What literally happens in the poem?
A soldier is thrown into the middle of a bayonet charge. He runs across a field, momentarily questioning his purpose, but then abandons all thought, driven only by terror and his survival instinct
What does enjambment mean?
Line running to the next
What does caesura mean?
A pause mid-line
How does Hughe write to give a sense of brutality in the poem?
Hugh uses a unorganised structure of enjambment and caesura to create a sense of brutality, as it forms a sense of loss in order, similar to the soldiers emotions
What does the repetition of the term “raw” in the first stanza mean?
It emphasises his vulnerability and his loss in organisation for the brutality
What’s a simile?
A comparison using ‘like’ and ‘as’
What does a semantic field mean?
A groups of words linked by theme
Analyse the quote: ‘numb as a smashed arm’
Creates a semantic field of physical pain, revealing to the readers the soldiers torture in this brutal reality
What does the metaphor ‘cold clockwork’ signify?
Suggests that war is a mechanical process, and that he is just a piece in the process, slowly dehumanising
What does the simile ‘like a man who has jumped up in the dark’ signify?
It reminds the readers of the idea of this being a nightmarish, irrational experience
What does the ‘yellow hare’ signify?
It is a powerful symbol, as its suffering mirrors the soldier’s own fate, showing the destruction of nature that war holds
Describe the impact of using the anonymous ‘he’ during the poem
By not giving the soldier a name, he isn’t giving him an identity, which further portrays the experience of the soldier as the universal experience of all soldiers
What does the use of enjambment and caesurae do in the poem?
It portrays the soldier’s own physical experience of running across the field in an uneven pattern
In the poem, the second stanza slows the pace, focusing on the soldier’s thoughts. What does this do for the poem?
It highlights the moment where the soldier considers the dehumanisation of war, and his internal conflict before he reaches his descent into survival instinct
analyse - Suddenly he awoke and was running – raw
- it includes medias res, meaning that its starting mid-action
- ‘raw’ signifies the pain and fear the soldier endures
- used to describe the chaos that war brings as well as the lack of control the soldier has
analyse - “Bullets smacking the belly out of the air”
- describes the violence of war
- creates a sense that war is unnatural and aggressive to mother nature as it includes the sensory imagery of air
analyse - “The patriotic tear… sweating like molten iron”
- encourages the idea that patriotism emits pain
- reveals the harsh reality of war
analyse - “In what cold clockwork… was he the hand?”
- suggests the idea that the soldier is only a small part of a machine, hinting at the nihilism of poem
- suggests a lack of control the soldier has in the war, as well as loss of identity as he is one of many small parts of war
analyse - “King, honour, human dignity, etcetera dropped like luxuries”
- highlights the fact that big ideas are in the end worthless in comparison to war
- the inclusion of ‘etcetera’ reveals they are not even important enough to put in a formal list
- portrays the soldier’s criticism towards war
