Summary Of Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner By Randall Jarrell

Throughout the course of history, one of mankind’s biggest threats has been itself. Whether it was over land or the idea of superior morality, men have been fighting and killing each other for all of time. However, the effects of war impact not only the soldiers fighting, but the civilians who suffer as well. War leaves countries filled with destitution, but also emotionally scar the people that had to endure the perils firsthand. Perhaps those most affected by war are those who lost their lives fighting for their cause. However, the integrity of those who died can sometimes be compromised, which Randall Jarrell illustrates in his poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” which captures the last moments of a soldier’s life in World War II.

In the poem “Immortal Instant” by Marko Vešović, a sniper located in the middle of a civilian-inhabited town sees “two girls, breathless after the dash across” the street trying not to shot by him above (Line 2). For the women, just simply going out in public is a risk to their lives, which would be an exhausting and terrifying state to have to always live in; however, the sniper has god-like power, deciding who lives and who dies, which leaves him with an overinflated sense of power. One of the women captures his attention, her “beauty, always forthcoming, never misses a half-smile,” and upon seeing her, the sniper comes back to a part of his humanity he had been ignoring (Vešović Lines 11-12). The kindness she showed him in her smile reached a deeper emotional level, allowing him to realizes he wasn’t “just one fact among others” and that he was more than just another sniper in her town there to kill, but a person who had lived a life and loved many people and things (Vešović Lines 13-14). The sniper reminisced “strongly of his distance youth,” which conjures the idea of the innocence that surrounds childhood back before he was killing (Vešović Line 17). Like in Jarrell’s poem, the presence of a woman symbolizes livelihood and tenderness that can bring out the humanity in a man who had almost lost it. Her beauty enchants him, possibly as