-stopping – farmers were ploughing up pieces of the soldiers for years and years afterwards.
“wasted young,”
Adjective – showing what a terrible thing it was for the Welsh soldiers and also that it could have been avoidable if the sergeants hadn’t been so blasé about sending them into the woods.
“the blown/ and broken bird’s egg of a skull,”
Metaphor – harsh sounds reinforce the suddenness of the deaths of the men and the violence with which it happened. They had no chance to help themselves or protect themselves.
“twenty men buried in one long grave,”
Imagery – Shows how quickly and unaware they were of the danger.
“slipped from their absent tongues.”
End-stopping – reinforcing that these men had no voice at the time they just had to follow orders and also shows how they lost their physical tongues when they died too.
what is mametz wood about?
The persona in the poem describes that how even now the farmers in France are still finding the remains of soldiers who died on the battlefields of the First World War in the earth as they plough. The remains seem to be near a place called Mametz Wood where a particularly brutal battle, that cost many lives, took place. The narrator references how they were commanded to walk into battle and face the devastating machine guns. The poem moves to the present and the discovery of a mass grave of soldiers that has just been discovered and recounts how they are linked arm in arm and how their mouths seem to be open as if they are mid song.
