Analysis of Randall Jarrell's The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
Many of the great poems we read today were written in times of great distress. One of these writers was Randall Jarrell. After being born on May 6, 1914, in Nashville Tennessee, Jarrell and his parents moved to Los Angeles where his dad worked as a photographer. When Mr. and Mrs. Jarrell divorced, Randall and his younger brother returned to Nashville to live with their mother. While in Nashville, Randall attended Hume-Frogg high school. Randall showed his love for the arts while in high school by participating in dramatics and journalism. Jarrell continued his career in the arts when he wrote and edited for Vanderbilt’s humor magazine, The Vanderbilt Masquerader. After earning his graduate degree at Vanderbilt, Jarrell accepted a teaching job at the University of Texas. While teaching at Texas, Jarrell met his future wife, Mackie Langham, a fellow English teacher. In 1942, Jarrell left home to join the Army Air Corps as a flying cadet. At about this same time, Randall’s first book of poetry was being published. When Jarrell wrote home, his family often said his letters were, “confined and dreary.” When Jarrell could not quite cut it as a cadet, he switched to being a navigation control tower operator. As a control tower operator, Randall began to write about the pilots, navigators and gunners of the war. This is probably when Jarrell wrote one of his most famous poems, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.” After being discharged from the army, Randall went back to teaching. Randall’s love for teaching showed by his famous quote, “if I were a rich man, I would pay money to teach.” Randall did have some psychiatric problems though. Many people thought Jarrell committed suicide when he was hit by a car on a dark road in 1965. People assumed suicide because at the time of his death Randall was in treatment for slitting his wrists in an attempt to kill himself. Most of Randall’s poetry reflects what he saw and experienced during the war.
The structure that Jarrell uses in his poem, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” is quite unique. This poem consists of five uneven verses. All of these verses are combined into one stanza. The metric pattern in this poem is very hard to detect. All of the lines begin with at least two anapestic feet followed by at least one iambic foot. This poem i...
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...between abortion and a gunner being killed in the belly of a plane. During an abortion, after the baby has been killed in the womb, the doctors, “wash” the dead fetus out of the mother with a hose. In the first part of the fourth line of this poem when Jarrell writes, “I woke to the black flak,” the reader heres the alliteration of the, “ck,” sound. With the repetition of this sound the reader can almost hear gunfire. Although there is no rhyme scheme to this poem, end rhyme takes place at the end of the first and fifth lines.
The last thing one would analyze when explicating this poem would be the theme. Analyzing the theme of a poem consists of two things. First one would have to look at the topic of the poem. In this poem the topic is obviously the gunner getting drafted, the horrifying experiences of the gunner, and the death of the gunner. The second thing one would have to look at would be how the author feels about the topic. In this poem the author obviously feels that life is a very fragile thing. Whether you are a baby in your mother’s womb or you are a gunner in the belly of a bomber, Jarrell shows us just how fragile life is and how easily it can be taken away.
Poetry has been used for centuries as a means to explore emotions and complex ideas through language, though individuals express similar ideas in wholly different forms. One such idea that has been explored through poetry in numerous ways is that of war and the associated loss, grief, and suffering. Two noted Australian poets shown to have accomplished this are Kenneth Slessor with his work ‘Beach Burial’ and John Schumann’s ‘I Was Only Nineteen’. Both of these works examine the complexities of conflict, but with somewhat different attitudes.
Randall Jarret stakes his claim in “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by using imagery which concurrently expresses the literal horror of death as a World War Two gunner and a metaphorical representation of the death of an aborted child. By connecting the disparate themes with dual imagery, he creates an impact greater than either standing on its own.
The author begins the poem with the phrase "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State"(1). This I believe refers to the reflection of the gunner's likeliness to his mother's womb, being crowded in the ball of the plane. The "State" refers to the pilot being drafted into the military. The government drafted most men during this time period and in this poem I think that the speaker was drafted. Like most men, he probably felt it was his duty and honor to serve his country. The author in reference to the second line "And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze" (2) might refer to fur around the neck of the pilot to keep him warm from the freezing winds of the sky when hunched down in the ball of the plane. When the author writes "Six miles from earth" (3), I imagine the pilot dropping the plane down from the sky very quickly to hit his target below. I can see the speaker hanging from his little ball not bound by the aspirations that others seek in life, which would be what he is referring to when he says, "loosed from its dream of life" (3). Another thought or interpretation from this line might be that the speaker feels he is not responsible for the lives he is about to destroy on the ground. The following line the
The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner is a poem about many different subjects. In just it’s short five lines one can see that it has depth far beyond the actual length of the poem. The author Randall Jarrell was born in Nashville, Tennessee on May 6, 1914. He went on to teach at the University of Texas just before joining the US Air Force. Jarrell did write some before he joined to military but his most popular works (including this poem) were written after his service in the Air Force and his work was heavily influenced by it.
Throughout the times war has effected people immensely both physically and mentally. All people deal with their circumstances differently to help cope with what they dealing with. Whether it’s a fatality in the family, or post traumatic stress disorder most people find a way to heal from injury or emotional damage. In Brian Turners poem, “Phantom Noise,” he writes about the constant ringing he hears from the war he served in. The poem expresses that Turner seems to deal with his emotional damage by writing poetry about what he feels, hears, and sees during the time he spent in war and in civilian life. Even though Turner is no longer in war it still effects him greatly each day. The overall tone of the poem is very solemn and makes the reader
The famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. at the historic March in Washington in August 1963 effectively urged the US government to take actions and to finally set up equality between the black and white people in America. Although there were many factors that contributed to the success of the speech, it was primarily King’s masterly use of different rhetorical instruments that encouraged Kennedy and his team to take further steps towards racial equality. King effectively utilizes numerous linguistic devices, such as metaphors, anaphoras, allusions, and provides an abundance of specific examples in his address and this all makes the speech more convincing and memorable.
The purpose of visual imagery in poetry is to help get the poet’s message across in a language that is strong, vivid and very visual. Visual imagery evokes the emotions of the reader by appealing to their senses and through this helps enhance the mood of the poem. The mood implied in “Daddy”, by Sylvia Plath, is that of aggressive, anger, irritable from one that has a childlike devotion to one of severing due to abandonment. In “The Colonel”, by Carolyn Forche, is one of controlled terror, intimidation, torture, and literal dismemberment. In “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”, by Randall Jarrell, the story sets the mood of melancholy at the hands of the state. Each poem a dictatorial figure whether it be the father,
..., as well as the readers. Stephen Crane’s poem in contrast, uses irony to try and convey the message about the ugliness war brings. Eric Gumalinda’ poem on the other hand, is the one that is sort of off-tangent to the two. This poem in particular, shows the readers a glimpse of what is happening on a damaged person’s mind. It shows the readers a first-hand view on what people during war times could do, and all their intentions.
...are a repeat of the title, and also and added line to clarify the actual meaning of the poem. Owen mocks the idea of war being an honorable and nationalistic way to support ones country as he describes a situation in which death is detailed in gruesome detail. This poem is harsh, yet effective in displaying the acts of war and the affect the it has on all of the people involved, especially the foot soldiers who served in the front line, the trenches.
This poem is about a ball turret gunner on the bottom of the plane. It was very cold under the plane, and these gunners would oftentimes fall asleep during their flight and wake up in the middle of the battle. When it became time to land, the landing gear on the plane would sometimes malfunction and the plane would have to do a belly landing. This means that the turret gunner on the bottom of the plane would be killed and his remains would be scattered all across the runway. Jarrell explains all of this by saying, “I hunched in its belly til my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” This poem presents a strange theme about war. Jarrell seems to suggest that life doesn’t matter in
In the poems “Dulce et Decorum Est” written by Wilfred Owen and “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” written by Randall Jarrell, which both touch on the issues of war. In these two poems the Speaker uses imagery, diction, and sorrow to show how brutal the war was. They both convey the horror and futility of dying for a state. “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” (Randall Jarrell 1945) and “Dulce et Decorum Est” (Wilfred Owen 1920) examine the impact war has on the soldiers who fight them.
Marin Luther King, Jr., was one of the most influential civil rights leaders in America’s history. Through his ministry he encouraged nonviolent protests in support of desegregation. However, much of the progress made in the civil rights movement would not have been possible if not for white supporters who were able to vote for and introduce legislation in favor of social equality. King understood the need for unity in the civil rights movement and used his opportunity speaking in Washington to obtain it. In Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, legendary “I have a dream speech” his use of allusions, antithesis, and repetition serve to unite the American public.
Right from the start the poem jumps in to soldiers trudging along. Owen uses metaphors in the first lines to paint the picture: “Bent double, like old beggars, coughing like hags” (1-2). He molds this image of these beat up, “drunk with fatigue” (7), exhausted soldiers walking like zombies back to their camp. You can only imagine what they have been through so far if they are this battered. Then things get even worse, they are under a gas attack. This is where the poem shifts from this slow trudge of soldiers to an “ecstasy of fumbling” (9). Once the gas hits the speaker describes it as a “green sea” of gas. As the poem progresses Owen uses less similes and starts using very graphic language that describes the scene vividly. The way the speaker describes the dead corpse is disturbing, “the white eyes writhing in his face, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” (19-21) paints a picture of this terrible, agonizing, and haunting image. It really describes the war as it truly
In August 1963, “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to over two hundred thousand African Americans. His motive was to get African Americans their freedom. The oratorical style of his speech has aggression shown in some parts during the speech, uses a great amount of literary devices, and emphasizes certain topics and ideas that he conveys. The oratorical style of the speech gives us a sense of what the main point is. He wanted to prove a point how freedom is their natural right. Everyone deserves the same rights and no one should be underestimated.
The poem comprises three stanzas which are patterned in two halves; the rule of three is ingeniously used throughout the poem to create tension and show the progression of the soldiers’ lives. There is a variety of rhyming schemes used – possibly Duffy considered using caesural rhyme, internal rhyme and irregular rhyme to better address the elegiac reality. The rhythm is very powerful and shows Duffy’s technical adroitness. It is slightly disconcerting, and adds to the other worldly ambience of the poem. Duffy uses a powerful comparative in each stanza to exemplify the monstrosity and extent of war, which is much worse than we imagine; it develops throughout each stanza, starting with a syntactical ‘No; worse.’ to ‘worse by far’ and ending on ‘much worse’. Similarly, the verbs used to describe the soldier’s shadow as he falls shows the reader the journey of the shadow, as if it’s the trajectory of soldiers’ lives. At first, the shadow is as an act...