Quote Analysis Poetry

Question 1

Half a league

Answer 1

Daclyctic dimeter reflects the sound of the charging horses hooves and creates a panicked and tense atmosphere

Question 2

Into the valley of death

Answer 2

Biblical reference to David and Goliath- underdog taking on a ferocious opponent (heroic).
Psalm 23- adds religious weight to actions

Question 3

Someone had blundered

Answer 3

Constant reminder to blundered as there is always a rhyme to it in each stanza, and leaves the idea present in the readers mind

Question 4

Into the jaws of death

Answer 4

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

Question 5

But not, not the six hundred

Answer 5

Repetition of not slows the pace of the poem and creates a melancholy tone before breaking the news.

Question 6

Cannon to the right

Answer 6

Parallels to stanza 3 shows the soldiers return

Question 7

Iced east winds that knive us

Answer 7

Present tense creates a sense of immediacy

Question 8

Silent…

Answer 8

Ellipsis- ideas of endless emptiness

Question 9

But nothing happens

Answer 9

Refrain emphasises monotony of war

Question 10

A dull rumour of some other war

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

What are we doing here?

Answer 11

Fighting is unreal and soldiers do not believe in it. The soldiers do not understand their purpose and the reason for their fighting.

Question 12

We turn back to our dying

Answer 12

The soldiers have no purpose, and are simply resigned to their fate.

Question 13

Slowly our ghosts drag home

Answer 13

They are only shells of people, and no better than dead in their own eyes.

Question 14

Suddenly he awoke and was running

Answer 14

The poem begins in medias res, as if the soldier has just woken up into a battle. It creates a fat pace, tense atmosphere.

Question 15

With his bayonet towards the green hedge

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

Threw up a yellow hare

Answer 16

Comparison to another soldier

Question 17

Cold clockwork

Answer 17

The soldier is a cog in the machine, and is expendable, with no purpose or humanity in the military’s eyes.

Question 18

King, honour, human dignity, etcetera
Dropped like luxuries

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

Probably armed, possibly not

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

Are all of the same mind

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

His bloody life in my bloody hands

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

And I swear

I see every round as it rips through his life

Answer 22

The enjambment emphasises that this was the turning point in his life, but also reflects his broken mind and memory.

Question 23

World overflowing like a treasure chest

Answer 23

This is an outpouring of emotion by the narrator, and demonstrates the sons youth and naïveté

Question 24

Intoxicated

Answer 24

He is high on life, juxtaposing the mother’s fear of his death. He has swallowed up the propaganda and is adrenaline fuelled.

Question 25

Tucks, darts, pleats

Answer 25

Imagery of her sickening feeling, using language many mothers would know to try and explain it.

Question 26

Like a wishbone

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

Spasms of paper red

Answer 27

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.

Question 28

Gelled blackthorns

Answer 28

Not a child anymore, blackthorns allude to Jesus crown of thorns and his sacrifice

Question 29

Released a song bird from its cage

Answer 29

Letting go, the release of the son and the mother’s emotions. The man is flying the nest, and the dove represents the man

Question 30

All flesh is grass

Answer 30

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

Question 31

Hands which did not tremble then but seem to now

Answer 31

The photographer is suffering from PTSD and relied on adrenaline to get through the moment. He is having flashbacks.

Question 32

They do not care

Answer 32

It doesn’t affect them, so does not impact them emotionally, creating a critique on society.

Question 33

His editor will pick out five or six

Answer 33

His work is dismissed. He has a resentful tone, and is angry that this suffering does not get the attention it deserves.

Question 34

He must have

Answer 34

The daughter is an unreliable narrator, so is making assumptions when we cannot know his true thoughts.

Question 35

Dark shoals of fishes

Answer 35

He has only started to appreciate the world as he dies, and realises what he has missed

Question 36

He must have wondered which had been the better way to die

Answer 36

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.