kamikaze

• Titles “Kamikaze” and “her father”

  • Noun “father”: imbues poem with a sense of intimacy. Garlands ability to see the person beneath the façade of a soldier suggests that she is questioning the ethics of the patriotism and how it disregards identity.
  • Juxtaposes military role as a “kamikaze” pilot: military expectations corrupt familial life and strip a person of agency – there is a disparity between the pilots assigned role within the title of “kamikaze” and his personal role “her father”
• “full of powerful incantations”

  Image on “incantations”: suggests pilot was under a indoctrinating propaganda spell. Portrays influence of propaganda as hypnotic and bewitching. This is contextually important as Japanese soldiers were taught that self-sacrifice was the only means by which they could win the war

   

  Irony on “powerful”- use of “power” is bitterly ironic as the pilot is powerless to the propaganda enforced on him and his dehumanisation and marginalisation when he goes back home – he is a victim to these powerful elements of propaganda.
• Sestets (stanzas of 6 lines)

  First 5 describe story of her father’s mission. Yet, the final 2 stanzas explore his return, this compresses the years after his return to be far shorter than his flight that would’ve happened within minutes or hours.

  Compressed because he was marginalised and dehumanised and ostracised

  The gravitas of his decision within that one moments cut his life short
• Metre:

  Initially, written in free verse so it unfold quickly mimicking flight of plane.

  End resorts to iambs which reinstate a steady and melancholic tone- mirrors a elegy
• context

  Garland said “I spend a lot of the day listening to other people’s words”- poetry immerses herself in others perspective

   

  Japan’s military attitudes were founded on codes of honour and self-sacrifice. Typically, Kamikaze pilots were volunteers which conveys how firmly people believed in these values, enough to sacrifice their life – patriotic
• comparisons

  exposure= theme of identity- identity robbed by war OR human control/power = powerless to propaganda and war

  bayonet charge= war- questionning the sacrifice

  poppies= memories- memories of loved one tarnished by war