Analysis Of Martin And The Hand Grenade By John Foulcher

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Martin and the Hand grenade by Australian Poet John Foulcher is a study of conflicts, of innocence and experience, war and a classroom and life and death. Foulcher conveys these ideas through a bleak observational lens whilst a young boy proudly exhibits a war era hand grenade in class whilst his peers are left in awe. The following questions that arise within the classroom relating to the mortality rate and power of the grenade emphasise the barbarity of war and its corrupting effects as words of violence are expelled from previously innocent vessels. The poem subsequently explores the theme of conflicts both internally and externally to comment on war and how the ends never justify the means. War has no magnitude other than to corrupt innocence

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