Poem Analysis: The Vietnam War

The flanks are the part of the body between the last rib and the top of the hip. The soldiers were battered and bruised making the effort to get going harder. The ‘greyness’ could come from the fact that they have been fighting the war far too long that it’s almost like they’re ornaments that are just getting dusty. They have no use, so they’re being sent off home. War isn’t a new thing; it’s been going on for years. The ‘pale rags of mist’ that hung describe the misty/foggy morning weather. The mud and leaves on the ground smelt ‘sweet like blood’. The ground in which the soldiers walked on was mauled’ due to the lack of precision and accuracy of the bombs and shots being fired. During the war, not only where people being forced out of their

The injured soldiers were bandaged up and injured severely. Maybe Vernon Scannell used the idea of bandages to make us think that maybe their wounds have been hidden away just like their personalities. They are unrecognisable under all of the bandages. Bandaging up the wounds will hide them, but scars will always be there as a reminder of war. The poet describes war as being mythical. When we think about myths most of them involve violence or war. The crimson red crosses on the ambulance vans are there to stop them from being bombed as it’s part of the rules. The ambulances engines ‘grinded’ as they passed. There were so many injured soldiers in the ambulances that the wheels couldn’t support the weight. It was too heavy that that it’s almost like it has to drag itself. ‘Grinding’ shows the effort of the engines having to pull itself and the load of injured soldiers in which it is carrying. The sound of the ambulance indicates that more soldiers have been injured, leaving a bad feeling hanging in the atmosphere. Vernon Scannell described the road as a stage with its cast in its wings. The cast in its wing are the soldiers hiding away in the

Rupert Brooke, poet, used this as an opportunity to interpret these ideas into one of his poems; ’The soldier’. He begins by addressing the reader: ‘think only this of me’. We’re immediately given an idea of the authors passion and attitude towards death in duty. If he dies, we are to remember that there’s ‘some corner of a foreign field that is forever England’. Brooke wants us to know that the foreign piece of land in which he dies on becomes his, England’s. The corner becomes his grave. A momentum of England is left on foreign land. He will decompose onto the land and become part of the soil, transforming it from foreign soil to English soil. Even if he isn’t actually buried there, presumably some of his blood would get mixed with the soil making the field English in a way. He goes on to continue the idea of death and pride for his country. ‘In that rich Earth a richer dust is concealed’. The ‘dust’ is referring to the remains of the human body and the idea of concealment refers to the burial. Perhaps Rupert Brooke is trying to avoid talking about his own; ultimate