Bayonet charge

• What you have to know about?

  1) The poem focuses on a single soldier's experiences of a charge towards the enemy lines. It describes the thoughts and actions as he tries to stay alive

  2) The soldier's overriding emotion and motivation is fear, which has replaced the more patriotic ideas that he held before the violence began
• Context:


  - The poem is about a nameless soldier going over the top in the trenches.

  - Soldiers would have had bayonets attached to the end of their rifles.

  - The nameless soldier in the poem seems to be more of a weapon than a man (hence why he doesn't have name), rushing towards the enemy

  - It is not clear at the end whether he dies, but there is definitely s change in him

  - His actions are very raw and primal, much like an animal, suddenly pausing, preparing to react

  - The poet, Ted Hughes, was a former RAF serviceman and includes a great amount of natural and historical ideas in his poems and he often looks a man's impact on nature
• Themes:


  - The poem clearly is set around conflict in that it is a solider rushing out of the trenches on the attack

  - However, the poem also looks at ideas like transformation, humanity and nature (in the form of the yellow hare and green hedge)

  - In the poem, the soldier is almost more machine or animal than human and this is reflected in the power themed words to describe him
• Form -


  - The poem uses enjambment and caesura, and has lines of uneven length

  - This creates an irregular rhythm, which mirros the soldier struggling to run though the mud

  - The narrator uses the pronoun "he" rather than naming the solider to keep the solider anonymous,

  - Its he is a universal figure who can represent any young soldier
• Structure -


  - The poem starts "in medias res" (in the middle of action) and cover's the soldier's movement and thoughts over a short space of time

  - The first stanzas sees the soldier acting on instinct but time seems to stand still when the solider begins to think about his situation (contrast)

  - This helps convey the sense of confusion and fear

  - There are three stanzas and the work is largely blank verse with no set structure

  - In part the different lines help show the pace of the change, sometimes stumbling

  - Towards the end, it picks up spped, perhaps as his destination or doom

  - The poem uses lots of enjambment and caesuras to give a bizarre and erratic speed to the poem

  - This helps again give a structure to the speed of the charge but also the confusion and intensity of the battle with explosions and gunfire as well as the jumbled thoughts of the soldier
• Man or Mouse (Hare):

  - There are parts of this poem which make us think more of a hunt or animals than humanity

  - The charge to the "green hedge" seems to be more the action of an animal bolting into the field rather than the soldiers

  - The inclusion of the yellow hare is also powerful, we see the solider in a moment of confusion, not sure why he is there or what he is doing, the hare seems to spur him on, either because he does not want to be a coward or because it reflects a brief moment of man and nature connecting before the war once again breaks it
• Violent Imagery -


  There is some shocking imagery which brings home the sights and sounds of war

  - This helps to convey the sense of confusion of fear
• Figurative language


  - The poem includes powerful figurative language to emphasise the horror and physical pain of the charge, and also to question the point of war
• Natural imagery


  - The repeated references to the "green hedge" and the mention of the "field" and "threshing circle" show the natural, agricultural setting of the war

  - The painful image of the "yellow hare" reminds the reader of how the natural world is also damaged by war
• Feelings and attitudes in the poem

  1) TERROR - The poem challenges patriotism and shows how desperate terror becomes the overriding emotion in battle. The solider is driven by fear rather than any noble motive

  2) CONFUSION - The soldier is physically disorientated by the gunfire, but he's also questioning what he is doing there
• "Suddenly he awoke"


  - Sounds as if he's in a confused, vulnerable state

  - The events seem like a nightmare, but this confirms that they are real

  - Throws the reader into the action - their confusion replicates the soldiers
• "running-raw"


  - This has a double meaning - it suggests discomfort but also inexperience
• "In raw-seemed hot khaki, his sweat heavy"


  - The repeated "h" sound imitates the soldiers heavy breathing as he runs

  - Alliteration of the R and H sounds gives sense of hard work, heavy breathing
• "Bullets smacking the belly of the air"


  - Violent imagery and onomatopoeia describes the sound and impact of the shots

  - Enjambment - adds to the chaos of the battlefield

  - Personified bullets and semantic body parts with "belly" and "smashed arms" blurs the line between weapon and man by dehumanising the soldier and personifying the weapon
• "a rifle numb as a smashed arm"


  - Simile suggests his rifle is useless and foreshadows the injuries he is likely to get
• "The patriotic tear that brimmed in his eye"


  - His patriotism has turned to fear and pain - his heroic ideals have been replaced by painful reality

  - Juxtaposition - ideas of the patriotic tear, a beautiful and noble thing full of emotion contrasted with "sweating like molten iron" which further dehumanises the solider and likens him more to a tank or machine
• "Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest-"

  - Juxtaposition - ideas of the patriotic tear, a beautiful and noble thing full of emotion contrasted with "sweating like molten iron" which further dehumanises the solider and likens him more to a tank or machine
• "he almost stopped-"


  - This stanza pauses the action and focuses on the solider wondering why he is there
• "In what cold clockwork of the stars and nations"


  - Emphasis the solider's insignificance and his lack of control

  - "Cold" implies that the people in charge of war do not care about the individuals in their machinery of war

  - "Clockwork" - a metaphor for his own actions as being more like clockwork machine than human. ---Trivialises war a game of toy clockwork soldiers between nations
• Was he the hand pointing second?

  Rhetorical Question - marks the change in pace, it is as if this is happening in slow motion or the soldier has stopped to think on what he has become
• "Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame"


  - Metaphor, is it a real hare? Maybe a coward?

  - Yellow is the colour of fear and hares are prey

  - Natural and frightened image juxtaposes with his own machine like nature

  - Possible that the hare is another soldier shot and scared, trying to escape

  - DEHUMANISED

  
  

  "rolled like a flame"

  - Simile emphasise the hare's frantic movement and hints at the danger the soldier is in
• "And crawled in the threshing circle"


  - A distressing image of out of control movement

  - "Threshing circle" is an agricultural term used to show how nature is affected by war
• "green hedge"


  - Natural image contrasts with the violence and terror of war

  - Repeated

  - Contrast between warzone and the "green hedge" which is quite a peaceful rural image
• "He plunged past"


  - "plunges" implies diving in too deep or cannot return

  - He has made his decision to carry on - there is no turning back
• "King, honour, human dignity, etcetera"


  - These are the reasons they persuade people to go to war

  - Using "etcetera" show they are not even worth listening - they are very false

  - Listing the key motivations for war emphasises that here and now they are second to rush the battle
• "To get out of that blue crackling air"


  - Atmospheric, description similar to "the air was electric", the word "crackling" gives an element to danger in the verse
• "Dropped like luxuries"


  - He's been reduced to a basic level - he's attacking out of desperation, not moral principle
• "His terror's touchy dynamite"


  The soldier seems to have become a weapon rather than a human being

  - He's driven purely by his terror

  - Metaphor and consonance of the T sounds emphasises the adrenaline rush and almost animal like reactions (FIGHT OR FLIGHT)