Kamikaze Context

What did Garland choose to explore in kamikaze?

The nationalistic values of Japanese Kamikaze pilots and their families, and how this may lead to family conflict

• During World War II, Japan adopted a strategy of attacking enemy targets with suicide bombers known as kamikaze pilots

• Japanese culture is closely connected to honour and bravery above all

• An individual’s dishonourable actions will reflect poorly on their friends and family 

What does the poem evaluate?

The experience of a kamikaze pilot; a father chooses to return home instead of completing his mission, thus defying social and cultural expectations. This leads to his isolation as his family turns their back on him

The poem explore the loss the family suffers through the perspective of his daughter. Neither the daughter nor her own children have the father in their lives. Garland explores how the cultural values her family support, of honour and duty to country above all else, lead to divisions

How does the poem consider the social pressure placed upon soldiers?

Through the perspective of a father leaving home and contemplating his death:

• It shows the father’s doubts about his military duty, readers see a human side of war, regardless of which side a soldier is on

• Garland’s father is alienated and ignored due to his choice to return: the father is powerless to be with his family again regardless of his decision

How does Garland challenge cultural values regarding patriotism?

By presenting a daughter and her siblings as powerless to defy their mother’s wishes

• They are told to turn their back on their father and they obey

• Garland questions this by presenting the daughter’s unresolved reflections

  • She tells her own children about their grandfather in his absence

  • She acknowledges that her father was powerless in his situation: “He must have wondered which was the better way to die”