the soldier Flashcards
what are the themes of the soldier?
love, war, place, man and death
“of a foreign field”
Alliteration – the land which the soldiers will die in and be buried in when they fight but the insinuation is that they should be glad to die there.
“for ever England”
Metaphor – suggesting death doesn’t take the soldiers delight for their homeland away; when they die their death will leave a little piece of England in the foreign soil.
“England bore, shaped, made aware,/Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,”
Listing – reinforcing the pride and patriotism every solider should have for their country and reinforcing the idea that death is brave and honourable.
“all evil shed away”
Metaphor – suggesting that the soldiers deaths will remove all evil and sin in the world.
“English heaven”
Repetition - of the symbolic idea of England as the motherland and linking to death.
what is the soldier about?
In this poem, the persona, a soldier heading to war, talks about the possibility of dying in a foreign country. He claims that this should not be an occasion for sadness, but that by dying he will have made “a corner of a foreign field” a small part of England. He personifies England as his mother, who gave birth to him and raised him to become the person he is. He feels that he owes his life to her and therefore unselfishly sacrifices his life. He believes dying will be comforting and that he is only giving back the things that England gave to him and his memory and sacrifice will live on after death.
