Mametz Wood

Question 1

they tended the land back into itself

Answer 1

cycle of life
Earth can recover, but soldiers can’t

Image of tending

Question 2

A chit of bone, the China plate of a shoulder blade

Answer 2

Objectifying
Emphasises fragility
War stolen humanity

Question 3

The relic of a finger

Answer 3

Body of a soldier is a relic because patriotism so yeah

Question 4

Blown and broken bird’s egg of a skull

Answer 4

Fragility subverts the readers expectations

Alliteration illustrates fragility
Avian -> they would free but they were still eggs so they couldn’t

Eggs -> innocent, didn’t know what they signed up

Question 5

Twenty men buried together in one Long grave

Answer 5

Going to war together, dying together
Unity , loyalty, patriotism

Volta- descriptions of earth -> people.

Question 6

The notes they had sung

Answer 6

High morality and joviality

Avian imagery

Question 7

CONTEXT

Answer 7

modern tv show presenter, actor
welsh
About battle of sommes, 5 day battle

Question 8

Form

Answer 8

Tercets
Third person - distance and detachment. To think directly about what happened is too painful?

Complex sentences, enjambement create a reflective tone. There was so much death and destruction, the number of lives lost

Caesura split up descriptions of body parts, symbolising the obliteration fo the soldiers

Question 9

Structure

Answer 9

Chronological, linear

Fifth stanza -> description of a mass grave

Thoughtful tone and slow pace are constant, as well as images of the past- emphasises lasting effect of war and time it takes the earth the heal

Question 10

Personification

Answer 10

The earth is personified both as someone who needs healing and as someone guarding the soldiers’ memory- emphasises how long it takes to recover from the damage war causes
Stressed the importance of remembering those who fought

Question 11

Images of brokeness

Answer 11

Detailed injured body parts in the second stanza and later descriptions of the damage to the skeletons - shows how war can dehumanise people. Allusion to how men are used as inanimate objects/pawns for political gain

Question 12

Contrasting images

Answer 12

Violent images of war
Images of human fragility

Soldiers humanity, horrifying conditions
Inhumanity in forcing men to kill other men
How men are victims of those in command

Question 13

Nesting machine guns

Answer 13

Juxtaposition of life and death imagery

War is a part of human nature?

Question 14

The earth stands sentinel

Answer 14

The earth preserves the bones in a determined and calm way

Question 15

Like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin

Answer 15

Prolonged simile of the earth being wounded

Soldiers are the foreign body - they shouldn’t be there, they’ve died too young

Question 16

Wasted young

Answer 16

Refers to both the decaying bodies and the lives that were lost too soon

Oxymoron - depressing image

Question 17

‘them’

Answer 17

Gives the soldiers anonymity

War has taken away their individuality

Question 18

Dropped open

Answer 18

Soldiers were screaming, horrified

Question 19

With this unearthing, slipped from their absent tongues

Answer 19

Grotesque imagery

Discovering the soldiers gave them new voice

Slipped - gentle

Question 20

Socketed heads

Answer 20

Gross

Question 21

skeleton paused mid dance-macabre

Answer 21

Dark humour
Soldiers were living with joviality
Dance and dead juxtaposition

Question 22

Broken mosaic of bond

Answer 22

Illustrates obliteration

Juxtaposition between beauty and decorative nature of mosaic between deathly imagery