Bayonet Charge Poem Analysis GCSE

Bayonet Charge Context

- A bayonet charge is the act of soldiers running over trenches with their rifles drawn

- Hughes never fought or saw war first hand, but he saw the effects of it on his home town in Yorkshire

- Hughes' father fought in WW1 and was one of only 17 Lancaster Fusiliers to survive the Gallipoli campaign

- Perhaps Hughes wanted to highlight the brutality of war as a tribute to his father

Bayonet Charge Structure

- A chaotic structure is used to mirror the chaos and swiftness of war

- Free verse, caesura and enjambement make the text difficult to read. This is representative of the struggles and slogging of the soldier, Hughes make it hard for us to read to put us in his shoes. It also makes the poem sound fragmented and broken, much like the soldier's mentality.

- Written in third person, which emphasises the isolation experienced by the soldier. Hughes did not serve in WW1 therefore could not write from his own experiences.

'Suddenly he awoke and was running'

- In medias res - abruptly begun - establishes fast pace and merciless attitude of war, we feel as though we are a part of the action

- Awoke - in a trance, daydreaming, awoken to the realities of war?

- Possibly awaking from a nightmare - PTSD?

'raw

In raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy,'

- Raw - exposed and vunerable

- Raw - animalistic connotations which shows how war has effected the soldier's moral compass, and also lack of humanity

- Lexical field of temperature - stress

- Alliteration of 'h' - reflects the soldiers panting and tiredness

- Heavy sweat - under emotional strain, it is a burden to carry

'Bullets smacking the belly out of the air'

- Plosive 'b' sounds indicates the destructive effects of war on nature

- Smacking - onomatopoeic - emphasises the damage

- The reader would expect the soldier to become winded from bullets, not the air, so the personification of the air emphasises how war has inverted the natural order of life

'The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye'

- Emotive connotations reveals how deep-rooted he is in patriotism

- Brimmed - unable to see clearly - metaphorically showcases how patriotism has clouded him from the truths of war

- Experience of war has crippled his patriotism

- Tear - rip - war tears families apart

'Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest'

- Centre of his chest - his heart

Simile explores how war was deep-rooted in his identity - former love for his country has now converted to physical agony

- Molten iron - connotates extreme pain and suffering (purged from his body)

- Another interpretation is that molten iron is malleable which showcases how he has been manipulated into the perfect determined soldier through the extensive use of propaganda

- Also foreshadows how his views change throughout the poem

'In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations'

- 'Cold' - feels disregarded

- 'Clockwork' - he is simply a cog in the works of war - a mechanised soldier who blindly follows orders - time is against him

- Exploited by much larger powers (government)

- 'Stars' - Hughes was fascinated with astrology - stars are a metaphor for fate- he perhaps questions was war written in the stars? Or was it the fault of the government?

- Nations - plural - potentially hughes' collective blame on the government for sending soldiers to their death under the false ruse of propaganda

'Was he the hand pointing that second?'

- Insignificance - the 'second' hand on a clock moves the fastest and does the most work but is also the smallest measure of time

- Rhetorical question - interrogative of himself - internal conflict within of patriotism v identity

'Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame'

- Enjambement from stanza II to stanza III showcases the ongoing and continuous action

- Hare - usually a symbol for timidity and innocence - transformed into violence through the simile 'like a flame'

- Showcases how the natural world has been disrupted by the chaotic nature of war and furthermore how the innocence of men has been ruined by the horrors of the battlefield

- Yellow - symbolic of cowardice

- Flame - agony and despair

- The suffering of nature breaks his desensitised trance-like state

'He plunged past with his bayonet toward the green hedge'

- Plosive 'plunged past' - urgency

- Bayonet and hedge - juxtaposition between war and nature as bayonet kills yet the hedge grows - could also reflect the English vs German

- With his bayonet - personal pronoun - in a twisted sense perhaps dependant on it for his safety?

- Oxymoronic views as weapons for him mean his safety

- Hedge - could symbolise a maze - trapped

- Green - safety, protection

- Green hedge - referred to in line three - reptition showcases the cyclical nature of war and the ongoing cycle of pain - 'stumbled' vs 'plunged'

'King, honour, human dignity, etcetera'

- Sarcastic recital of the propaganda fed to him and also the ideology he should abide by

- Etcetera - dismissive - anti-climatic which reflects how war is often anti climatic - criticises war and its futility

- Undermines the words of his generals as his sole purpose is survival

- Sense of irony as his 'human dignity' has been abandoned in favour of this mechanised soldier

'His terror's touchy dynamite'

- Alliterative 't's mimic the ticking of a time bomb which showcases the inevitable death the soldier will face

- Also shows how he is on edgy and jittery as it could sound like chattering teeth

- His terror has made him unstable and unpredictable - much like 'dynamite' which is a symbol for his mental state

- Does he view himself as a weapon and a threat to others? Decline in mental sanity and loss of character (dehumanisation) much like he is just a piece in the 'clockwork' of war

- Dynamite - metaphorical explosiveness and danger that his bayonet could cause

Bayonet Charge Themes

- Effects of Conflict

- Reality of Conflict

- Fear

-Individual Experiences