Kamikaze Breakdown

Kamikaze

Title

• Implies a sudden violence, particularly in strategic military operations

• Relates to the Japanese Suicide Plots during the war - has patriotic connotations

• An attack where those participating are willing to take risks and are sacrificing their safety

“Her father embarked at sunrise

with a flask of water, a samurai sword

in the cockpit, a shaven head”

Lines 1-3

The poem begins by reporting an event from a daughter’s perspective: a father leaves on a journey. The speaker mentions a list which details the pilot’s belongings and the ritualistic shaved head of a kamikaze pilot

• Garland begins her poem with a description of the pilot boarding his aeroplane to show the personal perspective of his experience

  • The reference to the ritual a kamikaze pilot undertakes before boarding tells readers the pilot is on a suicide mission for his country

“full of powerful incantations

and enough fuel for a one-way

journey into history” 

Lines 4-6

Garland refers again to the ritual: the pilot is repeating patriotic chants (“incantations”). The speaker tells the reader that this is a suicide mission which will lead to glory for the pilot, that he will be respected always for his sacrifice

• Here, Garland refers to the power behind the chants of honour and glory which the pilot repeats to complete his military duty

• Garland’s speaker lets readers know that this suicide mission is one of patriotism, that he has been called to carry out an important duty

“but half way there, she thought,

recounting it later to her children,”

Lines 7-8

The speaker is the pilot’s daughter who is telling the story to her children. She continues the story of the father, suggesting that something changes “half way there”

• Garland alerts readers that this is a story being told by a mother to her children about her own father, showing the perspective of family members during and after conflict

• The break in stanza pauses the story (caesura) and, with the conjunction “but”, the speaker highlights something changed on the pilot’s journey, that he had doubts about his duties

“he must have looked far down

at the little fishing boats

strung out like bunting

on a green-blue translucent sea”

Lines 9 - 12

Here, the speaker of the story recounts to her children what she imagines about the pilot’s journey: she guesses he looked down on the ocean from his aeroplane 

• The lines convey a tone of nostalgia as the pilot leaves his home behind

• Garland explores the pilot’s thoughts and feelings in a bid to understand his experience

  • The speaker suggests the father may have felt emotional, homesick perhaps, as he sees the beautiful ocean

“and beneath them, arcing in swathes

like a huge flag waved first one way

then the other in a figure of eight,

the dark shoals of fishes”

Lines 13 - 16

The speaker describes the scene below: the pilot can see the shadows of fish swimming under the water. Now the pilot can see a darker shadow of fish beneath the water. Garland describes the size and magnitude of the shoals of fish with the word “swathes” which means ‘a broad area’.

• These lines contrast the earlier positive description of the scene

  • This description could convey darker thoughts in the pilot’s mind, suggesting he doubts his part in the conflict

  • The fish shoals are described as a flag, like a warning to him

“flashing silver as their bellies

swivelled towards the sun

and remembered how he

and his brothers waiting on the shore”

Lines 17 - 20

The speaker describes the fish turning, now silver and bright in the sun. This reminds him of his childhood, fishing with his brothers

• These lines depict the darker thoughts being replaced with brighter memories of the pilot’s childhood

• The fish seem to signal to the pilot as they turn and flash in the sun, suggesting nature reminds him of what is important

“built cairns of pearl-grey pebbles

to see whose withstood longest

the turbulent inrush of breakers

bringing their father’s boat safe”

Lines 21 - 24

The speaker tells us the pilot remembers how he built small graves of stone with his brother. He describes how he and his brother competed to see whose grave withstood the crash of waves as they brought the boat in

• The pilot’s memories remind him of family, and of death 

• Here, Garland shows how the pilot remembers small intimate details of his past which help him realise the power of nature and the importance of family

“- yes, grandfather’s boat – safe

to the shore, salt-sodden, awash

with cloud-marked mackerel,

black crabs, feathery prawns,

the loose silver of whitebait and once

a tuna, the dark prince, muscular, dangerous.”

Lines 25-30

The speaker begins to list all the fish they would catch fishing together as a family. The pilot remembers catching a tuna, a strong and powerful fish

• The disrupted rhythm here begins a stream of consciousness:

  • The descriptions convey the vivid memory the pilot has as he looks down on the water where he fished with his family

  • The speaker refers to the dark and powerful tuna, alluding to ideas of strength and power with a metaphor of "dark prince"

    • However, Garland gives this power to nature, not the pilot: this subverts (overturning trad ideas) ideas relating to military strength and power

“And though he came back

my mother never spoke again

in his presence, nor did she meet his eyes” 

Lines 31-33

The speaker explains that the pilot did return home; he did not complete his mission. However, his return was not welcomed by the speaker's mother, the pilot’s wife

• Garland shows the power of the pilot’s childhood memories and love for his home: he returns, choosing not to die in conflict

• The perspective of the speaker’s mother is unexpected perhaps: she is disgraced by his return and his disobedience towards his duty to his country:

  • Garland comments on the culture of honour and patriotism

  • She conveys the extreme response of individuals when soldiers defy cultural values

“and the neighbours too, they treated him

as though he no longer existed,

only we children still chattered and

laughed”

Lines 34-36

The speaker explains that other people responded similarly: the neighbours alienated the pilot. The children did not understand these ideas, and continued as before

• Garland shows how powerful the values of honour and glory are for the pilot’s neighbours, so strong that they ignore and ostracise him

• Garland explores how children respond differently, suggesting patriotism is learned behaviour

“till gradually we too learned

to be silent, to live as though

he had never returned, that this

was no longer the father we loved.”

Lines 37-40

The speaker explains that the children were told to ignore their father too. The lines here depict the way the children were taught to deny him as a father

• Garland shows an example of children being taught to mimic the ideas of their elders

• Her poem explores family conflicts as a result of cultural ideals regarding patriotism

“And sometimes, she said, he must have wondered

which had been the better way to die.”

Lines 41 - 42

The speaker ends the poem with her own reflections. She considers the huge price her father paid for returning home instead of sacrificing his life for his country; She considers his life afterwards to be a metaphorical death too

• Garland comments on the sacrifice the father had to make whether or not he completed his suicide mission to explore the impact of patriotic values on family

• She ends the poem with a poignant (tender and emotive) comment which shifts the narration from the external to the internal: the ending suggests unresolved emotions