Iconic Australian poet Bruce Dawe constructs explicit representations of Australia through in his poem ‘Homecoming’. With the extensive use of literary features and poetic devices Dawe positions the reader to convey the strong message of anti-war sentiment. Dawe opens up sensitivity to the public perception on the Vietnam War, his views on treatment of soldiers and shocking impact to the immediate family of the fallen Australians. With the aid of strong poetic techniques he provokes sympathy; he carefully influences the audience to reflect upon his own views towards war. The beliefs, background and contextual historical era of the poet explicitly reflect the themes and subjects of Bruce Dawe’s poetry. Bruce Dawe’s Homecoming written in the 1960’s was influenced by major political, social and socio-cultural struggles. The social era of the 1960’s was a time of cultural revolution, was accompanied by the civil rights movement extending rights to individuals regardless of race, sex, or creed. This movement was contrasted by the controversial Vietnam War, a war grounded around the economic and …show more content…
Through the vivid use of graphic imagery Dawe succeeds in positioning the audience to appeal the notion of the true horrors of war. The line “whining like hounds” is a clever simile that highlights the destructive and damaging characteristics of battle. Dawe associates the bodies of the soldiers as close to objects rather than respected human beings in lines of ‘those they can find,… piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, in convoys’. Dawe uses specific and particular words to describe the lack of individual identity and character. References to the lack of individuality can be seen in the lines zipping them up in “green plastic bags”, and being classified as “curly-heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms” in an isolated and unidentified image of