Mametz Wood by Owen Sheers

“For years afterwards”

“For years afterwards”

Time phrase suggests impact of war is long lasting.

“found them”

• “found” displays soldiers as inactive/powerless.

• “them” presents soldiers as anonymous

• War made them powerless and stripped them of their identities

“wasted young”

• Sheers uses a critical tone to describe the soldiers death implying he’s criticising their leaders or war

• “wasted” creates critical tone

“bone”, “shoulder blade, “finger”, “skull”

• “bone” is generic suggesting it’s small and undistinguishable displaying war’s destruction

• Random selection of bones implies war is destructive

“A chit”, “the china plate”, “the relic,”, “broken bird’s egg”

Metaphors compares soldiers to fragile things

“broken bird’s egg of a skull”

Juxtaposition between “bird’s egg” and “skull” highlights the destructive force of war

“they were told to walk, not run”

• Sheers uses a critical tone again, directed towards the leaders of the 38th Welsh Division again

• Repetition of critical tone reflects Sheer’s anger of the wasted deaths of the Welsh soldiers as Sheers is Welsh too.

“nesting machine guns.”

• Metaphor makes guns sound predatory through the connotations of birds from “nesting”

• Metaphor displays soldiers as victims (prey)

• Links to previous stanza “broken bird’s egg”, the guns birthing death

• Demonstrates power of war as it breaks usual linguistic associations

• “.” creates sense of finality (death)

“earth stands sentinel”

• Metaphor suggests the earth is guarding/watching over the soldiers, implying that it’s working with the soldiers

• Passive tone through “stands” implies the earth won’t fight along side but still on the same side

• Displays how man and place interact

“reminders of what happend”

Vague, euphemistic language suggests the atrocities of war is too terrible to recall

“like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin”

Hopeful imagery

“This morning”

(Adverbial Phrase) indicates that war’s impact is still being felt today

“a broken mosaic of bone”

• Metaphor hints at soldier being completely destroyed

• Also suggests something beautiful

“dance-macabre”

• “Dance of the Dead”, artistic allegory

• Death is inevitable

• A reminder of the fragility of life

“their socketed heads tilted back at an angle”

• Repetition of hash plosive sounds (t, b, d, g) could mimic the machine guns fire

• War’s power is so strong, it’s forced into the sounds of poetry

“with this unearthing”

• Suggest the soldiers are freed

• Sheer may be conveying the idea that we must acknowledge the atrocities of war to move on

“sung”, “tongues”

• End-rhyme emphasises the idea of song

• Songs have heavy emotional weight but not told what emotion to attach it to

“Slipped”, “Absent”

• “Slipped” makes it sound like an accident

• “Absent” suggests lack of agency

• Soldiers presented as powerless and passive again

• Sheers reinforces his idea from the beginning of the poem