Quote Analysis Poetry Flashcards
Half a league
Daclyctic dimeter reflects the sound of the charging horses hooves and creates a panicked and tense atmosphere
Into the valley of death
Biblical reference to David and Goliath- underdog taking on a ferocious opponent (heroic).
Psalm 23- adds religious weight to actions
Someone had blundered
Constant reminder to blundered as there is always a rhyme to it in each stanza, and leaves the idea present in the readers mind
Into the jaws of death
Synonyms make the images complement each other, implying that the soldiers are being consumed by the war. Emphasise sounds of battle. No comma shows that there was no hesitation from the soldiers- inevitably of war
But not, not the six hundred
Repetition of not slows the pace of the poem and creates a melancholy tone before breaking the news.
Cannon to the right
Parallels to stanza 3 shows the soldiers return
Iced east winds that knive us
Present tense creates a sense of immediacy
Silent…
Ellipsis- ideas of endless emptiness
But nothing happens
Refrain emphasises monotony of war
A dull rumour of some other war
Fighting is unreal and soldiers barely believe in it, as the soldiers are entrenched in immediate physical suffering, so they cannot connect with anything else. There is uncertainty and a lack of conviction as to why the soldiers are at war.
What are we doing here?
Fighting is unreal and soldiers do not believe in it. The soldiers do not understand their purpose and the reason for their fighting.
We turn back to our dying
The soldiers have no purpose, and are simply resigned to their fate.
Slowly our ghosts drag home
They are only shells of people, and no better than dead in their own eyes.
Suddenly he awoke and was running
The poem begins in medias res, as if the soldier has just woken up into a battle. It creates a fat pace, tense atmosphere.
With his bayonet towards the green hedge
Animalistic imagery- animal trying to escape, and subtle comparisons to a bolting animal, so he only wishes to be safe. He has no sense, is completely uncontrolled with a single purpose.
Threw up a yellow hare
Comparison to another soldier
Cold clockwork
The soldier is a cog in the machine, and is expendable, with no purpose or humanity in the military’s eyes.
King, honour, human dignity, etcetera
Dropped like luxuries
He doesn’t care about the propaganda that is fed to people joining the military, it is not true and when they are in the fight, these things don’t exist, only the thought of survival does.
Probably armed, possibly not
The tentative language shows the soldiers doubt about his actions, but the bluntness suggests it is in a military report. The repetition of this line makes the poem cyclic and shows the soldier having flashbacks.
Are all of the same mind
This is how he copes, by allowing himself to not take the full blame. The military training makes them all the same and they do what they wouldn’t have done otherwise.
His bloody life in my bloody hands
The use of bloody emotionally affects the reader. The soldier takes responsibility for his actions, and is hit by the realisation that he has taken a life. He feels regretful and disturbed by his own capabilities.
And I swear
I see every round as it rips through his life
The enjambment emphasises that this was the turning point in his life, but also reflects his broken mind and memory.
World overflowing like a treasure chest
This is an outpouring of emotion by the narrator, and demonstrates the sons youth and naïveté
Intoxicated
He is high on life, juxtaposing the mother’s fear of his death. He has swallowed up the propaganda and is adrenaline fuelled.
Tucks, darts, pleats
Imagery of her sickening feeling, using language many mothers would know to try and explain it.
Like a wishbone
Emphasises that she could break emotionally at any point, creating a contrast from the tragic foreshadowing of the poem, when wishbones are designed for luck.
Spasms of paper red
Reference to poppies and war, creating uncomfortable imagery. The memory has painful undertones. Domestic imagery with violent metaphors. The military has left a mark on her life.
Gelled blackthorns
Not a child anymore, blackthorns allude to Jesus crown of thorns and his sacrifice
Released a song bird from its cage
Letting go, the release of the son and the mother’s emotions. The man is flying the nest, and the dove represents the man
All flesh is grass
Explosion. Represents the fragility of human nature, our emotional fragility that we cannot cope with the fact that death comes so easily, the photographer understands it yet resents society
Hands which did not tremble then but seem to now
The photographer is suffering from PTSD and relied on adrenaline to get through the moment. He is having flashbacks.
They do not care
It doesn’t affect them, so does not impact them emotionally, creating a critique on society.
His editor will pick out five or six
His work is dismissed. He has a resentful tone, and is angry that this suffering does not get the attention it deserves.
He must have
The daughter is an unreliable narrator, so is making assumptions when we cannot know his true thoughts.
Dark shoals of fishes
He has only started to appreciate the world as he dies, and realises what he has missed
He must have wondered which had been the better way to die
His family will no longer speak to him as he is so dishonoured, and though he has come back for life, it is like he is a ghost, and dead already.
