Ted Hughes 'Bayonet Charge' And Wilfred Owen's Exposure

Both Ted Hughes and Wilfred Owen present war in their poems “Bayonet Charge” and “Exposure”, respectively, as terrifying experiences, repeatedly mentioning the honest pointlessness of the entire ordeal to enhance the futility of the soldiers' deaths. Hughes’ “Bayonet Charge” focuses on one person's emotional struggle with their actions, displaying the disorientating and dehumanising qualities of war. Owen’s “Exposure”, on the other hand, depicts the impacts of war on the protagonists' nation, displaying the monotonous and unending futility of the situation by depicting the fate of soldiers who perished from hypothermia, exposed to the horrific conditions of open trench warfare before dawn.

The use of third-person singular pronouns in “Bayonet

In “Bayonet Charge”, it is easily observable that while initially the soldier appeared to be obeying orders- “Suddenly he awoke and was running”, the idea is almost immediately juxtaposed with the metaphor- “the patriotic tear that had brimmed in (the soldier’s) eye (was) Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest”. This demonstrates clearly the depreciation of the soldier’s initial patriotism. The use of the past perfect verb “had brimmed” followed by the present continuous verb “sweating” highlights the change in his attitude towards war before and after his experiences, possibly suggesting dulled emotions and a more realistic and developed thought process. The use of the term “molten iron” suggests the weight of his burden as well as the painful experience he is now undergoing due to it. This idea is further reinforced by the rhetorical question, “In what cold clockwork of the stars and nations Was he the hand pointing that second?” This metaphor displays his uncertainty as per his crucial part in that moment in time. The soldier pictures himself as the hand on a clock, subject to the inevitable force of a clockwork motor that cannot be slowed or quickend. He realises that he does not really know why he is running and feels “statuary in mid-stride”. However, towards the end of the poem, all moral justifications for the existence of war have become meaningless- “King, honour, human dignity, etcetera Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm”, which is extremely dismissive of all the motives people provide for joining the army, explicitly stating that those motives do not justify and do not withstand the war. Disorientation is also highlighted in the line “Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge That dazzled with rifle fire” where the confusion between the natural world and man-made world is expressed. This could be due to the fact that