English Literature: Poems - Kamikaze

“kamikaze”

Japanese suicide pilots

“remembered how he / and his brothers waiting on the shore / built cairns of pearl-grey pebbles”

• imagery

• the imagery of innocence and life and childhood constrats that of the fate of the pilot and anyone who has been in that position

“green blue translucent sea”

• natural imagery

• highlights the beauty of the world and it trying to criticise that these pilots have a lot to lose as they are dying for their honour

• writer is teaching how honour isnt the most important thing, contrast to “honour the charge they made”

“one way journey into history”

• metaphor

• indicates the significance people associate with dying for your honour and helps the writers arguments of honour being the downfall of society

“her father embarked at sunrise”

• symbolism

• japan is known as “land of the rising sun” so could be a reference to the importance of its heritage

• symbolic of hope, the writers hope of society realising the detrimental effect of praising dying for your honour

“a tuna, the ark prince, muscular, dangerous”

• dark imagery

• hints to the darker more predatory side of society and nature as we are willing to let someone die for their honour

…with a flask of water, a samurai sword in the cockpit, a shaven head full of powerful incantations".

• listing

• suggests that this is a ritual and gives a sense of dignity and respect for carrying on a tradition

“strung out like bunting”

• simile

• positive imagery with connotations of celebration

• ironic given what the pilot has to do

• could symbolise joy and hint at what people are leaving behind is we continue to let society trick people into dying for their honour, its a form of propaganda

how does exposure link to kamikaze

• “the merciless iced east winds that knive us” - direct contrast as in exposure owen presents nature as the things that kills the soldiers and takes away their life when in kamikaze its the opposite

• the structure of kamikaze is 7 stanzas, 6 lines each, in exposure its 8 stanzas, 5 lines each, whcih could represent the similarity between the regimented beliefs of the military and the army

• exposure presents the issues between nature and man, where as kamikaze suggests no matter what people do in that situatuion they die either way