Bayonet charge

• The poem explores the dehumanising impact of leaving the trenches into no-man’s land.
• A soldier in the midst of battle suddenly questions his reasons for risking his life for his country. He realises his own insignificance in war and the values he once held important became trivial to him.
• Hughes was influenced by his father’s stories of ww1, the poetry of Owen and from growing up in the aftermath of ww1. Hughes also had an avid interest in nature.
• Hughes uses a three stanza structure in order to describe the soldier’s charge. It starts ’in medias res’ (middle of action) which creates a disjointed feeling and a sense of frantic pace as well as terrified thoughts of the soldier.
• Enjambment is used to add to the sense of disorientation the soldier feels and create the sense of the forward motion of the soldier.
• In line 11 caesura is used to slow the pace of the poem and draw the readers attention to one of the key ideas in the poem of the contrast between the idealism of patriotism and the reality of fighting and killing.
• By the last stanza, the soldier has abandoned his thought and ideas and is driven purely by his terror. On the last line the poet has made the soldier synonymous with a weapon of war suggesting that the soldiers terror has taken his humanity and left him as a weapon.
• “Suddenly” - the first word of the poem immediately plunges te reader into the centre of the action.
• “He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm” This simile reminds us of the dangers he faces. Assonance is used in ‘lugged’ and ‘numb’ offers an impression of its heaviness. The word “smashed” conveys a sense of violence and destruction.
• ”Smacking” is onomatopoeia- indicating a violent slapping sound. It is noticeable that much of the imagery comes from the human body - “belly” “arm” “eye” indicating he is being shot at -attacked.
• Hughes tells us that his patriotism which once motivated him has gone, to be replaced by a smilie comparing his “sweating” to “molten iron”. The word “molten” denotes a burning heat as he is running for his life. However the word ”iron” conveys yet another element weighing him, and therefore slowing him down. The feeling of being weighed down created by fear.
• The soldier suffers a sense of “bewilderment“ - the word indicates his confusion and perplexity: why is he running towards the enemy guns?
• “In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations..” The mention of ‘stars‘ hints that this is partly his fate to be there at that particular moment. However the word ‘nations’ reveals that this is happening because of international politics and countries waging war against each other.
• “Cold clockwork” is a metaphor used to suggest something mechanical as though they are at wheels of a machine with the word ‘cold’ revealing a lack of feeling for the individual who is at the mercy of fate / politics.
• The soldier carries on running towards the hedge and drops what he calls “luxuries” -e.g “King, honour, human dignity..” He is no longer running for the conventional reasons that men fight. This moment of epiphany is a turning point in the poem as he is now running to stay alive.
• The innocent hare is a symbol of death and parallels the life of the soldier. The poet uses a simile to describe the distressing image and pain of hare. “Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame and crawled in a threshing circle” in order to convey the hare’s frantic movement. The use of ‘yellow’ could be used to dramatise the surprise of the animals appearance and the break in the soldiers daydream.
• THEMES

  War and reality of conflict

  Political

  Death

  Power
• COMPARE

  ’Charge of the light brigade’ - representation of a group of soldiers / representation of war and battles

  ’Remains’ - representation of a soldier

  ’Kamikaze’ -exploration of ’duty’ in war

  ’Poppies’ - two different view points of war

  ’Exposure’ - presentation of soldiers
• KEY QUOTES

  “awoke” , ”running“ , “smacking” , “lugged”

  ”Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest”

  ”luxuries” - e.g “King honour, human dignity etc”

  ”cold clockwork of the stars”

  ”Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame and crawled in a threshing circle”