Bayonet charge

• Both poems are written by poets with no first hand experience of conflict.
• Remains shows the impact after war once the soldier is “home on leave” whilst Bayonet charge is the effect whilst the soldier is still “stumbling across a field”.
• Hughes was inspired by Owen's poetry, and many parallels can be drawn between Bayonet Charge and Owen's 'Spring Offensive'.
• Tennyson presents the soldier’s bravery in the repetition in "Honour the charge they made!" "Honour the light brigade".
• Bayonet Charge and Spring Offensive both criticise the leaders of war, with the implication that propaganda is a powerful tool in the public attitude to war.
• Hughes was new to poetry when he wrote Bayonet Charge, and it was one of the poems his wife sent to a competition that resulted in his first book being published.
• In Bayonet charge, this is done through the anthropomorphism of a hare as screaming in "its mouth wide // Open silent".
• Armitage creates the same effect in Remains by depicting the long term impact of war in "His blood-shadow stays on the street".
• In Bayonet Charge, the perception of honour is challenged in "In bewilderment then he almost stopped".
• Hughes encourages the questioning of war in "King, honour, human dignity, etcetera // Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm".
• Both poets present the psychological impact of war upon a soldier.
• The sense of duty imposed by patriotism disguises the true nature of war in both poems to give the soldiers motivation for fighting.
• In Bayonet Charge, Hughes uses "crawled" instead of "crawling", "past" instead of "plunged and fell away", and "hot khaki" instead of "lying easy, were at ease".
• The soldiers in Bayonet Charge charge across a field of clods, which instead of sustaining life, provide dangerous obstacles for the soldiers to trip over.
• Bayonet Charge is a poem by Ted Hughes depicting a soldier charging into battle, thrown into the battlefield unprepared and confused, pausing on the battlefield to consider his role in war, and then reverting to his instincts and running towards the battle in fear.
• Ted Hughes was a famous war poet who never fought or saw war firsthand, growing up in the post-war era and seeing its influence in his home in Yorkshire.
• Hughes' poetry usually focuses on animals and he studied mythology and anthropology, which are evident in his poems.
• The poem Bayonet Charge is from the collection "The Hawk in the Rain" dedicated to his wife, Sylvia Plath.
• The poems in the collection "The Hawk in the Rain" were focused on the real and symbolic lives of animals.
• Ted Hughes was writing in a post-war era greatly influenced by WW1 and WW2, and his poems are a way for him to make sense of the events he never saw but whose impacts were seen daily.
• Hughes' father fought in WW1 and was one of only seventeen Lancaster Fusiliers to survive the Gallipoli campaign, leaving him emotionally traumatised for life.
• In Bayonet Charge, Hughes wanted to highlight the brutality of trench warfare as a tribute to his father’s suffering as well as a way to memorialize war as a warning for future generations.
• The poem Bayonet Charge was greatly inspired by Wilfred Owen who similarly tries to depict the reality of war in his poetry.
• The poem Bayonet Charge thrusts the listener into the action and relates to the idea of waking up.
• The metaphor of a soldier awakening and running in fear creates a sense of desperation and connotes a lack of humanity in the situation.
• The use of repetition in the poem Bayonet Charge creates a sense of desperation and connotes a lack of humanity in the situation.
• The connotations of “raw” in the poem Bayonet Charge are animalistic, denoting a lack of humanity in the situation.
• A clod is a mound of earth.
• The sparks created by rifle fire in the poem Bayonet Charge are beautified in the image of a hare thrown in front of the soldier.
• The hare in the poem Bayonet Charge is dying and suffering in front of the soldier, which jolts him back to consciousness and makes him realise the danger he is in.
• The use of metaphor in the poem Bayonet Charge creates a tense, violent atmosphere and alludes to someone being winded and unable to breathe.
• Hughes shows that the soldier has realised the propaganda was false in the simile “sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest” this shows how the patriotism he previously held in his heart leaves from the centre of his chest.
• The personification of the hare through Hughes’ description of its eyes and screaming mouth, helps the reader to associate the hare’s suffering with that of the human soldiers.
• Hughes projects the violence of war onto an innocent creature accidentally caught up in the war.
• Hughes frequently used natural imagery within his poetry.
• Hughes poses the argument that nature is a victim of war through his use of personification.
• Peaceful images are juxtaposed with the violence of fighting showing the contrast between life and death.
• This is transformed into the focus of the bayonet charge, a symbol of death as it “dazzled with rifle fire”.
• Through describing it in human terms they are more able to relate to the abuse.
• The personification of the air as having a “belly” allows the reader to have sympathy for the effect of war on nature.