anthology: bayonet charge.

Question 1

what is the meaning or purpose of this text?

Answer 1

 Describes the terrifying experience of ‘going over the top’: fixing bayonets (long knives) to the ends of rifles and leaving a trench to charge directly at the enemy.
 Steps inside the body and mind of the speaker to show how this act transforms a soldier from a living, thinking person into a dangerous weapon of war.
 Hughes dramatizes the struggle between a man’s thoughts and actions.

Question 2

what is the context around the text?

Answer 2

 Published in 1957, but most likely set in World War 1.
 Hughes’ father had survived the battle of Gallipoli in World War 1 and so he may have wished to draw attention to the hardships of trench warfare.
 He draws a contrast between the idealism of patriotism and the reality of fighting and killing.

Question 3

language and structure: explanation and quotes.

Answer 3

 The patriotic tear that brimmed in his eye/ Sweating like molten iron”: his sense of duty (tear) has now turned into hot sweat of fear/pain.
 “cold clockwork of the stars and nations”: the soldiers are part of a cold and uncaring machine of war.
 “his foot hung like statuary in midstride.”: he is frozen with fear/bewilderment. The caesura (full stop) jolts him back to reality.
 “a yellow hare that rolled like a flame/ And crawled in a threshing circle”: impact of war on nature – the hare is distressed like the soldiers.
 The poem starts ‘in medias res’: in the middle of the action, to convey shock and pace.

Question 4

key quotes.

Answer 4

 “Suddenly he awoke and was running- raw”
 “Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame”
 “King, honour, human dignity, etcetera”