The Yellow Palm And Bayonet Charge Comparison

Compare the ways the poets present the destructive impact of conflict in ‘The Yellow Palm’ and one other poem.

The poets present the destructive impact of conflict in ‘The Yellow Palm’ and ‘Bayonet Charge’ very differently: ‘The Yellow Palm’ is a very detached third person narrative of a war in Palestine, whereas ‘Bayonet Charge’ is a soldier’s experience of trench warfare detailed in first person. This makes the poems very different to read, as they differ in their structure and use of language. For example, ‘The Yellow Palm’ has six relatively short stanzas, which each depict a different person’s experience of a war, and so it shows how conflict can affect everyone in different ways. ‘The muezzin's eyes were wild with his despair’, ‘I met two blind beggars… their salutes were those of the Imperial Guard in the Mother of all Wars’. Minhinnick shows how no matter your status or job

‘The Yellow Palm’ brings up images of holidays and tropical scenes, which links with how conflict is shown very distantly within the poem, and also maybe how war will always take it’s toll, no matter now picturesque the place, whereas ‘Bayonet Charge’ is very military-themed. The word ‘bayonet’ links the the type of weapon the soldier would be using in hand-to-hand combat. This adds to the personal nature of the poem, as hand-to-hand combat would be the most interactive type of warfare there is - contrasting to the high-tech missiles described in ‘The Yellow Palm’. ‘Charge’ is a very aggressive verb, which links to how movement makes up a lot of ‘Bayonet Charge’: ‘lugged’, ‘running’, ‘stumbling’. This links to how the poem describes the battle as ever-moving, with the confusion of hundreds of movements around you. By including so many verbs in the poem the poet shows how frantic and overwhelming the battle would have been for the soldier, contrasted with the distance and anonymity of the tracking missiles in ‘The Yellow