Power and Conflict Anthology

• Bayonet Charge by Ted Hughes is a poem about a World War One soldier
• Ted Hughes was born in 1930, long after the end of World War One, so the poem is not based on his own personal experience
• The poem is an imagined account of a World War One soldier
• In the third and final stanza, the focus shifts to a hair that has found itself caught up in the midst of the battle
• The poet's use of language in the final stanza contains a mocking tone as Hughes criticizes the patriotism of soldiers
• Enjambment


  • The continuation of a sentence beyond the end of a line, creating a disjointed, disordered effect
• Caesura


  • The presentation of the end of sentences mid-line, stopped with full stops or question marks, causing the reader difficulty
• The repetition of the word "raw" in lines one and two reflects the shock the soldier experienced
• Similes


  • The poet uses a vast number of similes, as if he is unable to fully describe the moment and is comparing it to something else
• The final word "etc." is used to mock the patriotic values that soldiers supposedly have
• The poem is about the reality of war and how its true horror is ultimately indescribable