Some hints on the WW1 essay

P. Today’s technique is alliteration Q. ‘the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle’ E. Talk about alliteration and how it’s used – what effect does it create on the reader – does it sound like gunfire? Is it positive or negative? Onomatopoeia – links to the title, there’s lots of references to sound. Appeals to our senses and gives us an idea of what it was like in the trenches. Aural – relating to sound as a sense P. Strong feelings / attitudes. Who’s for the Game. Rhetorical questions. Q. Any rhetorical Q from the poem. E. What is the effect of the RQ? How do we react to it as a reader – intimidating, make us think, motivate us? Has the purpose of the poem changed? What is Pope’s attitude to war? P. Jessie Pope uses an extended metaphor in ‘Who’s for the Game?’ to compare the war to…. Q. Line 1, line 2 or line 3 – you choose! E. By comparing the war to a match, it’s showing how masculine the people who go to war are. Just like if you play sport at school, people see you as more manly! Pope doesn’t take the war seriously, she underplays it. She wants to make it seem fun so people join the team!

Wilfred Owen

P. Another way Wilfred Owen creates strong feelings is by using punctuation unusually. Q. ‘GAS! Gas! Quick, boys! –‘ E. Owen uses the punctuation to show strong feelings such as panic, worry and being terrified of the attack. In this quote, the first word is in capitals, which shows how it would have been delivered, with a shout. The exclamation marks and the short sharp sentences have the effect of conveying this emotion. By using the exclamation marks we get a sense of the tone and the panic in his voice. The comma after ‘quick’ separates the words and the idea of Owen calling the men ‘boys’ suggests he feels paternal (like a father) towards his men, suggesting his loyalty. The double dash at the end again is used as a separation between the supposed dialogue and the action that follows. Owen does this later on in the final stanza, where he separates the memory from the ‘now’ of the poem.

Conflict Poems - top 3 quotes with analysis - Final Part

Falling Leaves ‘When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky’ The alliteration here reinforces the leaves and their actions. This is important because in the second half of the poem the leaves are compared in an extended metaphor to the soldiers in Belgium. This alliteration also links to the falling rhyme pattern (ABC, ABC) which helps the reader picture the falling leaves. ‘Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.’ Cole compares the dying soldiers to snowflakes in a simile. Snowflakes seem an appropriate comparison as snowflakes are allegedly unique, just like the soldiers. Snow if also fragile and the winter that is evoked here is part of the seasonal theme of the poem. Ironically there will be no ‘spring’ for these soldiers – although the land and society will renew itself now war is over. ‘A gallant multitude / which now all withering lay / slain by no wind of age or pestilence’ The emotive language of ‘gallant’ suggests someone who is brave and valiant, a positive adjective to describe the soldiers even though they are a ‘multitude’ which gives the impression of the vast numbers of dead. The ‘slain by no wind’ makes the deaths seem unnatural, they are needless. Next to of course god america i ‘He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water.’ This last line is separated from the main body of the poem suggesting that it is particularly significant. As the poem mimics the sonnet form (purporting to be about a patriotic love of country) this also confirms the line as being significant, but being a break away from the sonnet form. The ‘he spoke’ suggests that the narrator has finished speaking and that the author is taking over. The ‘rapidly’ could suggest that the narrator doesn’t actually feel confident with the message, and so undermines the patriotic message. ‘rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter / they did not stop to think they died instead.’ The simile here compares the soldiers to lions, the ‘roaring’ is appropriate as this is what lions do. It also makes the ‘slaughter’ seem more dramatic. This is lifted from an heroic poem, but the second line undermines this. ‘They did not stop to think,’ suggests that those involved in conflict have the capacity for thought and should not just follow orders blindly – or even choose to go to war in the first place. ‘thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gory / by jingo by gee by gosh by gum’ While this line starts by suggesting that America is ‘glorious,’ the emotive language is again undermined by Cummings who chooses the repetition of ‘by gory / by jingo etc’ by mixing the heroic with the lyrics of a popular song we get a strange combination which is not serious at all. The lack of capitals throughout suggest how even america is not significant. Hawk Roosting ‘No falsifying dream / Between my hooked head and hooked feet’ The idea of a ‘falsifying dream’ seems like an oxymoron because a dream is already false. At the start of the poem we are not sure if Hughes is really talking about a hawk, literally, or using it as a symbol to discuss a dictator. The repetition of ‘hooked’ suggests something that is not particularly honest of straight. ‘The allotment of death’ The metaphor shows how the hawk sees the garden as his domain, one which is full of death, but is also under his control. This has clear comparisons with the idea of the hawk as a dictator. ‘Through the bones of the living / no arguments assert my right.’ The idea of ‘through’ the living, suggests the power the hawk has to tear its victims apart. Connected to the second line, it seems the hawk rules with an iron fist: no one goes against his ‘right.’ Again this can be seen as connected to the dual discussion of the poem hawk vs. dictator. Going through the bones seems to be a threat while the personal pro-noun of ‘my’ gives it an immediate effect on the reader.

Top 3 Quotes for Conflict Poems

The Right Word ‘Are words no more / than waving, wavering flags?’ The rhetorical question allows us to understand the entirety of the poem. Dharker suggests that words are ‘flags’ in a metaphor. These flags then act as symbols to suggest something about the person the narrator sees. At the start this is very much antagonistic: ‘terrorist’ ‘hostile militant’ etc, but then, by the end of the poem, becomes a ‘child.’ The qualifier ‘wavering’ suggests that the labels the poet gives are fluid and can apply to the person in a variety of ways. ‘God help me. / Outside, defying every shadow, / stands a martyr.’ The first three words can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Poppies ‘Before you left, I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals, spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade of yellow bias binding around your blazer.’ There is a clear significance with the narrator pinning the poppy (a symbol of remembrance) to her son’s blazer. As he leaves home this shows that she will remember him, and vice versa. The words ‘spasm’ and ‘disrupting’ suggest a violence to the possible deaths of the soldiers it refers to. The image is quite disturbing, giving dynamic verbs to the paper symbol. The poet uses alliteration to emphasise this point ‘bias binding around your blazer’ which could make the poppy seem like the soldier’s heart, or certainly allude to the fact that the issue of ‘remembrance’ is close to the narrator’s heart. ‘The dove pulled freely against the sky, / an ornamental stitch.’ The metaphor here compare the stitch with the bird’s flight. Symbolically the dove represents in Christian terms, the hope that Noah felt when the dove returned to the ark. This is comparable to the narrator and her hope for the return of her child. There is a juxtaposition in ‘pulled freely’ which suggests that possibly the freedom of her son will be a hard fought battle, connecting with the theme of conflict. Throughout the poem there is imagery connected with haberdashery: ‘darts, pleats’ etc. Here the stitch gives us an ambiguous ending, the flight of the bird, which doesn’t return, gives us no clear ideas as to the fate of the son. ‘Smoothed down your shirt’s upturned collar, steeling the softening of my face.’ The repetition of the ‘s’ sounds represents the actual ‘softening’ of sounds, mirroring the mother’s descent into sadness and tears. However, she is ‘steeling’ herself in the act of making her son’s uniform look good, to help prevent breaking down. Futility Form – The form of Futility is, roughly speaking, a sonnet. It doesn’t quite confirm to the rhyme scheme but it does have a number of half rhymes and 14 lines. It is almost as if Owen has chosen the form, the traditional poem of love, to talk about his love for his comrades. However, because of all the horror he has seen, Owen produces instead a wounded sonnet, like the boy he writes about. ‘Was it for this the clay grew tall?’ This rhetorical question asks the reader to consider whether our evolution is to result in fighting. The ‘clay’ could be seen as relating to humanity as in the Bible, Adam is created from ‘clay,’ and our connotations with the word suggest something pliable and easy to manipulate, as perhaps Owen feels he has been manipulated into fighting. ‘O what made fatuous sunbeams toil / to break earth’s sleep at all?’ In the third rhetorical question, Owen sums up the message of the poem and asks us to consider the point of man and its evolution. The word ‘toil’ suggests hard work, the work it has taken to evolve as a society to this state. However, ‘fatuous’ means pointless, which links to the futility of the title, suggesting that Owen is not sure why the earth has evolved and broken its ‘sleep.’ Charge of the Light Brigade ‘When can their glory fade?’ The rhetorical question sums up why Tennyson has written the poem, to ensure that the Light Brigade are remembered forever. The emotive language ‘glory’ suggests how highly the poet holds the brave deeds of these soldiers. ‘Storm’d at with shot and shell, / Boldly they rode and well, / Into the jaws of Death / Into the mouth of Hell.’ The first thing that strikes us about these lines is the use of rhyme. Tennyson uses rhyme throughout to create a galloping rhythm which mirrors the galloping of horses hooves. There is also alliteration in the first of these lines which combines with the rhyme to create this rhythm. Death and Hell are both personified by the poet, giving them a physical presence in the poem which feels more immediate and unsettling for the soldiers – emphasising their bravery. ‘Theirs not to make reply, / Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die.’ The repetition here unifies the 600 and tells us collectively the outcome. Even though ‘some one had blunder’d’ they still choose to follow their orders. The rhyme of ‘reply / why / die’ suggests the sequence and therefore foreshadows the ending of the poem. Bayonet Charge ‘He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm.’ This simile suggests that the soldier is carrying a dead weight, the word ‘numb’ reinforces this, as if the arm is useless. The word ‘smashed’ might suggest that the rifle is broken. As a soldier he feels as if the rifle is part of him, but in this moment of confusion, he is not using it effectively. ‘In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations / was he the hand pointing that second?’ The alliteration of ‘cold clockwork’ emphasises this image. In the metaphor the soldier is being compared to the second hand on a watch. The watch symbolises time and fate, and the soldier’s place in it. In this moment, the poet gets the soldier to consider his place in the grand scheme of the universe and where he fits: is it his time to die, is his time up? The rhetorical question asks us as a reader to also ponder the question. ‘human dignity, etcetcetra / dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm / to get out of that blue crackling air / his terror’s touchy dynamite.’ In this simile, the poet suggests that the best human qualities such as ‘dignity’ fall off of the soldier, as if he has to sacrifice these things to survive. It is his instinct for survival which makes him flee quickly. The alliteration in the last line reinforces this shock, describing it as ‘dynamite’ which alludes to explosive and instant power in the soldier’s flight.

Top 3 Quotes with Analysis for Conflict Poems - Part 1

Flag ‘It’s just a piece of cloth / that brings a nation to its knees’ The middle line of each stanza is repeated throughout the poem. This reinforces Agard’s message that the physical item of a flag is relatively insignificant, ‘just’ is the key word here. However, symbolically the effect is detailed on the third line of each stanza. This line ‘brings a nation to its knees’ could either mean the effect of the flag is to inspire allegiance and so everyone is doing the same thing, or to suggest subjugation. The repetition of ‘n’ sounds reinforces this message, by showing that this phrase is significant. ‘that makes the guts of men grow bold.’ The emotive language of ‘bold’ shows how the poet feels a flag will change the emotional state of those it comes into contact with. A theme throughout the poem is the changing states that a flag creates, especially on men. The word ‘guts’ is often associated with bravery and that soldiers have ‘fire in their guts’ for example, which is the connotation Agard is playing on through personification. ‘Just ask for a flag, my friend / Then blind your conscience to the end.’ In the last stanza Agard decides to change the rhyme pattern he’s used throughout. The poem ends on a rhyming couplet. The reason he does this it to give it a memorable closure. He uses direct address ‘my friend’ to address the reader and to ensure his point has maximum effect. Despite talking about the effects a flag has on people, he concludes with a fairly negative point, that patriotism allows you to ignore the moral consequences of war. The word ‘blind’ suggests a physical disability has been inflicted. Out of the Blue ‘The depth is appalling. Appalling / that others like me / should be wind-milling, wheeling, spiralling, falling.’ The word ‘depth’ tells us how the poet feels about the expanse of air and horizon, followed by ‘appalling' we are left with no doubt that he feels terrified by the choice he might have to make. The word is then repeated, but seems insufficient to describe the severity of this horrific experience. It is followed by a group of dynamic verbs, with the writer emphasising the ‘-ing’ to fit the rhyme scheme and downward rhythm of the poem which also mirrors the victims’ plight. ‘Does anyone see a soul worth saving?’ The rhetorical question asks the reader to act as judge to decide who should be saved. Obviously this is an impossible task to do. There are emotive words, such as ‘soul’ which are used deliberately to connect with the individualism of the mass of people who are also trapped in the twin towers. ‘The heat behind me is bullying, driving / but the white of surrender is not yet flying.’ Here the heat is personified by Armitage to show the force with which the people in the twin tower are faced. They have to decide whether to be consumed by the flames or to jump. The image of the white of surrender is a metaphor, comparing the stereotypical sign of surrender with the mentality of those in the tower. Mametz Wood ‘The wasted young, turning up under their plough blades.’ The juxtaposition of the ‘wasted young’ reinforces how the bodies of the dead young soldiers are being brought to the surface. The adjective ‘wasted’ suggests the narrator’s view point on the sacrifice of war. ‘A chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade, / the relic of a finger.’ The chit is a receipt for something, here it acts as a receipt for someone’s life. In another metaphor the fragility of the remains is compared to a china plate, while the idea of the bone being a relic gives the found remains a religious / spiritual significance. Sheers in these three images suggests that the ‘wasted’ life was precious, valuable and fragile. ‘like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin.’ In this simile, Sheers uses alliteration to reinforce this point with ‘wound working.’ Throughout the poem the earth has been represented as a literal body itself, here it is healing itself through the rejection of the bones of the soldiers. The ‘surface of the skin’ is the earth of the field. The Yellow Palm ‘I saw a Cruise missile, / a slow and silver caravan, / on its slow and silver mile.’ The repetition suggests not only the pace with which the missile is headed for them, but repeating silver also gives it a beauty which is incongruous for a weapon. This also sounds like a nursery rhyme rather than imminent danger. ‘Down on my head fell the barbarian sun / that knows no armistice.’ The poet uses personification in a metaphor to compare the sun to a barbarian. Our associations with the word barbarian suggest that the sun here offers no protection and is as indifferent to the events in the poem as the narrator seems to be. In each of these stanzas there is a consequence of war – in this stanza it is the never-ending cycle of the sun rising on conflict without ‘armistice’ or surrender. ‘Armistice’ is a particularly evocative word as it is often connected to WW2. - Form and Rhyme The 6 regular stanzas allow us to go on a journey ‘down Palestine street’ with the poet. He allows us to examine events, but offers us no comment on them. This is reinforced with the simple ABCBDB rhyme scheme, which is also reflected in the fairly simple language. The writer uses a point of colour in each stanza, ‘lilac stems’ or ‘yellow palms’ to construct his stanza around and to appeal to our sense of sight.

Futility and Falling Leaves Paragraph

P. In Futility, Owen uses a metaphor to compare clay with the Earth: Q. ‘Woke once the clays of a cold star.’ E. The clay could also represent people as in The Bible, Adam is created out of clay by God. By comparing both evolution and religious imagery he juxtaposes the two belief systems. However, ultimately, Owen argues that to evolve to the state where all we do is fight, it pointless, or futile just as the title. P. Postgate Cole also uses a natural image in her work, Falling Leaves. Q. ‘Like snowflakes wiping out the noon.’ E. Unlike the clay of Futility, she uses a simile to compare people to snowflakes. This seems like a gentler image as – just like the snowflakes – the soldiers are all unique. However, the sheer number of snowflakes to obliterate the noon, when the sun is at its hottest, brings home the amount of soldiers who die. Winter is a season associated with death, and so it seems appropriate that she sets this poem at this time of year – regardless of the Armistice connotation of November. Both these poems use imagery to create a melancholic effect on the reader.