bayonet charge

“suddenly”

• links to themes: WAR AND CONFLICT

• poem begins in media res - thrusts the audience into the action and relates to the idea of waking up

“raw … raw”

• links to themes: WAR AND CONFLICT

• Repetition creates a sense of desperation and urgency

• The word "raw" links into the semantic field of humanity's primal and animalistic features

• Word "raw" also connotes an inherent vulnerability

• Enjambment emphasises how emotionally-charged the conflict is

“dazzled with rifle fire”

• links to themes: WAR AND CONFLICT, OPPRESSION AND INEQUALITY

• Metaphor creates a tense, violent atmosphere, emphasising a sense of constriction

  • This eludes to a sense of suffocation and being unable to breathe, due to consistent and strenuous movement (e.g. running away from danger)

• "dazzled" connotes a romanticisation of violent conflict

“he almost stopped -”

• links to themes: WAR AND CONFLICT

• Syntax emphasises the soldier's internal hesitation

“cold clockwork”

• links to themes: WAR AND CONFLICT, OPPRESSION AND INEQUALITY

• Mechanical imagery emphasised by the harsh alliteration

  • Implies the dehumanisation of soldiers to become part of a 'military machine'

“shot-slashed furrows”

• links to themes: POWER OF NATURE, WAR AND CONFLICT

• Common imagery of idyllic rural landscapes is subverted to create juxtaposition between the connotations of nurturing by nature (crops created by agriculture) and the life being taken away by conflict in the same place

• Sibilance enhances the violence of the imagery

“King, honour, human dignity, etcetera”

• links to themes: WAR AND CONFLICT, OPPRESSION AND INEQUALITY

• Asyndetic listing

  • Could connote the soldier listing his reasons to serve

• Colloquial nature of "etcetera" connotes how the soldier has become disillusioned with the glory of war

AO3

• written in 1957

• Ted Hughes considers himself a pseudo war poet

  • Hughes grew up in a post-war era of Yorkshire

    • this rural upbringing influences Hughes’ perspective within the poem, evident due to his focus on natural landscapes and forms

  • Hughes father was 1 out of 17 members of the Lancaster Fusiliers that survived the Gallipoli campaign

    • this traumatic war event left Hughes’ father a victim of severe PTSD

    • this poem is a tribute to Hughes’ father

• poem is set in WW1

  • poem is a way for Hughes to reconcile the consequences of war with its events

structure

• blank verse

  • rigid structure demonstrates Hughes’ methodical approach to evaluating the military events

    • demonstrates a sense of detachment and a lack of emotional involvement