Kamikaze V2 Flashcards
Context of Kamikaze
Kamikaze (divine wind)- Japanese culture was very patriotic and the military focus was to fight and die for your country
Japanese culture was honour based and dishonour will taint your familys reputation (honour was important)
Poem explores futility of avoiding fate set our by the authroity. The poem has a very intimate tone as the writer contrasts the speaker and daughter’s voice (personal story)
Ideas of Kamikaze
Conflict between individual and societal expectations
Conflict within families
Conflict between nature and man
Form used in Kamikaze
Free verse (6 line a stanza)- story-telling voice, shows its significance to the family and makes it universal reinforced by anonymous characters. The repeated 6 line stanza makes this experience seem commom
3rd person narrative (focaliser of daughter or wife ) ‘she thought’ and last 2 line ‘she said’ and 1st person narrative of the daughter shows the significance of the fathers ‘failure’ on the family. He is silenced by the poem and family. Daughter can only guess ‘must have wondered’
Past tense narrative-past tense distances the experience of the pilot showing that this experience is alien to those reading in modern day.
Structure used in Kamikaze
Open with the fathers setting off on his mission ends with ‘die’- open and closes with the idea of death sense of futility for the pilot. He survived although he was dead towards society . (Neighbours ‘treated him as though he no longer existed’ along with his wife and children who ‘live as though he never returned’
Story not well structured- she puts her interpretations in the story reinforcing that the father has no say (dead)
Langauge used in stanza 1-3 Kamikaze
Kamiakze (divine wind)- non human identity emphasises how these pilots were mythologised by society. The pilots were dehumanised and forced to act beyond human expectations
Stanza 1 list like ‘a flask of water, a samurai sword’, ‘a shaven head full of -Makes the mission seem a simple and easy one to accomplish (simple). ‘shaven head full of powerful incantations’ makes it seem as if he is merely an empty vessel to be filled.
‘shaven head full of powerful incantations’ and ‘she thought’ in the first line of the next stanza-indicates the difference between the way her father was not expected to ‘think’, but the fact that she can now ‘think’
similes: ‘the little fishing boats/ strung out like bunting’; the ‘dark shoals of fishes’ ‘arcing in swathes/ like a huge flag waved first one way/ then the other’- attached to the imagery ‘bunting’ and ‘flag’ have connotations of celebration (what would have been waves after his mission)
shift from very minimal list at start to more ‘poetic’ language in stanzas 2-5-makes us sympathise with the fact that the pilot was a human being – able to appreciate aspects of nature
Langauge used in stanza 4-5 Kamikaze
language of colours: ‘green-blue translucent sea’, ‘flashing silver’, ‘pearl-grey’, ‘cloud- marked’, ‘black’, ‘silver’, ‘dark’-conveys a clear sense of beauty of the scene and makes us more sympathetic to the motivation of someone who was drawn back to home.
‘He remembered’- makes his childhood seem almost idyllic and provides a stark contrast to the hostility and silence within his own family later
multi-sensory description in stanza 5 – can feel the ‘salt-sodden’ boat, the ‘feathery’ prawns , tuna descibed as a ‘dark prince, muscular, dangerous’, as well as see the ‘cloud-marked mackerel’, the ‘black crabs’, ‘the loose silver of whitebait’- convey the beauty of the scene he remembers from his childhood and makes us sympathetic
Langauge used in stanza 6-7 Kamikaze
Italics represent first person, directed voice/ daughter voice
‘Mother never spoke again’ , ‘Neighbour .. teated him as though he no longer existed’ , ‘live as though he never returned’- fathers actions lead him to no longer exist
‘He must have wondered’- daughters voice only presents her thoughts (father has no say)
‘Better way to die’- metaphorical not actually dead but is viewed as if he was
Kamikaze and COMH similarities
Both poets express the importance of a person’s history and origins of identity.
In kamikaze it is shown without her father she cannot understand herself (distanced)
Kamikaze and Prelude comparisons
Kamikaze celebrates nature whereas Prelude fears it
Patriotism vs nature in Kamikaze and in Prelude it was Man vs nature
Both poets are forced to recognise their perspectives and consider the power of influence of nature
Similarities in Kamikaze and poppies
In poppies the mother suffers through the enjambment snd caesura . In kamikaze the daughte steuggles from a life where she cannot know her father and the struggle against culture (third person)
Both offer a non-conventional perspective of war . Kamikazs (daughter) Poppies (mother)
Differences in Kamikaze and poppies
Both poets suffer from loss. In Kamikaze it is the father who is physically present although is rejected by society whereas in Poppies it is the loss of her son and her memories as she begins to become coreupted by war (imagery of military with domestic language)
Kamikaze and COMH differences
Kamikaze shows conflict with culture COMH shows conflict with those restricting his culture
