kamikaze vs charge of light brigade

Collective power vs individual identity

• In The Charge of the Light Brigade, Tennyson presents soldiers as a powerless collective, reduced to “the six hundred”, showing how individual identity is erased within military obedience.

• whereas in Kamikaze, Garland explores the cost of individuality when the pilot breaks from collective expectation and is subsequently isolated.

Obedience vs internal conflict

• Tennyson’s use of dactylic dimeter and anaphora in “cannon to the right of them / cannon to the left of them” creates a relentless rhythm that reflects blind obedience and entrapment,

• while Garland uses imagery such as “shoals of fishes flashing silver” to show a disrupted, hypnotic mind experiencing internal conflict rather than unquestioning duty.

Structure reflects control vs fragmentation

• Structurally, Tennyson’s rigid repetition reinforces a system where soldiers have “theirs not to reason why”, trapping them in obedience,

• whereas Garland’s fragmented narrative and enjambment reflect the pilot’s breaking away from this system and the psychological consequences of individual reasoning.

Context: duty and ideology vs questioning sacrifice

• Tennyson, writing about the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, turns a military disaster into a celebration of duty and honour,

• while Garland, writing about WWII Japan, questions whether such ideological expectations of sacrifice are justified,

• exposing the emotional cost of obedience versus individual choice.

FINAL COMPARISON IDEA

• Both poets explore the tension between collective duty and individual identity,

• with Tennyson presenting soldiers trapped within unquestioning obedience,

• while Garland shows the devastating consequences faced when an individual breaks from that system.

Power vs nature as competing forces

• In Kamikaze, nature disrupts ideological control through the sensory image “shoals of fishes flashing silver”, where the soft sibilance creates a hypnotic effect,

• suggesting that nature does not command like authority but instead alters an individual thought, (alters, intervenes)

• contrasting with the rigid, imposed power in The Charge of the Light Brigade.

Conflict between obedience and individuality

• Tennyson presents obedience as absolute through “theirs not to reason why”, removing individual agency,

• whereas Garland explores the consequences of breaking that obedience, showing that while individuality allows moral awareness,

• it results in social erasure, as the pilot pays for his decision through isolation and silence.