Richard Diles Professor Grant English 102 29 October 2014 The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes brought the idiom “Kill two birds with one stone,” into the western mindshare in the mid seventeenth century (Phrasefinder). This Hobbesian notion of settling two arguments with a single answer is frequently aspired to by philosophers, novelists and poets. 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. Jarrell begins with “From my mother’s …show more content…
sleep I fell into the State.” To frame the relationship between family and government that dictates the lives of both soldiers and unborn children. Specifically identifying the state, the author separates responsibilities for immediate consequences from the individual and places them upon the State. In the case of the soldier, this is representative of the soldiers. In the case of the unborn child this falls upon the legislators who sanction abortion. Jarrell inverts the literal and abstract imagery in lines two and three.
He writes “And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,” Line two portrays the literal image of a child in his mother’s womb while metaphorically representing an airman wearing a fur collared bomber jacket. Line three completes the inversion by literally describing the altitude of the plane containing the gunner and the accompanying dissociation with a more ordinary experience on the ground. Metaphorically the same image assigns a particular degree of intentionality to the fetus. It is six miles from Earth, perhaps referring to six months from birth and a conscious desire to live which is slipping away. Jarrell concludes his poem and his metaphor with an impactful line five and six. “I woke to black flak and the nightmare of fighters When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” The literal imagery in line five depicts the final moments of the gunners life. In describing them as “black” and “nightmare” he conveys the horror of this particular end. Jarrell concludes his poem and his metaphor with an impactful line five and six. “I woke to black flak and the nightmare of fighters When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” The literal imagery in line five depicts the final moments of the gunners life. In describing them as “black” and “nightmare” he conveys the horror of this particular end. This sense of horror extends into his impactful final line describing being washed out of the turret with a
hose. At the time Jarrell wrote “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” abortion had no historical context, so one could claim that therefore there would be no cause for allusion to the matter in these ways. Whether or not the reference was intended, Jarrell did include the descriptions in the poem that are open to the analysis that the poem is comparing abortion with warfare. By connecting the post-mortem process of cleaning the turret with the completion of an abortion through the birth canal, the author invites his readers to make the association of the two disparate horror’s similarly abject fate. Deftly weaving dual imagery throughout “The Death of a Ball Gunner” Jarrell fires his sling at both the horror of war and the horror of abortion.
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" really has no verse nor does it have a rhyme scheme, so it would be classified as a regular meter. It has five lines, and is a good poem. It could really have many different meanings, depending on who the reader is. The main meaning that people often hear about, would be, that this guy is a ball turret gunner and has been chosen to go up in battle. When the wind hits his jacket it then freezes and then with no warning the enemy destroys his body. The only thing that the guys on the ground could do to get his mutilated body out is to wash the turret out. Many people believe that this poem was influenced by his experience in the Air Force. Jarrell wanted to be a gunner. When his chance came up, he was not chosen to be the gunner. He was then transferred to Tucson to serve as an B-29 crewman.
For instance, “smell of gunpowder” (Magnus, 6), which is repeated multiple times, is a demonstration of how much the soldier values his war memories, for the solder describes the smell as “stimulating” (Magnus, 8) and “life-giving” (Magnus, 7). At the same time, as the soldier describes war in an enumeration towards the end of the poem, the audience learns his sadness and regret in face to the fact that “No one comprehends a soldier’s work anymore” (Magnus, 28). This enumeration, however, is used to recreate the images that the soldier experienced during his service so that the audience would feel the intensity of war. In addition, the assonance in “knobby bones” (Magnus, 4), on top of emphasizing the bold character of the soldier despite his age, evokes an image of an old, forceless man, which fits well with the beginning of the poem, in which the soldier is portrayed as weak and unenthusiastic.
This art analysis will define the theme of the universality of 20th century modern warfare in the context of modern works of art by David Levinthal and Roger de la Fresnaye. David Levinthal’s “Untitled” (1972) is commentary on the mass killing of modern warfare in the 20th century, which killed many millions of men during Hitler’s invasion of Europe. Levinthal’s childhood imagery of tanks, soldiers, and homes visualize the mass killing of war as a “universal” concept in the depiction of the modern psyche. Roger de la Fresnaye’s “Artillery” (1911) is also a commentary on cubist imagery that projects a military
...it may help us arrive at an understanding of the war situation through the eyes of what were those of an innocent child. It is almost unique in the sense that this was perhaps the first time that a child soldier has been able to directly give literary voice to one of the most distressing phenomena of the late 20th century: the rise of the child-killer. While the book does give a glimpse of the war situation, the story should be taken with a grain of salt.
World War One or “The War To End All Wars” was one of the most devastating events in the history of humankind. When looking back at such a gruesome war it is understandable that we might dwell on the key battles and tactics, which are often summarized by statistics on death tolls. However, we often forget that statistics create an illusion that warps our perception of death. As Stalin put it “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is just a statistic”. In the novel “The Wars” by Timothy Findley, the author draws away from traditional war stories by showing a true appreciation for life that truly touches the reader on a human and emotional level. Timothy Findley narrows in something anyone can relate to: a loving mother worried about her son risking his life in a war. This mother in the “The Wars” is Mrs. Ross, who represents the home front while her son, Robert Ross, fights for the British in World War One. As the book progresses and Robert gets further into the death trap known as the “Great War”, Mrs. Ross becomes increasingly obsessive and connected to her son as his fate becomes more clear.
Poetry in my opinion is a writer describing, life experience, feelings, things he has seen and perhaps things he would like to see or experience. In Randall Jarrell's poem "The Death of the Bull Turret Gunner," there are many ways this poem maybe interpreted. I really did not understand the poem until I read it a few times. This is what I believe the writer is saying:
“The poem Death of the ball turret gunner” by Randall Jarrell describes the life of a world war two ball turret gunner, on his mission of protecting his B-17 while on it is on an air raid, bombing Germany. Jarrell somehow shows, in vivid detail how harsh and unforgiving war is, and the shear courage and resolve of what has now become known, as the greatest generation in only five lines. (Gale)
The imagery in this passage helps turn the tone of the poem from victimization to anger. In addition to fire images, the overall language is completely stripped down to bare ugliness. In previous lines, the sordidness has been intermixed with cheerful euphemisms: the agonizing work is an "exquisite dance" (24); the trembling hands are "white gulls" (22); the cough is "gay" (25). But in these later lines, all aesthetically pleasing terms vanish, leaving "sweet and …blood" (85), "naked… [and]…bony children" (89), and a "skeleton body" (95).
On the very surface The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner is a poem about just that. A soldier who goes into battle and dies. Jarrell paints a gruesome picture about being awakened by flack cannons and being killed shortly thereafter by the same things. In all his works Jarrell never glamorizes the war and never attempts to make sense of or find meaning in it. Instead he simply uses the horrors of battle to fuel his works by drawing comparisons from the grand scale of world war to the mundane aspects of everyday life.
One of the worst things about war is the severity of carnage that it bestows upon mankind. Men are killed by the millions in the worst ways imaginable. Bodies are blown apart, limbs are cracked and torn and flesh is melted away from the bone. Dying eyes watch as internal organs are spilled of empty cavities, naked torso are hung in trees and men are forced to run on stumps when their feet are blown off. Along with the horrific deaths that accompany war, the injuries often outnumber dead men. As Paul Baumer witnessed in the hospital, the injuries were terrifying and often led to death. His turmoil is expressed in the lines, “Day after day goes by with pain and fear, groans and death gurgles. Even the death room I no use anymore; it is too small.” The men who make it through the war take with them mental and physical scarification from their experiences.
The repetition of sound causes different feelings of uncertainty and fear as the reader delves deeper into the poem. “Moss of bryozoans/blurred, obscured her/metal...” (Hayden 3). The r’s that are repeated in blurred and obscured create a sense of fogginess of the darkness of the water that the speaker is experiencing. The fogginess is a sense of repression, which is attempting its way out of the mind to the conscious. Hayden continues the use of alliteration with F and S sounds. Although they are different letters they produce the same sound that causes confusion, but an acceptance of death. “Yet in languid/frenzy strove, as/one freezing fights off/sleep desiring sleep;/strove against/ the canceling arms that/suddenly surrounded/me...” (Hayden 4). The use of sound at the last six lines of the poem causes the reader to feel the need for air and the fear of death. “Reflex of life-wish?/Respirators brittle/belling? Swam from/the ship somehow; /somehow began the/measured rise” (Hayden 4). The R sounds that begin is the swimming through the water. The B sound that continues right after in “brittle belling” is the gasp of air, and finally, the S sounds that finish the line by creating a soft feeling. As if the reader might not get out in time, even though the lines are saying that the speaker does escape the ship. The fear the alliteration evokes from the reader is the unconscious. The deep inner thoughts that no one wants to tap into. The speaker is accepting the idea of death in the ocean through his unconscious, but his conscious mind is trying to push back and begin the “measured rise” (Hayden 4) back to the
Diction is strongly used in both the novel and the poem to manipulate the thoughts of the reader and to stir up emotions. The poem makes an almost undecipherable, literal tone within the sound of the rhyme scheme, also creating calm peace with a mostly unpleasant situation. An example is the reoccurring line, “I have a rendezvous with Death” (Seeger 1, 5, 11, 20). The word “rendezvous” is a nice word where a person would meet somebody out of free will, even like to two lovers seeing each other. Differently, death is the unknown for many humans to fear. The narrator has arranged to meet with an experience known as death. The narrator would only take such actions if he had reason to believe it was not as fearful an action to take as so many believe. The repetition of this line keeps this idea fresh in his audience’s mind. Similarly, in All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque uses word like forgotten and misunderstood to describe the way that outsiders think of the soldiers participating in the war. The way
encapsulates the futility and horror of war through the use of vivid war images like
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...
	The pounding of shells, the mines, the death traps, the massive, blind destruction, the acrid stench of rotting flesh, the communal graves, the charred bodies, and the fear. These are the images of war. War has changed over the centuries from battles of legions of ironclad soldiers enveloped in glimmering armor fighting for what they believe to senseless acts of guerrilla warfare against those too coward to be draft-dodgers. Those who were there, who experienced the terror first hand were deeply effected and changed forever. In their retinas, images of blood and gore are burned for the rest of their life.