The Charge of the Light Brigade

• Half a league

  suggesting that due to the large distance the soldiers have to travel it creates a sense of exposure and vulnerability
• ‘Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!’

  reported speech shows the sense of duty of the soldiers towards their commanders
• ‘Someone had blunder’d’

  foreshadows the military mistake about to occur
• Valley of death

  – biblical allusion creates a grand sense of scale and foreshadows death
• Repetition

  The anaphora used in “theirs not to make reply/reason why” ...“theirs but to do an die” reiterates the phrase and the soldiers’ obedience (a desirable trait in Victorian England). The repetition also highlights the soldiers’ lack of individualism.
• Metaphors

  Tennyson’s use of metaphors creates negative connotations for the listener. In “Jaws of death”, “Jaws” has claustrophobic connotations, which imply that the soldiers will be ‘eaten up’ by or shredded by bullets. Similarly, the metaphor “Mouth of hell” creates the impression that there is no escape from the valley once it has been entered
• Symbolism


  The phrase “valley of death” is a biblical allusion from Psalm 23 which refers to the protection provided by God so is highly ironic when used in this context. This could be a criticism by Tennyson of how members of higher ranks should have protected those in the light brigade but they were instead forced to engage in dangerous conflict because of their low status. This phrase can also be considered to symbolise the inevitability of the tragedy, the image of a valley implies that the soldiers are penned in and surrounded on all sides by the opposition.
• The idea of soldiers returning “from the mouth of hell” links to the story of the harrying of hell. Jesus went into hell in order to receive the souls of those who had been condemned there to allow them to achieve salvation. This relates back to the soldiers in that they were sacrificing their own freedom for the freedom of those back at home.
• Ballad form

  This poem takes on the form of a ballad which is a historic poetry form used to commemorate a story for future generations to hear. This poem fits this purpose and acts to memorialise the people who were killed
• Dactylic dimeter

  Tennyson uses dactylic dimeter (a long syllable followed by two short syllables) to mirror the rhythm of a horse running into battle. This unrelenting rhythm implies that the soldiers have no choice but to run into battle or that they are blindly obeying orders. The meter could also be interpreted to be used to create satirical humour as it is often seen as a light-hearted rhythm
• Rhyme scheme

  The rhyme scheme is irregular and there are rhyming couplets between indented lines. The couplets create a sense of inevitability of death. However, chaos is introduced by the irregular rhyme scheme